My Difficult Mission Trip

"Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life." Mark 10:29-30

Jesus says that anyone who leaves his family behind for His sake and for the Gospel will receive a hundredfold now in this time and in eternity. But what of someone who goes to his family for Christ's sake and for the Gospel? I think the same principle holds true.

Without going into too much detail into my personal family life, I will soon be going to visit my mother, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and others for five days. This side of my family are unbelievers. This has been a huge burden for me growing up and, while I have had opportunities to share and have done so, this is the first time that I am going with an intent to share the Gospel.

The past two years have been a huge growing time for me. I have always had a realization that Christians MUST verbally share their faith, but only in the past couple of years have I truly come to understand that significance and applied it to my life.

Today I will be going on the single most difficult mission trip of my life. My intent is to verbally share the Gospel with my family as well as be a light with my actions. I ask for your prayers over the course of the next five days- that God would regenerate and awaken and break stony, hard hearts; that my family will repent of their sins and believe the Gospel of Christ; and that God would be glorified.

Please pray that I have courage to witness. I love sharing the Gospel. But sharing the Gospel with your family can be difficult, challenging, and complicated. However, souls are on the line and I can do nothing else but preach the Word in season and out of season.

Oh God, help me. Oh God, save them. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Stop Confessing and Start Walking

By: Matt Tyler

The title of this post is a bit deceiving. I sort of chose it to gather a little bit of attention. Let me make myself clear: I am not opposed to confessing our sins to one another. In fact, James 5:16 talks about confessing our sins to one another. Yet our culture's practice of confessing sin to one another is, I think, different than the Biblical model of confessing sins. In our culture, confessing sin usually turns into a pity party in which Person A confesses his sin to Person B, C, and D. Person A never makes a genuine commitment to change and usually falls deeper into sin. Failing to remind Person A of the Gospel, Persons B, C, and D never help A fight his sin. Furthermore, confession of sins is usually done with peers of the same age. I find this disturbing on a few different levels. As for myself, it is difficult to confess my sins to my peers. Many of them are more than willing to gossip about a wide range of issues, why should I entrust them with my secret sins? In addition, many of my peers struggle with the same sins that I struggle with. They cannot offer me any help or advice because they are struggling with these sins themselves. I find it much more beneficial and useful to go to my parents, an older person in my Church, or my Pastor. They have experience in mortifying the sins I have in my life because these wise people have already mortified them. Bottom line: I am not big on confessing sins with my peers.

I want to focus specifically though on something I said earlier. Often times I see professed believers enslaved to their own sin. Professed Christians are completely willing to whine (yes I used that word purposely) about their sin and never actually change. I know I have been guilty of this. The problem with this is that Christians do not live a lifestyle of sin. A Christian progressively grows in sanctification that results in greater maturity and conformity to God's moral law (thank you Tabletalk!). Romans 6:14 is very clear: "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace." Go back and reread that verse. This does not mean that Christians do not sin. This means that Christians do not live lives that are characterized by sin. Christians fall into sin; they do not swim in it. When the Holy Spirit convicts a Christian with a sin, the Christian mortifies that sin (see John MacArthur's book: The Vanishing Conscience).

I find it sad that so many are willing to open up about their sin and yet never change. It shows a hardness of heart that would give Pharaoh a run for his money. It demonstrates a lack of maturity. Worse still, it gives evidence to the fact that post-modern American Christianity is not Biblical Christianity.

The solution to this problem is quite simple. When I mentioned it to a group of my friends one time, not only did they not believe me, they flat out denied it. Apparently they haven't been reading Romans: "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus(6:11)." Romans 6:15-20 basically says to become slaves to righteousness which leads to sanctification. Romans 8: 2 says, "For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:5 says that those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

The solution is the Gospel. Jesus lived a perfect life fulfilling all righteousness. We could not do that. He then died on a cross in order to pay for the sins of His elect. Three days later he arose demonstrating victory over sin and death. For those who turn from their sins and put their trust in Christ God will save them. This salvation will result in the Holy Spirit's process of sanctification. Christian, do you want to be free from sin? Walk in the Spirit! Walk in Victory! Unbeliever, do you want to be free from sin? Trust in Christ!

In John Bunyan's classic allegory, the Pilgrims Progress, Christian and Hopeful are walking towards the Celestial City. Somewhere along the way, they veer of course because they believe they have found a shorter path (this is sin). Veering off course brought them to Giant Despair who locked them up in Doubting Castle (this is where sin leads). Having been trapped and beaten for days, Christian and Hopeful find themselves wallowing in their sin fearing that there is no escape. Finally Christian makes a discovery:

'Now a little before it was day, Good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in this passionate speech, "What a fool," quoth he," am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk at liberty? I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will (I am persuaded) open any lock in Doubting Castle." Then said Hopeful, "That's good news; good brother, pluck it out of they bosom and try." Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt (as he turned the key) gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out….Then they went on and came to the King's highway again, and so were safe.'

I Am Lacking.

By: Matt Tyler

Yes. It is true. I am. Often my notes are written to try and encourage people to evangelize more, live authentic Christian lives, or come to repentance and faith in Jesus. However, this note's focus is slightly different, yet the call is still the same. I messed up today. I mess up a lot. Everyday. My flesh is weak.

At the time of writing, I had read a little pamphlet by John MacArthur just a few hours before. This was not the first time that I had read this little pamphlet, but I decided to read it again. God has given Johnny Mac a lot of wisdom and I often learn from him by reading some of his material more than once. This pamphlet is called Found: God' Will. First of all, I highly recommend it, it provides the BIBLICAL way of discerning God's Will, which, by the way, is a lot less complicated then we make it.

Now, within the pages MacArthur talks about living a Spirit-filled life (here I am a Baptist, talking about being filled with the spirit ;) ). There are two significant things that John MacArthur says that are at the forefront of my mind: First of all, he says that the Spirit-filled life is yielding every decision to the control of the Spirit. He then goes on to ask what the spirit filled life actually is. What does it look like? According to MacArthur, it is being saturated with the things of Christ with His Word, His person.

Whew. I see that definition and I look at the Biblical characters that were great examples of this and I find I am truly lacking. For all of my talk on the importance of verbally sharing our faith and socially living it out, I often mess up in all areas of my life. I am not perfect. Far from it.

This was displayed beautifully (or not so beautifully) several weeks ago in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I was with a couple of friends and I was catching up on a few things. I was in a hurry to get back home but we still talked for a few minutes. All of a sudden, a man in a dark van pulled up next to us and started asking us for some money. Apparently, he had his daughter in the back seat and he had to make it back to Fayetteville. He needed gas. Well, we now live in a day and age where it is rare for people to carry cash on them. I am that type of person. Sure I had my debit card...but cash? Nope. I had none. The Wal-Mart gas station was less than a football field away and I could have easily driven over there and filled his van up with my debit card. I could have driven over there and spent a few minutes sharing the Good News with this man. But I didn't. I could have let God use me as His ambassador. But I did not. My excuse: I have no cash and therefore I cannot. Sorry sir, go on your way. Sorry sir, I have the greatest News in the whole world: You can escape punishment for your sin, but instead of meeting your needs and telling you about it, I need to go.

Now I could argue, and it may be true, that I just didn't think about pulling out my debit card for him. I could argue that I wanted to be wise with my money- heck, I didn't know anything about this guy! I could argue whatever I wanted to. What I can honestly say, though, is that sharing the love of Jesus with this guy was not on my mind. It hurt me to say no to him, that was probably the Holy Spirit, but sharing Jesus with Him was not on my mind. If it was, I probably would have remembered my debit card. I probably would have driven over there with him. If I was truly saturated with the things of Christ, while I was filling up his car I probably would have showed him that he had sin in his life and needed to get right with God.

Some will try and reassure me: Matt, don't be legalistic, you don't have to help everyone that comes your way. Matt, it's really okay that you forgot this one time. Matt, you didn't have cash on you. [Insert your reassurance remark here]. While I am reassuring myself, or you are, that man still has needs and he has met yet another Christian who didn't explain to him the Most Important News in the whole World. And there is a chance he NEEDED to hear that.

I serve a God who is in control. He is sovereign over all things. That alone gives me the reassurance that I need. And while I did mess up, my prayer is that next time I will be prepared.

Frankly, it takes work to "yield every decision to the control of the Spirit" as Macarthur said. It's not necessarily the easiest thing to do. However, for the believer it should be a somewhat natural response in view of all that God has given us. As Christians, the importance of craving the pure milk of the Word (1 Peter 2:3) is incalculable. After all, it is only through reading the Word of God daily that we can saturate ourselves with the things of Christ. And while it is true that you, and I, are lacking we cannot use that as an excuse to cover up our responsibility. Our lives need to be full of the Holy Spirit.

Lord, forgive me. My flesh is weak and I am lacking. I want to be saturated with the things of Christ. Guide me in that. Thank you for the blood of Jesus, which covers me when I am lacking.

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This is a post that was first posted on Facebook on Tuesday, July 7^th 2009. It has been slightly edited.