We're off!

Let the begin! We are (mostly) packed and leave in a few hours for the trip-of-a-lifetime. We have saved for it for years. I have envisioned a trip to the National Parks out west since a pastor friend of mine did it in the mid-90's when his son turned 16. We had hoped to do it in 1997. But the Lord has seen fit for now to be the time. This seems wiser (as His Providence always does) since now at age 12 my youngest son, Daniel, will likely remember far more. Of course, the bittersweet reality is that this may also be the last time our oldest son is even with us for this many consecutive days. Whoa, that'll knock you back. Yet as a friend said to me the other day, "When will we realize that these days--today (not yesterday or tomorrow)--is the very best day."

With that thought in mind we are finishing packing and heading out for the very best days the LORD has given us upon His earth. With Psalm 104 in mind we intend to rejoice in Our Creator and all His handiwork!

I will enter posts here when I can. Follow along...and pray for our safety and refreshment in our gracious King Jesus!

Going west as if a young man!

Scott Markley

A Healthy Hatred of Sin

As I shared with you previously Charles Spurgeon once said, “God does not allow his children to sin successfully.” I contend an example of unsuccessful sin is found in 2 Samuel 11. From David’s sins presented in that chapter I find there are many lessons for Christ-followers to learn. These lessons can aid us in our efforts to avoid sin and become more like Jesus.

Let me list by way of review the first five observations made about sin from 2 Samuel 11, which were presented previously.
1. The Occasion for the Sin (11:1)
2. The Setting for the sin—temptation. (11:2)
3. The Turn into sin & away from God (11:3)
4. The Willfulness of sin (11:4)
5. The Unmanageable Nature of Sin (11:5-13)

Now let me share another five observations about sin from the remainder of the chapter and what the Lord taught me through these verses.

6. The Escalation of sin. (11:2-4, 13, 15, 17)

Once David’s plan for Uriah to enter into marital relations with Bathsheba as a means of covering up the pregnancy resulting from his adulterous liaison failed, David faced a decision. Should he admit his capital crime and come clean or should he have Uriah killed? Sadly, David chose to send Uriah and other soldiers to their grave through the orders he sent to the military commander Joab. Now David’s sin of adultery has escalated to multiple murders. So also in my life one sin can lead to another. Sin easily can escalate unless I quickly repent and renounce that sin.

7. The Disloyalty of sin (11:15)

It is an striking thing to contrast David and Uriah’s actions in these verses. David tried to deceive and manipulate this trusted member of his own bodyguard (2 Sam. 23:39). Yet Uriah showed unwavering devotion to the Lord and a solidarity with his fellow soldiers by refusing to enjoy the comforts of his own home. The irony is Uriah showed more restraint from his own wife when drunk (made drunk by David), than David did toward Uriah’s wife when sober. How could David be so disloyal? Yet sin will do that. It will lead you and me to manipulate and deceive and betray those we profess to love. Sin breeds disloyalty and destroys relationships.

8. The Desensitization of sin (11:25-27)

When you read these verses you cannot help but be saddened for how philosophical David gets when he hears the news of Uriah’s death. There is no sadness or remorse. Sin has desensitized him to the point where Uriah’s death brings no emotional response. He just quotes some proverb about warfare. His repeated, willful sin has made his heart callous. And surely the same dynamic happens in my life when I sin like that. I become desensitized to my transgressions and the harm they bring others as my heart becomes more and more distant from God as well.

9. The Assessment of sin (11:27)

We get little biblical data of what the people of Israel thought of all these acts by their king. He now took Bathsheba as a wife. Did people see that as compassionate or as unlawful? Well, regardless of what the people thought verse 27 makes it plain what God’s assessment of these actions was. God saw it as “evil” in his sight. It was nothing less than outright as sinfully evil. And that is how God assesses every sin of mine too. David’s evil would have to be judged and so was mine. Christ bore the judgment for my evil sin on the cross. Yet that payment should never make me falsely assess or excuse my sin. Rather, every instance of sin should make me rejoice all the more in Christ’s subsitutionary payment for my sin on the cross.

10. The Consequences of sin (11:17; 12:11, 14, 15)

As we move from Chapter 11 into Chapter 12 the consequences of David’s sin will unfold one after another. The child of the illegitimate union will die. His family will be destroyed by rape, murder, and rebellion. Forgiven sin will still have consequences. Therefore, though we may be forgiven in Christ we should want to avoid all sin simply because we do not want to reap the consequences of that sin. Obviously, there should be higher motives than that. But when we read the chapters that come after Chapter 11 it should be like a slap in the face to us. I certainly don’t want consequences like that for sin in my life.

Indeed, all of these ten lessons I learned about sin from 2 Samuel 11 create within me a healthy hatred of sin. I hope they will for you also. And as God reveals to us our sin may we respond with repentance as we read David did in 2 Samuel 12 remembering as Proverbs 28:13 states: He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever renounces them finds mercy.

Loving Christ & hating sin,
Pastor Scott

Rejoicing With the Rejoicing Creator

REJOICING WITH THE REJOICING CREATOR

As most of you in our church family know by now my family and I are taking an extended vacation in the coming weeks out to the western United States. This is a trip that I have anticipated since the early 90’s when a pastor friend of mine did it with his family. We have planned and prepared for it for years and are grateful the church has allowed and even encouraged this extended time away with our sons before they are grown and gone. So now the time is here for a once-in-a-lifetime journey. We feel so blessed to be going and hope this gives to our sons memories they will cherish their whole lives.

Primarily, we will be visiting national parks and observing the wonders of God’s glorious creation. Thinking of what we will see had me reading Psalm 104 this morning. It is a wonderful poem that speaks of God’s creative work. Some outline the psalm in this way:
· Stanza 1 (vv. 1-4) The Lord Clothed with Splendor & the Celestial Realm
· Stanza 2 (vv. 5-9) The Lord Sets Bounds for the Land & Sea
· Stanza 3 (vv. 10-13) The Lord Provides Water for the Creatures on Land
· Stanza 4 (vv. 14-18) The Lord Provides Food & Homes for Land Creatures
· Stanza 5 (vv. 19-24) The Lord Governs the Rhythm of Day & Night
· Stanza 6 (vv. 25-26) The Lord Delights in the Seas Creatures
· Stanza 7 (vv. 27-30) All Creatures Everywhere Depend on the Lord’s Provision
· Stanza 8 (vv. 31-35) May I Ever Rejoice in the Lord’s Works Like He Does
[Outline from ESV Study Bible]

Well, that last stanza is what I intend to do on this trip. In Psalm 104:30 it reads: “May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works.” Then down in verse 34 it states, “May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.”
I love the dynamic described of the Lord himself rejoicing in the glory and wonder of what He has created and then us rejoicing with through our meditations.

I hope that as we observe the beauty the Lord has displayed through His creative work on land, sky and sea that we will be filled with a grander vision of our Great God. I am praying the Lord will burst the horizons of our imaginations for how glorious He is through this trip. I am trusting Him for jaw-dropping wonder to overcome my sons and Tina and me. I am praying he will forever remove small, simplistic or domesticated thoughts of Him, the Almighty One. As we step into the laboratory of creation my hope is God will instill lessons that will lead us to an ever-expanding view of Him. I am praying that God will allow us to forever rejoice with our creative King in the works of His Hands.

Please pray for our safety, for sweet family fellowship and for the Lord to impart these faith-shaping experiences to us as we seek refreshment and renewal in Him. Thank you for all your well-wishes, encouragement, and prayers. I love you, First Baptist Church!

Rejoicing with Him & in Him!
Pastor Scott

GIve a Call

The way many of us relate to each other has changed dramatically in the last two years alone. Social media is exploding in it’s usage in our society. Consider just these stats from pingdom.com:
126 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
350 million – People on Facebook.
50% – Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day.
500,000 – The number of active Facebook applications.
90 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009.
247 billion – Average number of email messages per day.
1.4 billion – The number of email users worldwide.
1.73 billion – Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
27.3 million – Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November, 2009)
4.25 million – People following @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher, Twitter’s most followed user).
2.5 billion – Photos uploaded each month to Facebook.
30 billion – At the current rate, number of photos uploaded to Facebook per year.
1 billion – The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day.
12.2 billion – Videos viewed per month on YouTube in the US (November 2009).

Those are some staggering statistics aren’t they? They don’t even include the billions of texts sent over phones each year. Obviously, the social media presents several opportunities to individual Christians and the church of our Lord Jesus. They can assist in creating community as people share comments, photos and videos about life events. Social media can also aid in communication and extend the reach of a church around the world. Social media allow instant and remote communication. The social media may even provide inspiration and instruction through tools like blogs. So there are many ways the church can leverage social media to their advantage in this new age of communication.

However, at the same time there are some drawbacks to the social media. Ed Stetzer is a researcher, futurist, and extensive blogger (edstetzer.com) who I heard present some comments on social media two weeks ago. The five concerns about the social media he voiced were: 1.) the wrong people may be in the social media (unengaged, social outcasts can find a haven in it), 2.) It can trivialize important things, 3.) It can create a false sense of community. 4.) It can create pride (numbering your fans, followers, readers), 5.) It can promote impertinent speech (by offering communication without accountability).

I would add one more concern I have as a local pastor about social media. I wonder if it is possible that we might insulate ourselves in a social cocoon through the social media. I wonder if social media allows us to feel in touch with others, when in reality we are only in touch with a small portion of people. So while it seems we are sending our messages to more people than ever, the quantity of people you are actually dialoguing with may be fewer than ever.

I write this not to denigrate the usage of social media, but rather to say we cannot allow ourselves in the church to restrict our communication to these forms. While facebooking, tweeting, and texting are great, sometimes we need to simply give a call to someone.

The summer is a time when many of us are traveling. It is easy to assume someone is on vacation, when in truth they may have fallen into discouragement and be drifting from God. If someone like that comes to mind or is absent from your small group why not just give them a call. Hearing your voice of concern may serve as a tonic and be just the kind of invitation needed to get them back in fellowship with the Lord and His people. Then again, maybe you can write them on facebook or twitter.

Regardless of how you communicate with those away or inactive in the life of the church this summer I do hope you will remember how you can get in touch with God. His preferred communication tool seems clear (kidding!) from this verse some refer to as God’s phone number—Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

So this summer let’s make sure we don’t forget to “give a call”—to the Lord and others who need to hear from us.

Grateful He answers!
Pastor Scott

Not Sinning Successfully

Charles Spurgeon once said, “God does not allow his children to sin successfully.”
The other Wednesday we dialogued in our Midweek Bible Study at First Baptist Church, Lake Wales about what Spurgeon meant by that quote. The discussion was worthwhile. That discussion then led into a look into David’s sinful acts in 2 Samuel 11. He certainly did not sin successfully.

As I approached the text for that study I asked the Lord to teach me about sin, in general, from David’s example. In other words, more than re-examining the historical narrative that many in attendance would already be familiar with, I wanted to extract lessons from the text that would help me learn about the nature of sin itself. I desired to grasp these lessons so that I could seek to avoid the absolute mess David found himself in. I know it is easy for us to distance ourselves from David’s sin if we can relegate it to a historical event or if we can put his sin in a category beyond us. Of course, the irony is, I think, there is no category of sin beyond us, or at least beyond me. So rather than despise David for his sin, I wanted to identify with him in it. For as a pastor I felt this was the best way I could help our people to be victorious over sin.

Obviously, I do not have time or space to relay to you all the lessons and verses in full form. Nevertheless, I do want to share them with you as readers in outline fashion in two parts. Here is Part I of the lessons I learned about sin from 2 Samuel 11.

The Occasion for the Sin (11:1) – A straightforward reading of verse 1 will show you the occasion for David’s sin. It appears that by not being where he could have, and likely should have been, David left himself vulnerable to sin. Likewise I set myself up to sin when I am not actively practicing spiritual disciplines or fulfilling my responsibilities from the Lord.

The Setting for the sin—temptation. (11:2) – Every sin has a setting. Every sin comes at us initially as a temptation. That is when we must turn away from it. When David arose from his rest on his palace roof and saw Bathsheba bathing in the nude he needed to turn away—or as Joseph did even RUN away! Instead, the progression of sin God presents to us in James 1:14-15 took place in David’s heart and mind. The temptation was not sin, but the lingering gaze was...and it led him more deeply into sin. Yet thinking on this made me realize that one way I can avoid sin is by avoiding those settings that cause desire to “give birth to sin”.

The Turn into sin & away from God (11:3) – As I reflected on all the Lord had done for David up to this point (read chapters 1-10) I realized how sadly and swiftly David’s turn was from the Lord. God had blessed David in wonderful ways, but that did not make David immune to sin. How grievous to realize that my sin is also a turn away from God’s goodness to me.

The willfulness of sin (11:4) – David’s willfulness in his adulterous relationship is obvious. He saw her, gazed upon her, sent for her, and initiated sexual relations with her. He could not blame the circumstance of seeing her or any force outside of himself. Despite his righteousness manifest in many ways before this occasion he now was fully responsible for his sin. He chose it. And any chance of victory over sin in my life and yours comes only once we acknowledge our responsibility for our sin. If we attempt to blame circumstance or others for our sin we are not only self-deceived, but more than likely perpetuating sin by that attitude.

The Unmanageable Nature of Sin (11:5-13) – Wow, isn’t this so true? Once Bathsheba rocks David’s world with the startling news that she is pregnant David has to get busy. He is into damage-control mode. Cleverly, David concocts the plan to bring her husband Uriah back from the battlefield so that it can appear that the child Bathsheba is now carrying seems to be Uriah’s. Uriah, to his credit, ends up showing more resolve and righteousness drunk than David did sober David is trying to manage his sin. He wants to contain it. But David found that it is like trying to scoop up a gallon of water in one handful–too much seeps through your fingers. You cannot manage sin.

A classic example of the unmanageable nature of wrongdoing and sin is the events of the Watergate break-in. Charles Colson in his writings has often mentioned how stunning it was that a small group of intelligent, tough, and determined men could not even keep their wrong-doing suppressed. Despite their mutual commitment to keeping the deeds done secret, the story still leaked out.

No, God does not want us to seek to manage our sin, but instead confess and renounce it.
As Proverbs 28:13 states, He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever renounces them finds mercy.

I am grateful God does not allow me to sin successfully so that I might see the futility and wickedness of them and therefore renounce all sins. I must tell you that I have similarly prayed that straying Christian friends would find no pleasure in their sin. Yes, one of my abiding prayers for those under my care in First Baptist Church is that they would, indeed, never be able to sin successfully.

Hating sin & loving Christ,

Pastor Scott