You have probably at one point or another heard phrases like “dream big”. “Don’t settle.” “Everyone has their own mountain to climb.” “Believe in yourself.” And so on. This type of advice can be summarized as “find out what you want or value most inside yourself. Then spend your whole life chasing that thing. Make it your biggest dream, the mountain you spend your life trying to climb.” This is the wisdom the world has to offer. But what about the Christian? What is the Christian’s biggest dream? What mountain should a Christian dedicate their life to climbing?
Glorifying God with your life is the mountain you must climb
Reformed Christians throughout the ages have argued convincingly from Scripture that glorifying God is the reason you and I exist. The famous first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” Jonathan Edwards in his famous treatise “The End for Which God Created the World” argued from reason and from Scripture that God created all things to display His glory and so that His glory could be delighted in.
What is “God’s glory”? I wrote a longer post detailing what “God’s glory” means in Scripture. Simply put, God’s glory is his inherent value, greatness, and importance. You glorify God when you respond to His value, greatness, and importance in thought, feeling, or deed. The Bible is full of references to the fact that you and I exist to know God’s infinite greatness, value Him most highly, and live in a way that draws attention to His significance and majesty.
Therefore, the Christian’s biggest dream is nothing less than glorifying God with his or her life. That is the mountain you must daily climb: how can you live in a way that draws attention to the infinite value and beauty and greatness of God? Christians do not look to their own personal desires or dreams or goals to determine what they should life for. Rather, when the Holy Spirit regenerates a person, He supernaturally allows them to value the Triune God more than anything else. The lifelong goal of a Christian becomes understanding more deeply God’s value and inviting those around them value God in proportion to His holiness and greatness.
All other dreams are infinitely small
The Christian’s biggest dream must be to glorify God because all other dreams are infinitely small. If God is the creator of all things, He is himself greater than what He created. He has more value and is more important than anything He created. And since God is infinite and creation is not, then God is infinitely more important than anything or anyone else. God isn’t just a little bit better than other things, He is in a category of His own. There is nothing and no one that can compete with God’s inherent glory.
Therefore, for a Christian to prioritize any other dream than that God’s glory would be magnified is to dream small. Infinitely small. Unspeakably small. The biggest dream you have ever had apart from God is nothing more than a single grain of sand next to the ocean of God’s greatness. Wealth, fame, comfort, recognition, a big house, a perfect family, might seem like “big dreams” when you think about them in your mind. But when you truly, by the Holy Spirit, have even the faintest glimpse of God’s value and God’s greatness, those “big dreams” suddenly seem petty, small, and idolatrous.
Don’t waste your life pursuing a tiny, insignificant, finite, self-focused dream. The Christian’s biggest dream is to live for God’s glory because no other dream or desire compares. Of course, in our sin, you and I oftentimes prefer the lesser. We become stuck in our small dreams. But God calls you to a bigger dream and a better life than you could possibly imagine for yourself: to live to display God’s worth in everything you do.
You weren’t created to climb any other mountain
Because you are a human created by God, for God, and in the image of God, your life has inherent purpose. You don’t have to create yourself or define your own worth. God didn’t create you and sovereignly place you in the time and place you find yourself in for you to squander your life trying to find a mountain to climb or a dream to realize. God has revealed in His word exactly the mountain you should climb and exactly the dream that should motivate you day in and day out: to live for and delight in God’s infinite greatness, value, and perfection forever.
There are a ton of “big dreams” that the idolatrous modern culture tells you to pursue. All of them are focused on maximizing your comfort, finding your value, showing off your “greatness.” In the end, however, none of those dreams will satisfy or give you peace or comfort you when it comes time to die because God created you for Himself. To live for yourself when you were created for an infinity greater Being is cosmically foolish, sinful, and damning. Don’t “find your purpose” or manufacture life goals for yourself. There is an unspeakable peace that comes when the Christian’s biggest dream matches the purpose for which God created them.
Conclusion: God chooses your mountain, not you
You don’t need to come up with your own dream. God, who created you and loves you with an everlasting love in Christ, has already told you in His word what you should spend your life doing. A life lived for God’s glory is never misinvested. There is more joy and satisfaction to be found in living to know God’s greatness and value and to share God’s greatness and value with others than you could possible imagine.
Don’t follow your dreams. They are small and self-focused and misleading. Instead, follow God, your creator, who has already revealed to you what your greatest dream should be. Daily seek the Lord in the Word to remind yourself of who you should be living for. Pray “hallowed be your name” and “for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” A life lived for yourself or for a created thing will never satisfy because you are finite. But if you live for an infinite God, your cup will never run dry and daily you will find new opportunities to delight in and display that infinitely glorious God.
For more of my assorted reflections on a myriad of topics, click here. If you found this post helpful, please share on social media below and subscribe. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.
“If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:22. Jesus after He rose from the dead asked Peter three times in John 21 “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” These are heart-searching and serious verses. Loving Christ is not an optional part of Christianity. Therefore, there is no better question to examine the state of your heart than simply asking “do I love Jesus or not?” Yet I have often found in my own life that this question can quickly become very abstract. How do you know if you love Jesus? Are there any objective tests to help you assess the state of your soul?
As is so often the case, J.C. Ryle in his book “Holiness” gives a clear and helpful answer on how you can know if you love Jesus or not. His words are worth your time and represent an excellent set of ways to examine yourself to determine if your love for Christ has gone cold. I quote his 8 marks of love below and for the rest of this post, I want to think through how these marks can help you know if you love Jesus. In fact, what Ryle gives below summarizes the Christian life itself powerfully and concisely.
If we love a person, we like to think about him.
If we love a person, we like to hear about him.
If we love a person, we like to read about him.
If we love a person, we like to please him.
If we love a person, we like his friends.
If we love a person, we are jealous about his name and honor.
If we love a person, we like to be always with him.
Ryle’s goal in this section of “Holiness” is simple: if you know what love looks like at a human level, then you already know what it looks like to love Jesus. Each of the 8 marks Ryle gives are based on the simple fact that if you love a person, you behave a certain way towards them. Likewise, if you don’t behave a certain way towards a person, chances are you don’t truly love them. If you love a person, you think about them, talk with them, want to be with them. You are concerned to please that person, you care about that person’s reputation. In short, your love for that person is demonstrated in visible outward behaviors.
Therefore, Ryle in these 8 marks wants you to simply ask “are these things true of me with regards to Jesus?” Do you think about Jesus? Do you long to hear from Him through daily Bible reading and the preached word? Are you concerned with pleasing Him and His opinion of you? Do you love the people He loves and died to redeem? When others speak poorly of Jesus, are you bold enough in your love for Him to defend His reputation? If the answer to these questions is “no” then perhaps your love for Christ has grown cold. You might say “of course I love Jesus!” but if that love is not seen in any of the ways Ryle lists, perhaps you love Jesus in word only.
How do you know if you love Jesus? Examine your life
Asking whether you love Jesus isn’t a trick question or an impossibly abstract inquiry. Love for a person shows itself in inward delight and external expressions. If you have affection for a close friend, you enjoy their company and you might express your enjoyment by making time in your schedule to see them. Love for a spouse is demonstrated in the true delight you take in who they are and also in acts of sacrifice, gifts, and a host of other external expressions of that delight. What Ryle does a great job of in “Holiness” is reminding you and I that love for Christ does not look entirely different from the love we have for friends and family members.
If I told you that there was a person I took no delight in being around or who I was content to give my half best with, you would infer that I do not love that person very much. Similarly, if you want to know if you love Jesus, ask yourself if you truly have any inward delight in Him and whether that inward delight overflows in acts of worship and obedience. Both parts of these are crucial: Jesus said if you love me, then you will keep my commands. This means that there is a necessary connection between love for Christ and obedience to Christ. One is not the same as the other, but both must be present in the life of the Christian.
I think the reason it is so “difficult” to answer the question “do I love Christ?” isn’t because the question is hard to answer. It is difficult because when you truly have even the smallest indication of Christ’s worth or have read enough of Scripture or Church history to know how Christians of the past have loved Christ, you realize that your love for Jesus is infinitely colder than what He deserves. Answering whether you love Christ is difficult because the answer is so often painful. But it is in this moment that you must remind yourself that your love for Christ will never, at its best moment, come close to matching His love for you. Your love is only in response to Christ’s infinite love towards you.
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We love because he first loved us.
Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:19
Implications
1. Remind yourself that Christianity is about knowing Jesus, not about religious activity
Christianity is not about seeking some abstract “God”. It is founded on faith and love for Jesus. Your good works may adorn the Gospel as Titus says, but you doing good works is not the gospel. When the Holy Spirit starts working in the heart of an unbeliever, He opens their eyes to see the glory of Christ so that they can say truly “Jesus is Lord.” And it is impossible to see the glory of Christ, His value, His supremacy, His significance, without truly loving Him. Why? Because Christ’s glory was displayed most clearly when He, out of love for you, died to pay the penalty for your sins.
Religious activity can make you feel “Christian”, at least for a little while. But if your Christianity is founded on you doing something for God, it has no root and will die in due time.A true, deeply rooted faith is founded in love for a person: Jesus. Anything less and you will either abandon the faith when trials or persecution comes or other desires will end up choking your faith. Don’t become distracted from the main thing: before you go “do something big for Jesus” or “go to Church” or “live for Jesus” start your day by simply asking “Do I love Jesus? Has my love grown cold for Jesus? Have I spent time with Jesus?”
Love for Jesus is the foundation, the root, the fountain of all true Christianity.
2. Use these 8 marks as a daily or weekly barometer by which to ask yourself “do I love Jesus?”
A marriage that never asks itself “how are we doing?” is a marriage headed for disaster. Life is complicated, difficult, and, despite our best intentions, our affections can change at a moment’s notice. Any serious relationship, like marriage, requires regular check-ups to ensure both husband and wife can correct their behavior or lifestyle as needed. How much more than should you and I ask ourselves “how am I doing?” with regards to our love for Christ? No relationship is more important. Our eternity depends on it and, in our flesh, our love grows cold, our attention is diverted, and sin blinds us to Christ’s value.
What is the solution? Regular check-ups. Don’t become so proud as to assume just because you feel a strong love for Christ today that tomorrow your love will be just as fervent. You are daily faced with external temptations and inward sinful desires that would draw your love away from Jesus. Use these 8 marks that Ryle gives as a structure for examining your heart towards Jesus. Keep a daily or a weekly journal where you quickly jot down how you are doing with regards to these 8 marks. Just as consistent communication and reflection improves a marriage, regularly contemplation “do I love Jesus?” will deepen your relationship with Christ.
Such reflection is painful at times. But no reflection is more important for your life and eternity. Ask yourself frequently “how do I know that I love Jesus?”
Click here to read previous “Book Quote of the Week” posts. If you found this post helpful, share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.
Recently, I preached a sermon on Revelation 4:11. What initially intrigued me in this text was the fact that at the very end of the Bible, God is still being worshiped because He is the Creator. As I progressed in my study, however, I was stunned by the all-consuming worship and exaltation of the Lord pictured in Revelation 4. Because of this, I did a word study of some of the key words in the verse, including the word ”glory”. This idea of responding to God’s glory with praise and exaltation has occupied my mind the past few weeks, and I decided it was time I started working through my thoughts by writing them out.
In this post, I want to think through the sense in which the Bible describes God as glorious and the sense in which glorifying God is our proper response to that reality. I want to think through responding to God’s glory with glory: understanding who God is inherently and then how that drives your response to Him. Right off the bat, I am indebted to Jonathan Edward’s The End for Which God Created the World for engaging my mind on this topic and for influencing what I write in this post.
A brief word study
The word “glory” or “glorify” is used so frequently in good Christian conversation and preaching that I sometimes find it difficult to remember what exactly “glory” means. In the Old Testament, the word most often translated “glory” is the Hebrew word “kabod“. The word’s literal meaning is “weight” but clearly in Scripture this is a metaphor for the significance of something or someone. If something is “heavy” it is inherently more important and significant than something that is “light”. Other ways of understanding this idea of “weight” include splendor, reputation, and honor.
When you come to the New Testament, the word translated glory is “doxa“. You likely recognize this word from the English word “doxology.” This word was used outside Scripture to refer to someone’s reputation i.e. an opinion or estimate of someone. The greater a person or object is, the greater it’s “doxa” or it’s reputation. In Revelation 4:11, this word appears next to a word “time” which is translated “honor”. This word means “a value” or esteeming something. So, in both the Old and New Testaments, it seems that “glory” refers to the significance, the reputation, the value of something.
“Glory” is who God is
What does it mean when the Bible talks about “the glory of God?” Theologians answer this by distinguishing between God’s inherent glory and His ascribed glory. God’s inherent glory refers to the reality that God is, in and of Himself, the greatest, most valuable, and most significant of beings. Exodus 34 famously connects God’s glory to His attributes or who He is:
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
Exodus 33:18-19 ESV, emphasis added
The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. 6 The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands,[b] forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 8 And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
Exodus 34:5-8 ESV, emphasis added
You see from the above passage that God reveals His glory, His value, His reputation to Moses by declaring who He is and what He does. This is God’s inherent glory. God, by the very nature of who He is and what He does, is the most valuable and significant. Notice also that God connects His glory to His name as well as His goodness. This passage is worthy of a much more extensive exposition, but for our purposes today, it is enough to see that God is inherently infinitely valuable because of who He is.
“Glory” is our response to who God is
“Glory” is not only used to refer to who God is inherently. Glory is also used to refer to humanity’s response to God’s inherent glory. Theologians refer to this as God’s ascribed glory. This is what you refer to when you talk about “glorifying God”. If you notice, Moses illustrates what it means to respond to God’s glory in the passage above: immediately after God reveals His inherent glory of Moses, Moses makes haste to worship in response. This pattern of “revelation then worship” is repeated throughout Scripture when humans are confronted with a revelation of God’s inherent glory.
So what is ascribed glory then? I think in the most basic sense, it is agreeing with God’s evaluation of Himself. God declares through Scripture and creation that He and He alone is the most awesome, great, valuable, and significant being. He is ultimate, the “alpha and the omega”. Therefore, the most basic response a human can give when confronted with this reality is to simply say “amen”! It is so. What God has revealed about Himself is true. “Ascribing glory” means you agree with God’s revelation of Himself by faith and attribute to God all the attributes and worth that He declares are true of Him.
The idea here is when you truly grasp God’s worth, gravity, and reputation, you respond in some way. Worship. Exaltation. Singing. Rejoicing. Obedience. The list goes on and on. Each of these actions “ascribe” glory to God when they are motivated by an understanding of and a desire to display God’s glory. There is much that could be said here, but for the remainder of this post, let’s consider how responding to God’s glory with your mind, emotion, and will occurs in your daily life.
Responding rationally to God’s glory
How can you display the worth and gravity and reputation of God in your mind, heart, and will? How can you respond to God’s infinite value, supreme reputation, and greatest significance properly? Starting with your mind, responding to God’s glory means first and foremost holding this high view of God in your mind.
Your mind is constantly assaulted by a culture that elevates humanity and their autonomy while demeaning the reality of God and His glory.
If you want to display God’s worth, value, and importance, you are going to have to guard your mind from internal thoughts and external voices that would de-value God. Internally, pride, sin, and your own flesh will push you to either think less of God or think of God less. By thinking less of God, I mean you will be tempted to lose a mental grip on the sobering reality of God’s inherent glory. And thinking of God less means becoming so distracted or disinterested in the Lord that you never stop to contemplate God’s value.
External assaults to your mental focus on God’s worth come in a myriad of forms. But they all typically have the common factors of elevating mankind by substituting subtle or overt lies about God. The key for fighting both internal and external temptations to belittle God is given in Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
A mind renewed by God’s word and prayer is a mind ready to remember God’s value.
So positively, how can you value and honor God with your mind?
Daily go to His word to mentally understand who God is revealed to be. Memorize verses like Isaiah 40:21-23 which extol God’s greatness.
Meditate throughout the day on God’s inherent glory. A mind that does not think of God’s greatness is not actively glorifying God. In the clutter of your own thoughts and the voices around you, dedicate mental energy to contemplation of God’s glory.
“Take captive every thought” that comes from within or without that would elevate self and dethrone God or Christ in your mind.
If you would glorify God with your mind, you must be active and vigilant. If you wake up assuming you will naturally glorify God with your mind, you will no doubt fail. You must work to get your mind fixed on God and to keep it fixed on God.
A mind fixed on God and a mind that prefers contemplating God over worldly things displays the value, the greatness, and the importance of the Lord.
Responding affectionately to God’s glory
How do you love the Lord with all your heart? How can your emotions, feelings, and affections show that God is supremely valuable? Jonathan Edwards and John Piper have both expounded this point extensively, but I’ll add my own reflections to the mix. Emotions seem to me to be both responsive in nature as well as volatile. By responsive I mean that almost every emotion you have is attached to an object. That object can be an event, a person, a circumstance etc. Emotions are also volatile in the sense that they seem to shift at a very rapid pace depending on what object you come in contact with or sometimes they seemingly shift on their own without an object.
As Piper and Edwards have written, the proper emotional response to God is joy. Delight. Satisfaction. When you truly grasp the gravity, goodness, and greatness of God, your heart should overflow with delight. Why is this often not your experience practically? I think it is because you and I let other objects besides God grip our hearts and thereby shift our emotional response delighting in God to something lesser. The fight of glorifying God with your emotions is a fight to keep your heart continually delighting in who God is. This is easily said, but hard to do practically.
Responding to God’s glory with affectionate authentic joy requires anchoring your emotional faculties to who God reveals himself to be.
The goal is not to conjure up some sort of fake, excessive, emotional response. Emotions, because they are volatile, come and go rather rapidly. What you can control, however, if the consistency and fervor with which you pursue delight in the Lord. A good analogy would be feeling affection and delight for your spouse. Your emotional response to your spouse is not always proportional to their value. But as you spend time with them, think over their attributes in your mind, talk with them, prioritize them, oftentimes a proper affection follows. The hope is that over time, your emotions become less volatile with regards to your spouse and you enjoy more consistent times of extended delight. By consistently returning again and again to the desired object or your affections, you will likely experience more frequent moments of love and delight and joy in that object.
A heart overflowing with love and delight and joy in who God is shows God’s inherent greatness, worth, and importance.
Responding volitionally to God’s glory
How can you display God’s infinite value with your will? Actions? Lifestyle? This is a big question and a whole post could be written on answering this question in each area of life. But I think at a fundamental level, displaying God’s worth with your actions means obedience. In particular, obedience to the moral commands laid out in God’s word. The world would have you determine your own fate, decide what you want to do, ”do what is right in your own eyes.” When you remove an eternal sovereign God from the picture, you are left to determine and serve yourself.
Therefore, the simplest and most fundamental way to display the worth and weight of God is to deny yourself and live for Him. To let God determine who you are and what you are to do with your life. Was there ever a time that self-denial and prioritizing God were more counter-cultural? By choosing to obey God rather than choosing to obey your own desires, you are effectively saying to the sinful world around you ”I am not ultimate. You are not ultimate. There is a God who is ultimate. And He determines what life is, what life isn’t, and what we, as create creatures, should do.”
Radical, ordinary, everyday obedience is a testimony to God’s glory.
It is a testimony that God is so exceedingly glorious and valuable that He is superior to your own desires and pleasing Him is the greatest good you can do. Now, just because glorifying God with your will is simple at a fundamental level does not mean it is easy. Choosing God over self is a daily battle to ”deny yourself, take up your cross” and follow Christ. But in calling us to lose our life for the sake of the Gospel, Jesus is calling us to show to the world that there is someone greater than anything and is worth us losing our life for.
Obedience and self-sacrifice are both acts of the will by which you can display God’s glory to the world around you.
Conclusion: Responding to God’s glory is the privilege of the Christian
Responding to God’s glory with a life of worship is the great privilege of the Christian. Unbelievers live their lives in this world blind and trapped in the black hole of self-glorification. While the culture pretends this is an enlightened and viable way to live, the Christian knows better. Self-glorification is nothing more than trying to quench your thirst with a broken cup when a fountain of living water is in front of you (see Jeremiah 2:13).
In that sense, the Christian’s chief end to ”glorify God and enjoy Him forever” is not a burdensome duty, anymore than the invitation to drink from a fountain of life is a burdensome duty. It is the highest privilege and blessing you can be given. It is a calling to taste and see that the Lord is good, to come and buy food without price, and to experience the eternal life of knowing the Lord. You cannot be too committed to pursing a deeper knowledge of God’s infinite value. Nor can you be too committed to displaying with your mind, will, and life that knowledge you have of God’s infinite value. If you are a Christian, revel in the knowledge that you get to live a life of ”praising the one who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
For more of my assorted reflections on a myriad of topics, click here. If you found this post helpful, please share on social media below and subscribe. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.
Small groups are an essential part of local Church life. Certainly there are ways to get to know a fellow Church member after a Sunday morning service. But, in my experience, a mid-week small group is the best way for a subset of the Church body to mingle, worship together, and get to know one another. Like any gathering of the local Church, there is always the potential for your small group to remain shallow or to fail at it’s goal of fostering spiritual closeness among believers. That is why I want to give 6 tips for a better small group based on my own experience.
Tip #1: Define “small” and keep it a small group
This is one of the most important keys to a better small group. It is easy for a small group to grow and grow until it is no longer “small”. Why is this a problem? A larger small group can make it difficult to foster a deeper spiritual closeness with those around you. A small group must be “small” so that you can really connect with the group of people you regularly meet with. Once the group gets too big, you end up in most cases trading depth of relationship for vague familiarity.
Additionally, a large small group can make it difficult for Church members who aren’t comfortable in large groups to share their thoughts and prayer requests. Not everyone is this way, but a good chunk of your congregation will likely have a tough time sharing any deep spiritual concerns once your group reaches a certain size. Finally, a large small group ends up becoming challenging logistically. Your small group size will determine where you can meet and, the larger the group is, the less options will exist.
How can you avoid thees problems? Define from day 1 what “small” means. How large will you let your small group become before you split it into two groups? And once you have defined what “small” means, be up front with the members of your small group. Let them know and prepare them for the day when the small group will need to become two. Prepare potential small group leaders ahead of time so everything is ready when you need to “plant” another small group.
Tip #2: Meet in a Church member’s house (or at least not at Church)
If you want a better small group, meet in a Church member’s house if at all possible. In my experience, nothing beats the comfort of a home to foster closeness and open discussion. If this isn’t possible, then at least try to meet somewhere other than the actual Church building. You want to distinguish as clearly as possible to your small group members that this is not a mini-Church service. It is a gathering whose goal is to bring together Church members in a more intimate setting.
Why is where you meet is so important? I have attended small groups both in Church member’s houses and in the actual Church building. Both were great and spiritually profitable, however, I personally find that people are generally more comfortable with opening up in an actual house. Think about it this way: small group is a time to engage with and interact with fellow Church members in a different setting than Sunday service. Part of that is actually physically meeting and interacting with Church members in their “home turf” if you will.
Small group and hospitality go hand in hand. If you keep your small groups actually “small”, then the hope is that two or three attendees will be able to host you in their home. Will it take sacrifice on the part of the host? Of course. But:
You shouldn’t expect to become close with fellow Church members if you never open up and let them into your world. Your real world, your real home, the real place you and your family live.
Tip #3: Pray and sing together
Small groups can fall into two extremes: becoming a mini-Church service or becoming a completely loose “hang out” time. What is the middle ground? A structured gathering that is spiritually profitable, but also allows time and flexibility for Church members to simply interact. The best small groups I have attended have had a time of prayer and singing. Both of these are spiritually profitable, interactive, and semi-structured.
If you have someone who is musically inclined in attendance, give them the responsibility of leading the singing. 3-4 songs is usually sufficient but I have been in small groups where people want to keep singing and praising the Lord. “A small group that sings together and prays together, stays together” should be a motto. After a time of singing, I would go immediately into a time of prayer and sharing prayer requests. This shouldn’t be rushed. Let your attendees have time to really think about what sins they are fighting, what issues they need prayer for, and what praises they want to corporately bring before the Lord.
If you lead a small group, be okay with a small group meeting that spends most of its time simply singing and praying to the Lord. I don’t think you can pray or sing “too much” as long as both are focused on the Lord. Additionally, some small group members will open up and engage in the singing and prayer time who won’t feel confident enough to chime in during a group Bible study. Give these people a chance to engage and worship and grow closer with the group.
Tip #4: Have a structured discussion around God’s Word
After a time of singing and praying, I would have some form of structured discussion around God’s word. My small group discusses the sermon from the previous Sunday and tries to think through applications of the sermon to our lives. But this is not the only way to dive into the Word together. The benefit of sermon application, however, is it provides a structured conversation around a passage that all attendees are familiar with.
Whatever you choose to do, make your time in God’s word structured. Have someone leading the discussion with a passage chosen ahead of time, questions chosen ahead of time, and a general flow of the discussion chosen ahead of time. Keep the questions open ended, but make sure your small group isn’t going around simply sharing their assorted thoughts and feelings about a particular passage. Have a goal in mind and then help lead a guided discussion to get your group there.
Tip #5: Initiate open and honest discussion
Every Church member I have met likes the idea of having close, meaningful, spiritually-edifying relationships with their fellow Church members. They like the idea of being open and honest about their sin, their struggles, their spiritual victories, their doubts. But when it comes time to gather with actual people, everyone is wary of dropping their guard and opening up.
Here is the reality: someone has to initiate openness. And that someone is going to have to be you. If you wait around for your small group to spontaneously develop a culture of loving openness and spiritual honesty, you are going to be waiting a long time. Take personal responsibility to lead the group in the right direction. And it does not matter if you are the actual small group leader. Someone has to initiate spiritual openness. Why can’t it be you?
Be the Christian who is so passionate about God’s glory, so certain of Jesus’ justifying grace, and so focused on corporate sanctification that you are comfortable with candidly communicating where you are at spiritually.
Most of the time, fear of man is the thing that keeps us from sharing the not-so-perfect parts of our life. Of course, there is a balance to this. You don’t need to go into all the gory details of your most recent sin. And you don’t want to spend the whole discussion time focused on self. But take the initiative to drop your guard and accept that you are still have areas where you need to grow in Christlikeness.
Tip #6: Find a couple people to go deeper with outside of small group
Small group is a great place to go deep with fellow Church members. But there will always be a limit. You cannot have the same level of closeness with everyone and chances are, your small group is already too large for you to go deep with everyone. The solution? Use small group as a way to find an even smaller group of people to meet up with and go even deeper with. I would say that you and three others is probably an ideal sub-small group.
This will do two things: first of all, you will have a close couple Church members who you will really know and will really know you. Second, that closeness will manifest itself in a number of ways when you gather with the entire small group or even on a Sunday morning. Let gathering with Church members begat further gathering with Church members. Find people within your small group who you want to disciple or be discipled by and then meet up some other time during the week.
Conclusion
Small group is a great tool to ensure the members of your local Church are developing close, discipling relationships. One of the great joys of being a Church member and committing to a local body is getting to know other Church members. This means not just knowing their names, their vocations, or that their week “was good.” It means loving them in the fullest Biblical sense. It means sharing your lives, encouraging one another’s faith, and seeking to do spiritual good to the other person. I hope these 6 brief tips have gotten you to think about how you can make your small group even more glorifying to God and more edifying for those who attend.
For more helpful articles on interacting with other believers, click here. If you found this post useful, share on social media below and subscribe so you don’t miss any future posts. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more content.
100th Post: 3 Reasons I Created the Average Churchman
Today marks the 100th post on “The Average Churchman.” I really can’t believe it has been over a year since I started The Average Churchman. I’m grateful to the Lord for this opportunity to write and reflect on His truth. I’m grateful to my wife for all her support. And I am so very grateful to you, my readers, who have encouraged me along the way and appreciated my thoughts. In light of this milestone, I thought it would be useful to write out some of the reasons I created The Average Churchman.
1. To keep track of all the Bible study tools I found
The first of several reasons why I created the Average Churchman was both personal and practical: I simply wanted a place to contain all the different Bible study tools I found. Before this website, I simply used a massive Google document full of different Bible study methods, application questions, tips and tricks and anything else related to Bible study. It got a little unwieldy, so I thought a better solution would be a website.
This idea especially came to me when trying to teach younger men at Church how to study the Bible. Why not have a website with the different tools I had found so I could give them the resources they needed? This became the “Tools” section of my website in which I write some of my favorite and most technical posts. Even though I have written on topics such as outlining, applying a text, structuring a sermon, and many others, I still have a ton more Bible study tools to share with you. Hopefully in the coming years, I will be able to get more and more resources that I have found on this site for you to utilize.
2. To practice writing
I have always been an avid reader, but I had never tried my hand at writing consistently. After I started the Average Churchman, it became clear to me that I wasn’t just creating a place to store Bible study tools. Another one of the reasons I created the Average Churchman was to give me a place to practice my writing. If you look at one of my early posts compared with a recent one, you can see how far I’ve come. I’m more than a little embarrassed by the quality of my early posts.
Practicing writing also had a personal and practical purpose. My local Church has given me more and more consistent opportunities to teach and preach. I currently am teaching Kids4Truth every Sunday night, teaching Sunday School once or twice a month, and preaching several times a year. I realized that, as a busy husband, father, and employee, I needed to become better at writing in order to create better teachings at a faster rate. I needed a place to practice taking my Bible study or personal thoughts, structuring them into a logical flow, and then expounding on them in written prose.
Honestly, looking back over the past 100 posts, I am so grateful for the ways God has grown me through simply writing what I am learning and what I am reading. The simple act of writing several days a week clarifies your thoughts, improves essential skills like analysis, communication, and outlining, and also has the added reward of externalizing your thoughts to share with others. If there is one thing that has surprised me, it is how much I have enjoyed writing posts for others to read.
3. To encourage average Church members in their walk with the Lord
I chose the website name “The Average Churchman” for two reasons. The first, is that I am not an Elder at my Church, nor a Pastor. In that sense, I am just an “Average Churchman” who writes his thoughts on Scripture and Church-related topics. No MDiv. No ordination. I am just a Christian who is a member of a local Church. But the second reason I named this site “The Average Churchman” is because I wanted to encourage all Church members in their walk with the Lord.
I wanted to write about topics normal Church members who work a 9 to 5 think about and deal with on a week to week basis. To talk about things as simple as “how should I do my work?” and “I feel lonely at Church. How can I grow closer to those Church members around me?” Every Bible study tool I have shared, every book quote I have analyzed, every reflection I have shared has been for one purpose: to encourage you as you seek to glorify God and imitate Christ.
Conclusion: My love letter to the local Church
I love the local Church. And as much as I have been encouraged by my Elders and my Pastor, ultimately every Sunday morning service, every small group, every Bible study is made edifying by normal Church members. People who aren’t called to formal ministry but who do ministry every day in their homes, at their work, and yes, in the local Church. I’d like to think that this website is, at it’s best, simply my love letter to the local Church.I owe everything I am today to God using “average” Church members in extraordinary ways.
And if my writing encourages one Church member to be more faithful to the Word of God, then this website is a success and has done exactly what I intended it to do.
If you are a Christian who regularly attends a Bible-preaching Church, you can easily assume everyone you interact with enjoys the same privileges as you. In particular, you can easily assume when you enter your secular workplace that, to some degree or another, you and your coworkers lead similar lives. After all, you work at the same place and you probably have the same educational background. What makes you so different? One of the most important things you can do as you go off to work is to remember that your coworkers don’t have the Church. And that has several implications that you should keep in mind when you enter the world of your 9 to 5.
They don’t have regular exposure to God’s Word
If you are a member of a solid local Church, chances are week after week one of your Elders opens up God’s word and explains to you what it means and how it should impact your life. When you have regular exposure to the preached Word, whether you are aware of it or not, the Holy Spirit uses that Word to conform your life to the image of Christ. When you hear the Word preached, your worldviews are confronted, your sins are exposed, your heart is encouraged, and your gaze is directed back towards the reality that you are a sinner in a world ruled by a holy God and your one hope is the propitiation provided in Christ’s blood.
Since your coworkers don’t have the Church, they do not have the regular exposure to God’s Word. When you come into the office on Monday morning, you most likely just came off of a blessed day of rest, reflection, and spiritual revival. Your coworkers, on the other hand, are not starting their week with any sort of conviction of sin or encouragement of faith. Many spent their weekend trying to forget about the week, spending time drinking or pursuing worldly pleasure. Whatever they chose to do, if your coworkers don’t attend a faithful local Church, they do not have the same exposure to God’s word as you do.
What does this mean? You need to be a voice of truth in the office. Your coworkers don’t have the luxury of consistently having their life confronted by the truth. In fact, they might never be exposed all week to God’s word. Think of how different you life would be if you weren’t consistently hearing God’s word. Imagine how you would view the world or the wrong things you would prioritize. You would have nothing but self to live for and to serve. Idolatry would reign in your heart unchecked and uncontested.
Be diligent to take every opportunity to share God’s truth with your coworkers. You might be the only avenue they have to hear it.
They aren’t consistently warned about their sin
Sin is deceitful and damning. Not only will sin send you to Hell, it will send you to Hell while convincing you that you are on the path to Heaven. Ever since the fall humans in their natural state choose everything contrary to God’s law and seek to glorify and serve self rather than the living God. The local Church is a place where, as the author of Hebrews says, you are exhorted over the deceitfulness of your personal sin. Through the sermon, discussions, and prayer, every time you go to Church, you are reminded that your biggest problem in life is your sin and that, even though you are saved, indwelling sin threatens to draw you away from Christ.
Since your coworkers don’t have the Church, they aren’t being warned about the eternal danger of sin. Most likely, the word “sin” isn’t in their vocabulary. Your coworkers almost certainly don’t see personal sin as the most destructive and dangerous thing in their life nor do they contemplate that most of their problems come down to living in rebellion to God. Think about who you would be if no one warned you about your sin. You most likely would keep living in ignorance and rebellion, never giving a second thought to the things of God and developing for yourself a host of ideas about the world that are not true.
What does this mean? Don’t be surprised if your coworkers call “good evil and evil good.” Without the word of God to define morality and a loving community of believers to remind you to “pursue holiness, without which no one will see God,” people end up simply doing and believing what feels good to them. “Live your truth” is the creed of our age. Therefore, your coworkers political views, moral views, their work ethic, and a host of other issues are not determined by God’s word. So when you are tempted to follow a coworkers advice or accept an argument they are making, remind yourself that they most likely have no idea of the reality of sin in their own heart or in the world.
Be incredibly discerning and make sure truth is defined by God.
They don’t regularly spend time with Godly people
One of the great blessings of being a part of the body of Christ is the type of people you hang out with weekly. There are certainly difficulties with interactions and relationships within the local Church. At the end of the day, however, your fellow Church members are the godliest people you could choose hang around with. Though there are exceptions, your Church no doubt is full of saints both young and old who love the Lord Jesus Christ and who are seeking to humbly grow in godliness. Not only that, but most of them are willing and desire to help you grow in your knowledge and practice of the Christian faith. Where else can you find such excellent and spiritually profitable company than in the local Church?
Since your coworkers don’t have the Church, they do not have consistent interaction with godly people. Remember what Paul says: “bad company corrupts good morals.” Imagine the type of person you would be if you never spent extended, consistent time with people who served and loved God. No doubt as the years went on, you would become more and more indifferent to spiritual things. In fact, when you actually came in contact with a genuinely godly person, you would likely be indifferent towards them and think them entirely odd, stupid, or evil. That is the life most of your coworkers live week to week. Your coworkers aren’t exposed to people who seek to obey the Lord or who seek to glorify Him in all things.
What does this mean? How you behave at work represents what Christianity is to your coworkers. Don’t assume your coworkers have dozens of godly Christian examples they interact with daily. You interacting with them is likely the only time they get to see what Christianity means “up close and personal.” Your behavior will either “adorn the gospel” or will make the gospel seen powerless. So enter your workplace assuming that you, and no one else, are setting the example for your coworkers of what godliness looks like.
You might be the only Christian your coworkers interact with closely during the week. Therefore, you have the high calling and privilege of representing Christ to them.
Conclusion
If you are a member of a solid local Church, you get consistent exposure to God’s word, your sins are confronted, and you spend time with godly people. Your coworkers, on the other hand, likely have none of those privileges. So pray before you clock in each morning that your conduct would honor the name of Christ, that you would take every opportunity to speak truth, and that you would be protected from any ungodly influence while at work.
View yourself as an “ambassador for Christ” in the workplace and you will start to see more and more opportunities to glorify God in your “secular” vocation.
If you want to learn more about being a Christian at work, visit this page. If you found this post insightful, please share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more weekly content.
If you are a Christian, then according to Ephesians 1, you are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. You have been given everything you need for life and godliness. Moreover, Christians are invited by both the Old and New Testaments to give thanks to God for His goodness. So what could be a better use of your time than to start your year with thankfulness? In this post, I want to share 7 truths (in no particular order) that Christians can thank the Lord for as they start into 2022.
1. You have peace with God
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:1 ESV
If this was the only promise on the list, it should cause you to be grateful to the Lord for your entire life. The world is at odds against God: it denies God’s existence, breaks His law, and worships anything but the living God. The majority of the world is starting this year against the Lord and thus does not have peace with God. But for the person who has repented and believed in Jesus, the war against God has ended. There is peace. Not because of anything you have done or could do. But because of the gospel.
This promise is sweet enough to give you joy every single day this year. Peace with God. Your sins forgiven. Start your year overwhelmed by the goodness of this good news.
No matter how chaotic your life or the world gets, you have peace with the only person that matters in the end: your Creator.
Let this “peace that passes all understanding” guard your heart and mind this year.
2. You don’t have to fear death
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:56-57 ESV
Death is an ever present reminder of sin and God’s judgement against it. God promised Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden that on the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. The Bible says it is appointed for man once to die and then comes judgement. Death is a certainty that humbles us and testifies that there is something fundamentally wrong with the world. And it is this powerful enemy that Christ destroyed through His resurrection.
The world fears death, and rightfully so: it is too powerful for any person to avoid. But if you are united to Christ by faith, then you have victory over death. You don’t have to fear death anymore than you would fear a wasp without a stinger. Jesus has defeated death at it’s root: your sin. Your sins have made you deserving of death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Oh that we would thank God daily for this gift in 2022!
3. God is Lord over the nations and over history
Psalm 2 is one of my all time favorite passages. It was the text I chose for the first sermon I ever preached. It paints a compelling picture of the nations setting themselves against God and His anointed, but failing. God cannot be defeated by sinful humans and His plans are not thwarted by mankind’s rebellion. There is no individual, organization, or government that is strong enough to face Him. In fact, the only reasonable response to God’s sovereign majesty is to submit to His king: Jesus.
God’s rule over His universe is a truth you and I should remember in 2022. Oftentimes, it seems like current events are dictated by politicians or other powers in our society.
Let us never forget that there is only One who rules over history: the unchanging, all-powerful, eternal God.
You may not know what the year will hold, but you can start your year with thankfulness knowing that the one who does control what the year will hold is the same loving God who mercifully saved you through Jesus.
4. The Church will prevail over the gates of hell
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.
Matthew 16:18 ESV
It has become commonplace to discuss the “state of the Church.” More often than not, there are a dozen ways people can find in which the Church is not living up to her high calling. Such analysis is necessary, but always remember that no matter how weak the visible Church may seem to you now, Jesus has promised that the Church will have victory in the end. In fact, He goes as far as to say the very gates of hell will not withstand the Church’s attack.
In other words, start 2022 with a positive outlook on Church, particularly your local Church. Don’t start the year by thinking about all the ways it falls short of the biblical ideal. Don’t start complaining or critiquing the things you think need to change. Start your year by reminding yourself that Jesus has already promised the Church victory. The world, the flesh, and the devil won’t win in the end. Then, go serve in your local Church this year with the full knowledge that your efforts are not in vain.
5. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39 ESV
Loss is inevitable in a fallen world. Everything in life is fleeting and transient. Your life in 2022 will be different from your life in 2021. People change, circumstances change, opportunities come and go. But one thing will never change or alter: the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. If you are a Christian, you have something eternally indestructible. You have something that life’s changing circumstances can’t touch.
The love of Jesus is something you can always enjoy, always rely on, always count on.
The question is how much does Christ’s love for your affect your life? I once read a secular quote which said “…a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” Well, for the Christian, you have all three of these things in Christ: a Savior to love and be loved by eternally, a commission given by Jesus to devote your life to, and the hope of fully experiencing Jesus’ love for you after death. Pray that the indestructible love of Christ would compel you to greater faithfulness this year.
6. Christ will return and set all things right
“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
Revelation 22:12-14 ESV
I don’t think Christians can meditate too much on the return of Christ. This world is cursed, full of sin and evil, and characterized primarily by rejection of God and His gospel. Jesus is resisted as He was during the time of His earthly ministry and those who side with Him are persecuted, slandered, and rejected. This has been true in every age of the world and will be true in 2022 as well.
But you and I can start the year with thankfulness because Jesus has promised to return and set things right. He is coming soon and will usher in the New Heavens and New Earth where righteousness will dwell. Such a promise should remind us to stay alert and watchful in the present. Now is the time Jesus has given us before He returns to do the works God has called us to and to preach the gospel to all nations.
7. The Holy Spirit is presently active in raising spiritually dead souls to life
He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit
Titus 3:5 ESV
You can probably think of loved ones, coworkers, or people you know who are starting 2022 spiritually dead. They have not submitted to Christ, they have not interest in spiritual things, and are living in open, unrepentant sin. Remind yourself this new year that as spiritually dead as people are around you, the Holy Spirit can still open their eyes to see the glory of Christ in the gospel. With man it is impossible, but nothing is impossible with God.
The reality that the Holy Spirit regenerates people should give you boldness in your evangelism and every day conversation this year. You have no power to raise people from the dead spiritually. In fact, you couldn’t open your own blind eyes. It is God who must act if any human is to be saved. And He is acting.
2022 will be full of many events. But the most glorious events that will happen this year is God saving people from eternal death through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There will be more saints in heaven praising the Lord for His mercy and grace because of God’s work this year.
So, start your year with thankfulness to God for all these precious promises. Read His word so you can uncover other promises to thank Him for and live in light of in 2022. Your love for Christ and your conformity to Him will grow in proportion to the promises in Scripture that you know and believe.
If you found this post encouraging, share on social media below and subscribe so you don’t miss any new articles. To read other reflection pieces that I have written, go to the “What I learned from…” page. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get quotes and recommended resources during your week.
Believe it or not, 2022 is right around the corner. I always like the end of the year because it is an excellent time for reflection, self-examination, and prayerful commitment to new habits for the coming year. As I have written before (and here), I have been working through Jerry Bridges’ book “The Practice of Godliness.”This thought provoking volume has caused me to ask the question recently “how do I intend to grow in godliness in 2022?” Below is the quote that caused me to start asking the question.
“So there is a sense in which we are growing in our character every day. The question is, In which direction are we growing? Are we growing toward godly character or ungodly character?”
This quote appears in a section where Bridges makes the point that developing godly character is a progression. You must “train yourself for godliness” as Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:7. In other words, godly character is not going to just “happen” to you. You aren’t going to wake up one morning in perfect imitation of Christ. Godliness takes effort.
The word “train” should make you think of an Olympic athlete. An individual does not magically compete at the Olympic level. It requires training. Work. Commitment. Dedication. In commanding Timothy to train himself unto godliness, Paul is calling Timothy to work and to put forth consistent effort.
But then Bridges makes another point: you can train yourself “in the wrong direction” i.e. towards ungodliness. He references 2 Peter 2:14 which mentions false teachers who trained themselves in greed. Bridges then concludes this discussion by giving the quote above and saying every day what you do, think, or say will either lead you to godliness or to ungodliness. In other words:
You are becoming what you are training yourself to be today.
Why it is important
There is no neutral territory when it comes to godliness. Today, you will either grow in godliness or in ungodliness. The same will be true of tomorrow, the next day, and every single day in 2022 and every year after that. For the Christian, there is no “middle ground” between godly character and ungodly character. The actions you do, the things your heart values, and the thoughts you have on any given day are either in accordance with God’s revealed character or they are not. Therefore, it makes sense to conclude that whatever you find yourself habitually doing, thinking, and feeling indicates whether you are becoming a more or less godly person.
This has enormous implications. If Bridges’ point is true, then every day where you feel like you have not grown in godliness is a day you regressed. There are no “rest days” in your pursuit of godliness. If you resolve to work out more consistently in 2022, you can take rest days and still achieve your goal. But if you want to grow in godliness, you must commit every day to the pursuit of it.
Additionally, this means that there are no neutral actions, thoughts, or attitudes. If you are tired and lash out in anger towards your spouse or kids, you don’t get a free pass. That action and the corresponding attitude are ungodly and if not repented of, they will train you towards ungodliness. What I find helpful about Bridges’ quote is that he gives you an easy barometer to examine your actions:
Ask yourself “Is that thought, action, or attitude directing me towards Christ-likeness or away from it?”
Takeaways
1. Resolve to grow in godliness this year regardless of any other goals you might have
For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
1 Timothy 4:8, ESV
If you are a Christian, your resolution every single day should be to grow in godliness. The New Year is simply a good time to remind yourself of what Jesus already called you to. And make no mistake: of all the resolutions you make for 2022, training yourself unto godliness is the most important one and the most difficult one. If you miss a workout day, it won’t endanger your soul. But every day you are not training yourself unto godliness is a day you are regressing towards ungodly character. Growing in godliness is not easy; it is part of daily spiritual warfare.
But remember what Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:8. Your other resolutions might make you more productive or physically stronger or healthier but only godliness will benefit your present life and your life to come. When things get difficult, remind yourself that a day spent fighting for godliness is not a day wasted.
Every step towards godliness is pleasing to God, glorifies Christ, and better prepares you for the eternal weight of glory to come.
2. Honestly reflect at the end of each day whether you grew towards or away from Christ-likeness
This is where the “rubber meets the road”, so to speak. If you want to commit to grow in godliness in 2022, you are going to have to commit to daily, honest, self-reflection. You are going to have to take stock of what you did, what you felt, and what you thought. For most people, that means taking some time in the morning or before bed to get out a journal and prayerfully ask the Lord to help you see your day through His eyes. Then, you can examine ways you made spiritual progress, things you need to repent of, and ways you can improve tomorrow.
To use the workout analogy, most of the time when you are physically training you keep some sort of log of what you did, how many reps you accomplished, and the weight you used. So it shouldn’t be surprising that keeping a log of your spiritual life is one of the best tools available for training yourself unto godliness. Look at your schedule and set aside 15-30 minutes of your day for self-reflection. That way, by this time next year, you can have a journal full of reasons to praise the Lord and thank Him for His faithfulness to you as He progressively conformed you to the image of His Son.
Click here to read previous “Book Quote of the Week” posts. More tools to help you study the Bible, click here. If you found this post helpful, share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.
The doctrine of the Church is one of the most glorious, practical, and discussed doctrines in the New Testament. Simply looking at the metaphors the New Testament authors use to describe the Church gives you a sense of it’s importance. The Church is the “body of Christ,” the “bride” of Christ, the “household of faith,” a “holy temple in the Lord,” and much more. The ideal Church as laid out in the New Testament overcomes the gates of hell and overcomes the world through faith in Christ, the Church’s chief Shepherd.
But how do these realities guide you in choosing a particular local Church to attend? How do they give you wisdom for deciding if and when to leave a Church? After all, the glorious vision of the Church in the New Testament is not lived out in its fullness within every local body. So what should you, as a normal believer, do when you struggle to find the “ideal Church?” In this post, I want to lay out three practical steps for applying the doctrine of the Church to your life.
Know the local Church ideal as laid out in the New Testament
If you and I only knew and believed the truths about the local Church as laid out in Scripture, how many of our problems would be solved? The local Church is not merely a Sunday morning service you sit through once a week. If you want to start getting excited about the local Church and having a Biblical view of it’s importance, the first step is to study and internalize what the Bible says about the Church.
I would recommend taking a month or two to read through the book of Acts. Pay attention each time Luke mentions the Church, what it does, and how it grows. Acts 2 in particular has one of my favorite passages on the “ideal Church.”
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Acts 2:42-47, ESV emphasis added
Why do I recommend studying the New Testament Church?
You will never make the right decisions about where to go to Church, what to look for in a Church, or what to value in the Church if you don’t first understand the Church as presented in the New Testament.
Everyone can give you different opinions on where you should go to Church and what your role should be in that Church. But only in Scripture do we have the authoritative record of what God expects of local Churches and you as a Church member. So remind yourself of the glorious doctrine of the local Church as expounded in Scripture.
Commit to a local Church that partially lives up to that ideal
Once you have a biblical vision of the ideal Church, find a local Church that approximates that ideal. What do I mean by this? You will never find a local Church that perfectly exhibits all the desired traits given in the New Testament. In fact, local Churches in the New Testament time didn’t even exhibit those traits perfectly (see 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and the letters to the 7 Churches in Revelation). So when you are looking for a local Church to join, look for one where you see its members and leadership who are aware and are striving for the New Testament ideal.
Others have developed countless resources to determine whether a Church is healthy or not. But at the end of the day, all the “tests”, “marks”, or “criterion” for a healthy Church are simply ways of answering the question “is this local Church aware of and pursuing what the New Testament teaches about the Church or not?” And in the end, whatever Church you end up joining will have some strong areas and some weak areas. That is expected in a fallen world. As I said, even the first generation of local Churches had some areas of strength and other areas where they needed correction.
The key point here is to commit to a local Church that partially lives up to the New Testament ideal.
It will do you no good to memorize every passage on the local Church if you never actually formally join one.
An analogy is helpful here: you might have an idea of what you want in an ideal spouse, but if you never actually marry a real human being, your ideal will do you no good. And, as every married person discovers, the person you marry will at the best only approximate the ideal spouse you conjured up in your head. So don’t spend your whole life looking for that “perfect New Testament Church.” Commit to the best option God provides for you locally, then move on to the final step.
Work to make that local Church better reflect the ideal Church
As soon as you are a member of a local Church, you are now partially responsible for ensuring that local collection of believers obeys what Scripture teaches about the ideal Church. You, not someone else. As you stay committed to a local body over the years, you will see more and more clearly the ways in which your Church falls short of the New Testament teaching. When this inevitably happens, the temptation will be to either complain, or to leave to find a different Church.
Now, there are certainly situations where you should leave a local Church. But in modern America, most reasons people give are neither Biblical nor wise. Your default when you notice an issue in your local Church should be:
Do not complain or sow discord
Seek to understand the problem
Prayerfully seek to find a way to help fix the issue
If every Church member had a selfless, serving-others-before-myself mentality, a lot of issues in local Churches would evaporate. Seek to lead in working to help your local Church better reflect the ideal Church. Take responsibility. You don’t have to be an elder or a deacon or a particularly wise or smart person to make your Church more holy and godly.
If you are a local Church member, you are part of a body. And every part of the body is sovereignly knitted together by God to serve a purpose.
In conclusion, don’t over complicate the local Church. Understand clearly from Scripture what the local Church is and should be. Then commit to a body in your local area that approximates this ideal Church. And then spend your days seeking to help that local body better reflect what the ideal Church is in Scripture. Being an average Church member is a high calling. So go and serve your local body for the glory of Christ and the edification of the saints.
When I decided to go back to school to get my Master’s degree, I realized I had probably forgotten how to do well in an academic environment. So, I picked up a book from one of my favorite authors Cal Newport entitled “How to Become a Straight-A Student.” If you are a student at any level, (especially if you are in College) I recommend this book highly. For today’s “Book Quote of the Week,” I want to look at Newport’s advice on editing academic papers and how it provides an easy way to edit a sermon as well.
Solid editing requires only three careful passes
The Argument Adjustment Pass: Read the paper carefully on your computer to make sure your argument is clear, fix obvious errors, and rewrite where the flow needs improvement.
The Out Loud Pass: Carefully read out loud a printed copy of your paper, marking any awkward passages or unclear explanations.
The Sanity Pass: A final pass over a printed version of the paper to check the overall flow and to root out any remaining errors.
Newport gives these three editing passes in a section on how to write an excellent college-level paper. In particular, he is concerned with avoiding two pitfalls: under-editing a paper and over-editing a paper. Newport argues effective editing really only takes three passes. The first focuses on the logic of the paper, the second pass corrects any grammar mistakes and ensures effective language, and the final pass checks that you didn’t miss any errors in the previous passes.
In the “Argument Adjustment Pass” the main goal is to add sentences or subtract sentences based on the paper’s flow. If a point is not clear, add a sentence or two to clarify. If a sentences isn’t necessary, cut it. During this phase, Newport also recommends analyzing the structure of your paper to check that you make a coherent, well-ordered argument. Newport recommends you complete this pass on your computer rather than on a printed out copy of your paper.
The “Out Loud Pass” is simple: read through your entire paper out loud to make sure your language is clear. For this step, Newport recommends you have a physical print out of your paper and note any necessary corrections as you go. Even though this process takes a larger chunk of time to complete, there is no substitute for reading a paper out loud if you want to ensure the language is effective.
Finally, the “Sanity Pass” is a final quick read through of a printed copy of your paper. You can always miss some small errors in the previous passes, so this final skim ensures you didn’t let anything slip through the cracks. After completing this pass, the paper is then ready to turn in.
Why it is important
What I love about this method of editing is how straightforward it is. There are dozens of editing checklists you can find online and in books. But they often take hours to go through and they don’t leave you with the feeling of “I’ve done enough.” By breaking down editing into three simple passes, Newport gives an effective and efficient editing technique.
Now, as helpful as this method is for academic papers, I think it really shines as a way to edit a sermon manuscript. Oftentimes, editing your sermon is either the last thing you do in a rush or you skip it entirely. And that makes sense: to edit a sermon takes time and it can feel daunting depending on how long your manuscript is. But Newport’s three step editing technique is not burdensome and provides a predictable process you can go through for each sermon.
I think the “out loud” pass might be even more important for a sermon than for a paper. You want to make sure your language flows and isn’t too flowery or complicated for a spoken message. As tedious as it might seem, you will notice a dozen improvements to your sermon if you simply complete the “out loud pass” before you preach. Additionally, I personally always make time the night before or the day of my teaching to complete the “sanity pass” with my printed manuscript or outline.
Takeaways
1. Budget time in your Sermon preparation for editing through your manuscript
It isn’t a complicated point but to edit a sermon you need to make time to actually complete the editing process. Editing should not be an “extra bonus” that you do “if you have time.” I have not met a single person who has complained their sermon got worse when they spent more time working on it. So, as you plan your schedule for preparing a sermon or teaching, budget time to complete Newport’s recommended three passes. The quality of your sermon will increase. Guaranteed.
2. Go through your Sermon manuscript three times and then entrust the result to the Lord
A common pitfall in editing is not knowing when something is “good enough.” That is one reason I appreciate Newport creating an editing process that has three steps and then is complete. You should certainly edit your sermon manuscript before you preach. But you also shouldn’t obsessively edit your sermon to the point that you aren’t ready to give it. For Christians preaching or teaching, you must end your editing process with trusting the Lord.
Sermons are made better through editing but no sermon is made effective by editing. God alone can save and sanctify.
So go through the three-step editing process with your sermon. Then, prayerfully trust the Lord with it because God has promised His Word will not return to Him void.
Click here to read previous “Book Quote of the Week” posts. More tools to help you study the Bible, click here. If you found this post helpful, share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.
