Jeff Bartell

This is an issue that keeps rolling around in my head and I will be addressing this Sunday.  I must admit, it has been a challenge for me to step in and lead a fairly large American church with 150 years of history and tradition.  Our church has a lot to be proud of and I am glad to be here.  Many of the traditions that we are familiar with are not bad, but they might not be expressly biblical either.  That’s not a problem – I mean there are a lot of things that churches do that are not expressed directly in scripture.  God gives you room to figure out the details for your time, culture and application.  The Bible was written to transcend all times and cultures, so God wrote it in a way to not specify too many “procedural” details.  I actually like that about the Bible.

This becomes a problem only when people hold fast to their traditions or thoughts about what they think God said and end up contradicting what He actually did say clearly in His word.  What is the actual role (job description) of a local church pastor?  What should deacons really be doing?  What does the church exist for?  What does God expect from me, personally?  What about politics?  What about social agendas?  Wow!  A person could get overwhelmed pretty quickly thinking about all these things.  Many people may not know the Bible answer to all the questions, but they know “what we have always done at our church.”  Herein lies the challenge.

There are a lot of programs and activities that are “Christian” or “spiritual” but not biblical.  That makes me nervous.  There are a LOT of “spirits” in the world, but only ONE of them is holy!  There are a lot of (weird) things that people do in the name of “Christianity” that have nothing to do with what God said.  (Can I remind anyone of the Crusades?!)  There is a genuine revival in spiritualism – everyone is spiritual these days – but few remain biblical.

My goal (and job description) is to be biblical and to teach others to be so as well.  There are a lot of ways to accomplish God’s revealed will and I am excited to see how He will lead us in 2012.  If it happens that someone is striving to accomplish God’s revealed will in a manner that is not strictly forbidden by the scriptures, let’s all agree to give the brother some space.  At the same time, let’s make sure that we don’t pick a (needless) fight over a tradition that we enjoy but cannot prove as biblically necessary.

Malachi 3:6  For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

Arguably the greatest characteristic about God is that He doesn’t change, or in other words, He doesn’t go back on His word.  When He says something, He means it and He keeps His word.  Theologians call this “immutability.”  All the other wonderful attributes of God:  His holiness, power, love, grace, compassion, foreknowledge, sovereignty, etc. are virtually worthless if He “changes His mind” and behaves in a manner different than what He says!  When He says:  “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” we can count on it!  If He ever changed His mind on that one we would be in big trouble!

In Joshua 9, Joshua was deceived by the Gibeonites.  God told the Israelites to kill all the inhabitants of Canaan.  The Gibeonites lied, they portrayed themselves as a people from a far land, just passing through Canaan, and asked Joshua to make a league with them to not kill them.  Joshua made the deal without consulting God – big mistake (v.14).  The people murmured against Joshua, but ultimately Joshua kept his word, because he gave it. (vv.19-20)

Similarly, as children of God, we too ought to have this same characteristic.  We need to be people of our word.

James 5:12  But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.

Jesus said virtually the same thing in Matthew 5:33-37.  In other words, there should be no reason for a Christian to have to “swear” an oath, like we do in a court of law, because we should be people who always tell the truth.  There should be no need to “promise to tell the truth” this time!  If you say “yea” (yes) you mean it!  Similarly with a “nay” (no).  Your word is your bond.

Now imagine a Christian who understands God’s will and hears God speak (lead) to him to do something specific.  That Christian makes a promise to God that he/she will do it.  Then after a while, the promise is not kept.  We leave the work undone that God asked us to do.  How do you think God feels at that point?

Recently many people have heard the voice of the Lord speak to their hearts here at FBC.  God has been working in many through recent preaching / teaching series including our missions conference.  Many have made commitments to serve the Lord in some new, specific way, or to start giving financially at an increased level.  My prayer is that we all will let our “yea be yea and our nay be nay.”  Whether or not you agree with the commitment, that is a life that you (and others) can respect.

People ask me if I am tired after a full week of our missions conference.  It was a full schedule, but truly I feel refreshed.  We got to spend time with some of our favorite people in the world (our family had 5 Albanians staying with us in our home – not to mention the other missionary guests and our FBC family), talk about my favorite subject in the world (world missions), hear great preaching every night and to top it off NE Ohio experienced some uncharacteristically nice weather!  I told my wife that we could’ve spent a few thousand dollars and not have a better time on vacation!

I am very proud of First Baptist Church for rallying and serving in so many ways:  providing meals, serving our children, contributing to the missionary wives and rising to the challenge of raising more than the $15,000 goal for our ministry partner in Egypt.

There is something very refreshing about working hard for the Lord and although there may be a physical exhaustion, there is a spiritual satisfaction that makes it all worthwhile.

Proverbs 19:23  The fear of the LORD tendeth to life: and he that hath it shall abide satisfied; he shall not be visited with evil.

If we want to REACH the world, we have to STRETCH!  This is the theme of our upcoming missions conference at FBC, starting this Sunday, November 6^th and continuing through Wednesday, November 9^th.  In fact, reachmissions.net will be a new website for our global mission outreach of FBC.  It is being developed so keep checking back to see the progress.  The idea is that if we are going to participate in reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, we need to be stretched in our faith.  We need to exercise it more to prepare it for more challenging tasks ahead.

If you spend much time serving or following global missions, you realize that it is one, big, happy family!  Over time, it seems like everybody knows somebody who knows just about everybody in the world of missionaries!  (Did that make sense?) This year we will have representatives from Albania, Mongolia and Peru as well as a couple that does children’s ministry worldwide.  All of our guests are good personal friends of mine.  Several of them have known each other prior to coming here.  It makes for a great family reunion and a brief glimpse of what heaven will be like one day.  I can’t wait for that – but until then, I will really enjoy these events!

For those of you in the New Philadelphia area, please plan to attend starting at 9:00am Sunday and 7:00pm Monday – Wednesday.  You won’t be disappointed!  If you are not in the New Philadelphia area, please pray with us that God is glorified and many people respond to the “stretching exercises” that God has planned for us!

At the end of the day, what could possibly be more important than to invest your life in something that will last for eternity?  Every year that clicks off is another year closer to the end – either the end of time or (at least) the end of our lives here on Earth.  This is our chance to “step it up a notch” and give our lives to something that matters.  I hope to see you here!