Rob Mastery gives us a great message Saturday night. Learned some great things about taking sin seriously and believing God.
Read Genesis 4.
Message given on May 20th 2017.
The Bride and The Groom of John 3:28-30
May 2, 2017 by 1 Comment
The marriage relationship is often used in the New Testament as an image of the relationship between Christ and His Church. In this lesson we look at what John the Baptist said to his followers leading up to the work of Christ on the Cross.
Why FBC?
March 14, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Why FBC?
Why do we do what we do?
- Because we really believe God is good and loving. Because we really believe sin is in each one of us and we all need God. Because if we just believe and follow Jesus Christ, we can really know peace even in hard times.
- Because we want others to have real and lasting peace as well. That’s why we do church.
Why Friendship Baptist Church?
- Because just like God is loving, we want to love one another too. We are not perfect at it. But we are better at it now than we used to be. And we are going to keep getting better at it every day going forward.
How will we do church?
- Because God is good and loving and we seek to do the same to each other and those around us, we strive to:
- Teach others about God’s love through Jesus Christ.
- Show love to one another by patience, encouragement, acceptance of personalities and holding sin accountable when it is clear.
- Recognizing these things are driven by heart attitudes and asking ourselves, what is the attitude of my heart today? (Need a guide? Look at the beatitudes in Matthew 5.)
What will we do?
- What we do changes based on the needs of the day. Everything we do is intended to reflect the answers to why we do what we do at FBC.
- But some whats are consistent.
- We will pray for the spiritual strength of one another and the well being of all people.
- We will study the Bible as the inerrant word of God. To both know God’s character, commands and provisions, as well as to follow and apply the doctrines of the bible to our everyday lives.
- We will celebrate together. Sometimes in worship service, others in small group class settings or times just spent sharing our lives together.
- We will sacrifice. Because we value what is described in our whys, we give of our time, money, and abilities. Intentionally and sometimes to the point of discomfort, as we want our sacrifice for the faith to truly impact our lives, as well as others.
- All because we believe Jesus is just that good!
How to listen to a Sermon
January 24, 2017 by Leave a Comment
As I remember back to being a young man attending church for no other reason than I thought I needed to, I realize that I rarely if ever understood or even recalled a sermon. I’m sure the pastor was competent and organized in his thoughts. I just didn’t know how to organize in my own brain what I was learning. I think a structure would have helped me. Here are some thoughts that can serve as a very practical way to help those who find themselves struggling with the very same thing.
The lessons of faith are no more than academic until they become personal. (See Matthew 16:15-16) So you must examine them in a personal way. The following will will help us see the sermon or lesson as being applicable to each of us.
- We pray for our hearts desires; so make it a desire to understand and pray to that end. (Even if its just 2 minuets ahead of time.)
- Bring your own Bible and open it to the passage the pastor is speaking on and read along with him.
- Actually write down the main point of the sermon, what it is calling you to do, and what part of the sermon caught your attention.
- Do this even if you don’t know why. If you write it down and think on it later in the week, you may gain understanding with time.
- Follow a plan. Maybe use the Bible study outline we have talked about before:
- What does this passage/sermon say about me (humanity)?
- What does this passage/sermon say about God?
- What does this passage/sermon call me to do in response? (Trust more, believe, believe deeper, pray, repent, give, go, love, etc…?)
When we make a plan and effort to understand, the results will become clear.
Why Grace is a matter of freedom.
January 26, 2016 by Leave a Comment
I remember seeing her wrestling with the ideas in her head. Believing in Christ was supposed to set her free. But she had been told so much that when she became a Christian she had to follow certain rules. (The fact that the rules she was trying to uphold were arbitrarily selected from the whole Law of God never entered her mind as something to question.) She was in a crisis of faith.
Most of us who believe in Christ face this. Many of us would never say it, but most of us hold to some version of Christianity that says, “I came to Jesus and was saved by grace through faith and he forgave me of everything I did wrong in the past. Now, I have to work hard to stay in good standing with Him.” The problem with that view is this: It’s not Christian or Biblical.
If He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, how do we determine that we are going to be able to add to that accomplishment? Our sin is paid for. It is gone. Maybe we should say, “It is finished.”
Romans 8:1-2 says:
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. (NASB)
We live life as though Jesus gave us a great gift in our Salvation but now that it is in our hands it is like a priceless fabergé egg. It is not. It is the single most solid truth of all the universe. It cannot be shaken or broken or lost. You live free in Jesus because nothing can change who you are in Him.
Same chapter, Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NASB)
Don’t be bound by what you were told to keep you in line as a kid. The Gospel is rebellious and freeing. Your standing with God is not based on your performance, but on Christ’s performance. He has earned your place at the table. Trust in Him and love Him. Know that you belong to Him. Because as a follower of Christ, you do.
The Law and Grace.
December 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
An excerpt from Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan:
“Now when I had climbed about halfway up, I looked behind and saw someone coming after me, swift as the wind. Soon he overtook me just about the place where the arbor stands.”
“… as soon as the man overtook me, without saying a word, he struck me and knocked me down unconscious. When I came to, I asked him why he had thus assaulted me. He said it was because of my secret inclination to follow Adam the First, and with that he struck me with another deadly blow on the chest and beet me down backward, and I lay at his feed as if I were dead. So when I came to, I cried to him for mercy. But he said, ‘I do not know how to show mercy’ and with that knocked me down again. He would have beaten me to death, except One came by and told him to stop.”“Who was it that told him to stop?”
Faithful went on, “I did not recognize Him at first, but as He went by I saw the wounds in His hands and in HIs side. Then I concluded that He was our Lord. So I continued….”
Christian then explained, “The man who overtook you was Moses. He spares no one, and he does not know how to show mercy to anyone who transgresses his law.”
This passage of this old book is something we struggle with to this day. Christian and non-Christian… so many of us believe our judgement will be based on how good we are or were. But not the case. We are dependent upon the mercy of Christ.
Introduction to our Culture of Grace!
September 24, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The goal is to share with you the Gospel of Jesus and include you in the culture of grace that we strive for here at Friendship Baptist Church. The Gospel, and the culture of grace are in many ways one in the same. For us to live in a culture of grace is to be continually aware of the Gospel. So what does that look like?
First is Humility. Each one of us is aware that we are sinful and selfish. We know that even when we try not to be, there are parts of our life where we are motivated by the old saying, ‘looking out for number one.’ The problem is that when we say that we usually have the wrong number one. God is first all the time and in all things. Anytime we put ourselves, or our priorities ahead of God, we have not loved Him the way He deserves.
Second is Grace. God knows we don’t deserve His Love, His presence, or even life itself. But He gives it all to us. Our sin has separated us from God. Sin is when we behave as described above, putting our desires ahead of His. This puts us in a state of rebellion against God Himself. But due to His great love for His people, He intervened on our behalf. God sends His Son, Jesus Christ (aka, God the Son) to take and become our sin and transform us into righteous children of God. That is what the cross is about. Jesus literally takes our sin on himself and suffers and dies in our place. He did no wrong to deserve this, but did it because He loved us and knew it was the only way to save us from eternity in Hell. From there, He rose from the grave and is alive today calling us to trust in Him.
Third is Mercy. It is knowledge that we didn’t deserve His grace, rather we deserved His wrath, but He had mercy on us. God loved us so much that while we were still sinners (rebels agains Him) Christ died for us. (see Romans 5:8). He did not wait for us to come to Him and promise to be good. Quite the opposite, He came to us first. This is how God showed His love for us and how we are to show our love for one another.
Fourth is Love. Jesus taught us that we are to Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. And to love our neighbor as ourselves. Love is more than a feeling. It is action. God took action to show you His love for you when Jesus came into this world (Christmas) and as Jesus died and rose again to give you life (Easter). Now that His love is shown, we are to love Him with all that we have, and we are to love those around us as though they were our very own selves.
Because of these things, we seek to treat one another the way Christ has treated us. Receive one another regardless of wrongs done or past events. Include each other in our family of faith because Jesus has included us. Forgive without waiting for apologies or ‘righting of wrongs’ in our personal view. And love others. Love with reckless abandon to all that might stand in our way. Love in feeling and in action. Love because He first loves us.
Why does God let bad things happen to good people?
September 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
She messaged me a short simple question. “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” And that is question. It’s the primary question that all of us face. Why don’t people believe in God? The answer is because suffering exists. We live and act and expect that if God is real and if He is good, He would never allow anything bad to befall us. But God was honest, He told humanity what would happen if we turned against Him. It was very simple. If we (humanity) decided to do things our way rather than His, we would embrace a way of life that led to suffering and death. We decided on our way, and we still do.
Now we want to ask God why we face hard things, difficult things, bad things. We face bad things because we are all now affected by our bad decisions. Those bad decisions are actually rebellion against God Himself. We may not have looked at it way when we made those decisions, but ever decision we have ever made that was selfish or self-serving without being rooted in a deep love for God and people has been what God calls sin. So our original question, is no longer really the question. The question changed when we opted to follow our desires over His. The question now is not ‘why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?’ but why would God allow us (sinful, rebellious, selfish people) into His presence or His kingdom? Why would God allow what is bad to enter and receive what is good?
The answer is because He is merciful. He is good. We wonder why bad things happen, but we chose those on our own. God knows you experience bad things. The worst this world has to offer is death, and that is what He dealt with first: on the cross.
So instead of asking why God allows bad things to happen to good people, we need to thank Him that we still have good things and in Him we have the promise of a good future.
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Here is the part of the actual response I gave when asked:
The bottom line is that the “bad things” you speak of are the consequences of sin in the world. Sometimes due to our own bad decisions, sometimes due to the decisions of others. Sin brought suffering and death into the world. Sin is anything that is rebellion against God or His law. Now when we understand that to its fullest extent we really know that we are none good. We are not good people. We are just thankful that God has mercy on us as we sin. He forgives us of that sin. But until we are with Him (through our death and entrance into His kingdom or His return to finalize the restoration of His kingdom on this earth…) we face a world full of the consequences of sin that has been mounting for thousands of years.
