Sunday Shirt—Sunday Shorts

by Marc Backes

I can't tell you how many times in my life, especially in the last ten years, I've had the conversation with someone about what attire they should wear to church on Sundays. I have always held to the firm conviction that it doesn't matter what you wear. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart. Because of that, I have always encouraged folks to come just as they are. Forget about how you look, how others think you should look, or any other artificial expectations you may have about getting right before God before darkening the doors of the church.

So imagine my surprise and dismay Sunday morning when the words came out of my mouth that went completely contrary to all of that. I was taking a shower, and my son walked into our bedroom dressed in clothes he had picked out himself. My wife observed what he had on and told him she had meant a different pair of shorts and shirt when she gave him instruction on what to pick out of his closet. And then these words came out of my mouth: "Get A Sunday Shirt – And Sunday Shorts"….

And it hit me immediately. "Why did I just say that? I don't mean that do I? Did I really just tell him to look differently on Sunday than he does the rest of the week? Am I really that kind of parent? Am I that kind of person?" And a hundred more questions lining up from there. And it stuck with me so much that it was the only thing I could write about for this post.

We are so wired as fallen people to dress ourselves up for others to see. It is so ingrained in us and is such a default mode for us that many times we don't even recognize that we are doing it. From the very beginning when Adam and Eve realized that they stood naked in the Garden, man has sought to improve his appearance before others and hide his shame through exterior means. And if you'll think long and hard, you'll begin to see in your own life little ways how you do this:

• When someone asks you what you do for a living, especially if they have a vocation you believe is somehow superior to yours, you "dress up" your job a little in the hopes that they'll think more highly of you than if you just told them what you really do
  
• You buy a car that you really can't afford because you don't want to be seen driving in the church or work parking lot with your Honda Accord that has 175,000 miles on it and a few dents in it. I mean seriously, how could you ever expect people to take you seriously if you're driving that old clunker around.
  
• You spend way too much money on a house in a neighborhood that you feel will give you a little extra stature because of the prices of the homes there. Think about it, if you lived in one of those "track home" neighborhoods, you would be just like every other commoner out there. But since you live in a "nice" development, you can be sure of only positive reactions when people ask you where you live.
  
• When someone asks how you are doing, you always respond with the safe and practical words "I'm good". Because you couldn't possibly let them know what is really going on. Think about it. You're a highly respected professional who has the nice car and the nice house. You're not supposed to struggle with the same problems as the "average" person. Your education and training have insulated you from actually experiencing those poor person issues. If you really let people know what was going on behind closed doors, they might begin to question what business you have being the professional that you are.
  

And the list could go on. But you get the point. It isn't just that we dress up for Sunday mornings. We dress up our whole lives. We want people to think we are someone that we are not. Vulnerability and truth are hard. We always want to feel like we are doing more than the next guy. And therefore if we can look, act, dress, or live better than him we can feel worse about him and better about ourselves. It's our default mode. It's how we are naturally wired to operate apart from the intervening grace of God.

I'm just thankful that God always reminds me through my own actions that I'm still fallen and still imperfect. No matter how far I think I've come, I still have a bent towards Sunday Shirt – Sunday Shorts.

God Works in Mysterious Ways

I love stories…especially when they are like the one I heard this week. LifePoint has been preparing for our fall land offering over the last three weeks. A couple of times a year LifePoint sets aside a week to receive a special offering to pay toward the balance on our land. One couple in preparing for their offering wrote their check, placed it in a LifePoint offering envelope and placed it in a stack with others bills that they would be paying. Inadvertently the envelope got picked up and placed in the mail with other bills.

The next day when it was realized a call was placed to the local post office to inquire about the envelope. The post office said that it had been sent to the Springfield office. A call was placed to the Springfield office to try and track down the envelope. After describing the envelope as a LifePoint Church offering envelope that had no stamp and no address on it, the postal employee simply said, “Yes, but we knew that LifePoint Church was in Ozark so we forwarded the envelope and delivered to the church.”

And yes…they did deliver the envelope with the offering enclosed in time for the special offering Sunday. I cannot say for sure that God altered the course of history by directing that envelope to LifePoint. What I can say is this…the facts shows that an envelope with “no address” and “no stamp” processed through two post offices and was successfully delivered to its intended recipient on time. I can say, “I don’t have to say it…that just happened!” Sunday was a great day and the offering was a blessing. What a blessing to have the opportunity to participate by giving toward the land. I pray you will join us in this great work the Lord is leading us in.

Over 100 people came out on Sunday evening to participate in our prayerwalk on the land. It was a great time of joining together on the property to pray…for the future, for our development, and for our master planning process as we begin. Continue to pray as we move forward with this. The elders will bring a report and ask for your input soon. Let’s continue to seek the Lord in all as we take steps to follow all that he is doing among us. And next time you have a moment to stop and pray…drive out in front of the property and offer a prayer for all that God desires to accomplish through LifePoint.

—Pastor Lane

Area Church Planters Meet at LifePoint

by Marc Backes

Last Tuesday was a great day at LifePoint. Twenty some folks gathered, some as far away as Oklahoma, to pray, worship, encourage, and discuss church planting. Jonathan McIntosh, from the Journey in St. Louis, spoke to us today about the centrality of the gospel in church planting and exhorted us to make sure we were keeping the Gospel front and center in our churches. Jesus is the hero of every sermon, and the point of every passage in the Bible. All of the Old Testament and the New Testament point to and expound upon Jesus. If we lose Jesus, we lose the church.

Over lunch, we had the opportunity to do some Q & A and talk about how the theology of the gospel fleshes out in practical terms such as giving, growing members to maturity, reviving passion in our congregations, and seeing our church folks truly grasp how the gospel plays out in their entire lives. We talked about the importance of the folks in our churches grasping that all of life is worship and not just the hour we spend together on Sunday.

The cool thing about this meeting was that it was the first we have done in the Southwest Missouri region and we had a good turnout. Prayerfully, as we move forward, we can build this network to serve as a support, encouragement, and help to men who are in church plants, looking to plant churches, or thinking about church planting and discerning whether it's for them. Lane did a good job of laying out what the objectives of such a meeting were and challenged us to consider our own pride, arrogance, and insecurities as church planters when we come together and to really pray to see this network be all it can be. We're looking at getting together again in January. I would suspect maybe January 8th? Stay tuned…

It was a great meeting with great men. I look forward to continuing the friendships that were started today.

In his message to us, Jonathan McIntosh referenced Tim Keller quite frequently. For all things Tim Keller and more resources from him than you can shake a stick at, you need to go here and check it out.

Thank you to everyone who attended today and to the folks who helped serve and make it happen. I'm grateful for a church like LifePoint who has a heart to see the movement grow.

Quotes from the Day

The Gospel is not just the A-B-C's but the A to Z of Christianity. The Gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom. We are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience, but the gospel is the way we grow and are renewed. It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier... All our problems come from a failure to apply the gospel. —Tim Keller

The Bible is not a collection of ‘Aesop’s Fables’, it is not a book of virtues. It is a story about how God saves us. Any exposition of a text that does not 'get to Christ' but just 'explains Biblical principles' will be a 'synagogue sermon' that merely exhorts people to exert their wills to live according to a particular pattern. Instead of the life-giving gospel, the sermon offers just one more ethical paradigm to crush the listeners. —Tim Keller

A recovery of the gospel is often a spark for movements.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating night and day, I gave heed to the context of the words.. and there I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates… This passage of Paul became to me a gateway to paradise. —Martin Luther on Romans 1:17 (“The one who by faith is righteous shall live.”)

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” “I was a Christian before but I only had the faith of a servant, but not the faith of a son. —John Wesley, founder of Methodism talking about his “second experience”

I was walking in a pasture behind my house one day. A pastor not far from me had had affairs with five women; he crashed and burned. Another guy north of me had a megachurch, but he was going to the pen for embezzlement. I told God, ‘God, I’ve got my pants on. I’ve got my hands out of the offering plate. You’ve got these guys over here doing all this stuff. Why aren’t you blessing me” All of a sudden this little question came to my mind: When will Jesus be enough for you? Sometimes, I think that’s when I became a Christian. I just began to weep, because I realized he wasn’t. I was miserable because of our attendance the day before. … Why is my joy based on having to grow my church as big as Rick Warren’s or Bill Hybels’s? —Bob Roberts

There is no commitment we will make as church planters of greater importance than living close to Jesus. For church planting can become an idol factory; a prostitution ring; a cruel taskmaster; a breeding ground for addictions… we need church planters who will love Jesus with abandon, and who cultivate a lifestyle of growing in His grace and knowledge. Until you know yourself to be slow of heart to believe the gospel, you will never cultivate a burning heart for the gospel. Churches planted with the DNA of the gospel will be led by those who live a life of gospel astonishment. —Scotty Smith

The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine....Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually. —Martin Luther

Living Sacrifice

Last week I talked specifically about how we view music in the context of corporate worship. This week I will examine worship in broader terms. We must expand our concept of worship beyond the finite domain of a particular place, time or method. Biblical worship is so much more.

Romans 12:1 says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” It’s not a limited lease agreement or a rent-to-own contract. It’s a whole-sale sell out to our Creator. We hear this scripture used a lot on its own, but I think it becomes even more powerful when we read it in context with the scripture surrounding it. Directly preceding it is a powerful doxology:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?

Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

In light of this incredible statement about the amazing power and character of God, Paul then says “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.” It’s as if Paul is saying “Look at our God! He is worthy to be given our entire life. How can we hold anything back from him?” He urges us to give everything to God. Is there anything you’re holding on to? God is so much more than the trinkets we grasp in our hands. After this statement in Romans 12:1, Paul writes beautifully about how to live a life that is a sacrifice pleasing to God. I can’t begin to fully expound such rich text in this limited space, but I urge you to open up Romans and pour over chapters 12-15. Ask the Holy Spirit to mold your life into a living sacrifice that is pleasing to God.

Worship is not something that we walk in and out of at will. It is our life lived for something of high priority. We must constantly pray that the Holy Spirit will reveal anything that has taken the place of God. Worship is not a moment in our life. It is every moment in our life. May every moment we live be for Christ.

—Pastor Dennis

Music: Our Golden Calf?

Lately, I’ve been burdened by my need as a worship pastor to have an extremely deep understanding of gospel-centered theology. Early in my ministry my mind was focused on the practical aspects of being a worship minister. As long as I had a decent knowledge of the Bible, my lead pastor would take care of the hard questions and concepts. After all, my job was all about music, right? Sadly, in our current culture there is very little in church life that is messed up more than our concept of biblical worship. It is not acceptable for worship pastors to blindly lead their congregations into the abyss of idolatry and emotional relativism.

In many churches, worship leaders inadvertently train the church to believe that music ushers in the presence of God or that the presence of God is measured by the depth of emotional response brought on by the music. Because of our passion for the arts, we have raised the level of music to such high stature that it’s revered and enjoyed more than our God to whom it is being offered. This is a serious matter. This is idolatry. I love music. It is a beautiful gift from God, but when the creation not the Creator becomes the focus, we are in sin. Think about what happened in Exodus 32. God’s people took the beautiful gold that God created and turned it into a golden calf that they gave a higher place to than the Creator. It became their idol. Music has no magical or spiritual power by itself. Remember it is only a tool. Music is a tool used to direct our hearts and minds to the character of God, not a force which directs the power of God into our presence. As Christ-followers we must always remember that it is not because of anything except the power of the blood of Jesus Christ that we live in his presence. We all must pray that the Holy Spirit will direct our worship toward God and not his creation. Enjoy music. Offer it up to God in with reckless abandon in worship, but understand it for what it is. Test yourself within corporate worship. Is the music your focus or is God?

A couple of weeks ago Jon Goings and I had the opportunity to attend the Resurgence Continuous Worship Conference at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. This was an amazing conference. I’m still trying to get my brain around everything I learned during the two short days. It was the first worship conference that I’ve gone to which dealt specifically with the theology of worship instead of the “how to” of worship programming. The lack of emphasis on theological training within the worship leading training circuit is sad. I think it is representative of what is happening regarding worship within church culture.

My frustration is that I haven’t begun to cover all I would like in this short format. I’ve only briefly talked about idolatry in corporate worship. For a much more in depth discussion of true worship, I strongly recommend that you read the book Unceasing Worship by Harold Best. This book is a must read for any Christ-follower searching for a deeper relationship with Christ.

—Pastor Dennis