Keeping It Real: Our Money

In this lesson, we’re going to look at how God views money. What is the reality of God’s expectations for how treat the money we have? To many of us, our money can become everything. Think about it – when we lose our jobs or financial disaster strikes, we may say, “I’ve lost everything,” but the truth is we haven’t. Yes, we’ve lost things that make us feel secure in our lives, but we have not lost the reality of God’s salvation. We have to remember that our finances are not, in fact, everything.

A Different Priority

In Matthew 6:19, Jesus says:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

If we’re dedicated to accumulating and building up stuff, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. It cannot last. I Timothy 6:5-7 reminds us that we enter the world with nothing and can take nothing with us while criticizing those who look to religion as a financial opportunity. Paul goes on to call greed the root of all evil.

Laying Up Treasure with Treasure

So what should we be doing with our money? How can we lay up treasure in Heaven with the treasures of this world? Paul tells us providing for our family is important in I Timothy 5:8. II Thessalonians 3:6-11 talks about encouraging one another to avoid idleness in providing for our own. Also, Acts 2:42-47 and Acts 4:32 show Christians not just taking care of their own families; they took care of each other too, giving up things we have a hard time imagining to help each other out.

Even beyond using our resources to care for our families and our fellow Christians, we should be looking out for the poor and needy. There are about a hundred passages in the Bible about providing for the poor. Matthew 25:31-46 drives this point home, showing Jesus judging His disciples by the way they gave of themselves to those in need. Matthew 6:1-4, though, talks about our motivation in our generosity; not for praise or attention but simply because it is the right thing to do. Like the rich young ruler, though, we sometimes find this tough because we don’t want to lose “everything.”

Content with God’s Grace

What attitude do we have about our money, our financial security, about our generosity, about our giving? In no part of our lives does God want a portion of our dedication. As Christians, we know we should not be selfish with our time or with our effort, so why do we think it’s okay to be so selfish with our money? We know we are living sacrifices, and that we entirely belong to God, so we have to realize that if we are God’s, then all that we have is also His.

Think about that first sin in the garden, Eve being enticed by the serpent. Satan is promising her more than God has given her. He tells her, “You deserve more,” and he does the same to us today. He entices us away from investing in treasures in Heaven, and he drives us to focus on ourselves instead of others.

We need to think about our spending priorities. We need to search out opportunities to give of ourselves – to the poor, to missionaries, to those with an immediate need – keeping a humble spirit in our giving. And we need to realize that the things of this world are not everything. This is not our reality. God is, and we have to be willing to turn away from the priorities of this world and turn toward those we see in God’s word.

lesson by Ben Lanius

Keeping It Real: A Sober Mind

The Bible contains several passages concerning being sober-minded – I Peter 5:8, I Peter 4:7, Titus 2:2 and 2:6, and I Timothy 3:2 among these. The point is that our thoughts are to be under God’s control as much as our actions. I Peter 1:13 tells us to prepare our minds for action, being sober-minded with our hope in Christ. We are to think and act like God thinks. Our minds have to be where His is.

Matthew 16:21 begins a story of Peter claiming he will stand between Jesus and death, but Jesus rebukes Him fairly strongly, telling Peter his mind is set on the things of this world rather than the things of God. In other words, Peter is thinking like man instead of like God. Jesus then speaks to His apostles about true self-denial, to align our minds and values with God’s.

Paul, in Romans 12:1-2, says we should not act like the world. Instead we should be living sacrifices, not conformed to the world, but transformed through renewing our minds. This is what being sober-minded is about – thinking like God thinks. That is our reality.

Challenges to Sober-Mindedness

What things can impair our judgment? What can take our minds off of our Lord? Part of it comes down to what we put in our minds with television, movies, our music, sites we visit. Along with filling our own minds, we are filling our family’s minds with the same content. We should always be cautious about this because God expects our minds to be under control, and we can become drunk on poor influences through the media we consume.

Also, in Galatians 5:19-21, Paul covers many activities we will fall into when out of control. Among these, Paul discusses physical drunkenness. I Corinthians 5:11 covers similar activities, warning us to even avoid people who live such lifestyles. Ephesians 5:18 instructs us to fill ourselves with the Spirit rather than drunkenness and these other poor qualities. Once we abandon sober-mindedness, it becomes easier and easier to lose all self control.

Maintaining a Sober Mind

This means we may have to avoid attending some parties we might want to go to. This means we may have to block some sites we’ve grown used to visiting. This means we may have to simply turn the television or radio off. In some cases, we may have to ask for help from our church family; Galatians 6:2 reminds us we are responsible for each other, bearing each others' struggles and burdens. We may even need to seek treatment in some cases, depending on the seriousness of our challenges.

I Peter 4 tells us Jesus faced all of the same challenges we do and that it is possible to think like He did, not subjecting to the tyranny of our own desires but subjecting ourselves to the will of God. That life will be one free of the burden of guilt and one with a clear mind. I Peter 3:13-16 reminds us to live with a clear conscious, with thoughts and minds prepared for God’s service at all times. We live sober lives because of what Jesus did for us and because we want to be closer to Him, and we want to be like Him.

lesson by Ben Lanius

Keeping It Real: The Family

God has something much better in store for our lives than anything this world can provide, and we have to live God’s reality to escape the unreality of this world. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at God’s reality in various parts of our lives and what we can do to live up to that standard, and the first area we are going to examine is our family lives. How should we approach our families to keep in line with the reality of God’s word?

God’s Reality for the Family
The family was formed by God even before the entrance of sin into our world. The family was formed during the Creation, and God desires that we keep the covenant we make with our families as in Malachi 2:10. God keeps His promises to us, and He expects us to keep those implicit and spoken promises we make to our earthly families. What, then, are these promises we make or imply as parent to child, as child to parent, as spouse to spouse?

Genesis 2:24 describes a husband and wife as one united individual, the words are “one flesh.” The husband and wife are inseparable parts of each other, living in unity and accord. Malachi 2:15 illustrates they are one to raise up godly offspring, and Ephesians 5:22-33 draws a parallel between Christ’s relationship with the church and a husband’s relationship with his wife – in love, in sacrifice, in concern, in unity. This is what God wants for us, to raise godly families, to live in love, mutual respect, and kindness.

Avoiding Fracturing the Reality
Matthew 5:27 records Jesus warning against giving ourselves over to lust, going to any lengths to avoid letting that consume our lives, and he goes on to say we should never forsake our spouses for these images. We should never tear apart that unity unless unfaithfulness is involved. We should be actively fleeing from those temptations and those attitudes that can deteriorate our families.

We should avoid allowing a temptation to turn into something more. James 1:13-16 warns us against succumbing to the bait Satan dangles in front of us. He has no desire for us to have healthy marriages or to be one with our spouses. When we know we are being tempted, we have the choice to turn away, to not look, to not pursue, to not covet. Realize that these temptations are from the one trying to destroy us.

In our marriages, we cannot be selfish in possessions or intimacy. We should be open to each other. We should communicate with our families about our struggles as well as our strengths. We are not invincible, and we should avoid spending time with those we find attractive, perhaps even avoid rekindling past relationships. We need to know when we are most vulnerable to succumb to temptation and to avoid settings, websites, videos, and other materials that will play upon those vulnerabilities.

The Gift of Family
We cannot let the temptations of this world tear down what we have built as families. Instead, we should never take our wives and husbands for granted. We should be living by the attitudes and the conduct we find in God’s word, and we should be treasuring this gift of family God has given us. This beautiful relationship of family is His reality for us because that is the model for His relationship with us. It is a relationship of nurturing, of unconditional love, and of promises kept.

By caring for our family and preserving it as we should, we make ourselves more like God. We are a special people who God treasures and protects. We should have the same attitude toward our families.

lesson by Ben Lanius

Equipping One Another

Many of the writings of the New Testament were directed to specific groups with strengths and challenges, with hopes and frustrations, with issues and needs unique to themselves. In Ephesians 4:11-16, Paul writes to one of these specific groups – people who, like us, who blended their voices in praise, who gathered around the Lord’s table, who raised up prayers – about how each member of that group serves to build up, strengthen, and perfect the body of Christ. It is reminiscent of Christ’s words to Peter, in Luke 22:31-32, where he calls upon the apostle to strengthen his brothers. We can do this same thing today; we can serve to strengthen and perfect each other as we strive to live like Christ.

Strengthening and Equipping One Another
Acts 18 tells the story of Apollos, a zealous and eloquent preacher of the word, and of Aquila and Priscilla, who take him aside to explain God's word more accurately. Here is a preacher who is strong in the word and in faith, but this couple help perfect him through a better understanding of God’s word. We have no better tool in building one another up than God’s word, and Aquila and Priscilla’s encouragement helped more than Apollos. They helped all who he touched in his ministry. Hebrews 5:12-6:1 calls on us to press on toward perfection, building each other up through God’s word on a daily basis. Each day we do not feed on His word, we grow weaker, and Ephesians 3:14-19 calls on Christ to dwell in us, strengthened in faith, filled with God’s fullness. We accomplish this in study.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls on us to be a city set upon a hill, to let our lights shine, unhidden to those around us. He is talking about our example; He is talking about what others see in us. Paul exhorts a young preacher, in I Timothy 4:12, to be an example of love, faith, speech, conduct, and purity. Likewise, Titus 2 calls on older Christians to set, by their examples, the standard for the younger generation. Romans 12:1-2 encourages to be living sacrifices, examples to one another, transformed from the conduct of this world and conformed to the conduct of Christ. What do my brothers and sisters see in me? What does the world see in me? Our examples can serve to strengthen and perfect one another in Christ’s faith.

Finally, we need to help each other with our armor. We need help when we first learn to clothe ourselves, and so we must help each other with our spiritual raiment. Ephesians 6:10-13 speaks of wearing the armor of God so we may stand against the trials and obstacles of this world, and, if we are spiritually undressed, we need to help clothe each other in hope, in love, in faith, in truth. We need to help prepare each other in the armor of the Lord each and every day.

The Confidence of Perfected Hope
In Hebrews 6:18-20, we read:

…so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

We are strongest when we lift each other up. We are better when we work together. We lead best by example, and we root all of this in the hope we find in God’s word. We are obligated to one another, as were those saints two thousand years ago, to build each other up, to keep each other focused on the hope ahead of us. May God help us all to strengthen and equip each other so we may enter His gates together one day.

lesson by Tim Smelser

Pharisaism and Mercy

Wrapping up the lessons we’re taking from the Pharisees, we want to look at Matthew 9:10-13, where Jesus says to the Pharisees, after they question his association with tax collectors and sinners, “Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” He is quoting from Hosea 6:6 on this occasion, accusing the Pharisees of sacrificing mercy for the sake of their legalistic attitudes. The lesson for us is evident – we must defend the faith, must preserve the old ways, but we must not forsake mercy.

Mercy is kind action motivated by compassion. In learning what God means that He desires mercy more than sacrifice, we must understand it is more than an emotion. It is more than a feeling. We can feel compassion for someone and do nothing about it, but we are merciful when that compassion drives us to do something about it.

The Importance of Mercy
If we would be like our God, we must be merciful, for mercy is a characteristic of our God. Exodus 34:6 records God describing Himself as one merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abundant in love. Psalm 145:8, Joel 2:12-13, Jonah 4:2 – these passages and more explain or demonstrate the mercy shown in our God’s dealings with man. If this is who He is, it is who we should be too.

Furthermore, mercy should be a part of our lives, for it is what we expect God to have for us. Luke 18:13 records a tax collector’s prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” God’s mercy is requested some forty times in the psalms, and we entreat God’s mercy when we repent and lay our sins at His feet. Just as we expect mercy from Him, God expects mercy from us. Romans 12:8 calls on us to be gladly merciful. Luke 6:36 records Jesus saying we should “be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

Hosea 6:6, which Jesus quotes, and Micah 6:6-8, both are in the midst of half-hearted repentance. There is no heart in their appeal for mercy. They face judgment in asking for the mercy they refuse to show, but James 2:13 teaches that mercy triumphs over judgment. Micah 7:18 tells us God’s anger is only for a time and that He pardons iniquity and delights in love. If we have been merciful, we have no fear of an unmerciful judgment. Like we are taught to be forgiving to be forgiven, so we should be merciful to receive mercy.

Our Need to Show Mercy
We need to better show mercy to the lost. Consider the numerous exchanges between the Pharisees and Jesus. Those religious leaders viewed the lost as enemies, as undesirables, as arguments to win, as opportunities to prove our own rightness. When we are not moved by compassion, we show no mercy. Sometimes we act as if the gospel is only for the righteous, and we fail to show mercy to those who need it most.

We also need to be more merciful to new converts. We often expect too much of those new to God’s family. We grow exasperated and impatient for their failure to understand and accept convictions we already hold after years of service. Instead of giving them time to mature, we are unmerciful and unkind. These are the ones who need to be lifted up, to be supported, whose paths need to be cleared.

Finally, we sometimes fail to show mercy to our own Christian family. We listen to gossip about other Christians, and we accept these third and fourth-hand reports as fact. We condemn the very appearance of something without the benefit of the doubt. We do not listen to learn; rather, we listen to ambush. Doing so, we violate Galatians 5:14-15, destroying our strength and hindering God’s work.

Jesus quotes Hosea once more in Matthew 12:7 when the Pharisees criticize Jesus’ disciples for picking grain to eat on the Sabbath. Like them, because we do not understand mercy, we criticize what we do not understand in others. We condemn the innocent. Instead of fighting the devil, we fight one another. If we are to walk uprightly and rightly divide God’s word, we must be a people of mercy.

Hebrews 8:10-12 describes God’s mercy toward our iniquities, and Hebrews 12:16 encourages us that we can receive His mercy by approaching the throne of grace. In doing so, we must also put on mercy, acting in humility, kindness, and loving kindness in all we say and do.

lesson by Tim Smelser

Pharisees and Legalism

In continuing our thoughts on the Pharisees, their intentions, and where they went wrong, we can’t help but touch on the subject of legalism. What does the Bible say about being legalistic, and what does the term really mean? Legalism is defined as the view that good works earn salvation. It is not concerned about believing in a law, obeying God, and adhering to His statutes, but rather legalism about one’s attitude toward that obedience. Legalism concerns the heart.

Law-Abiding Versus Legalism
The Bible does teach that we should believe in God’s law and the importance thereof. Romans 3:25-27 speaks of a law of faith under which New Testament Christians live, and chapter 8:1-2 of the same book also refers to the “law of the Spirit of life.” I Corinthians 9:20-21 has Paul writing that he is under law to Christ, and Hebrews 8:10 reveals that God’s law should be written upon our hearts. Finally, James 2:12 says we are judged by a law of liberty. There is no question in the minds of the New Testament writers that God has a law, and it is not legalistic to believe in the rule of that law.

Furthermore, it is not legalistic to adhere to that law. Matthew 7:21 records Jesus saying that one must obey the Father to please Him. Hebrews 5:7-8 makes reference to Christ Himself being obedient to the Father’s will, saving those who obey Him. James 1:25 calls on us to look into the perfect law of God and then actually obey it.

In John 12:42, Jesus is among people scared to confess belief in Christ, and, in verse 48, He says that His words will judge those who reject Him. II John 9 claims that whoever does not abide in Christ’s teachings does not have God. II Thessalonians 1:7-8 contains perhaps the most severe warning: “…inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” It is not enough to simply acknowledge God. He has a law that must be followed, and it is not legalistic to believe disobedience will separate us from Him.

Legalism Versus Humble Obedience
Legalism is believing that man can be saved apart from God’s grace. The first ten verses of Ephesians 2 addresses the helpless nature from which God saved us, being dead in trespasses, and having been saved through grace. That salvation cannot come from ourselves. It is from God. Romans 3:23-24 reinforce this, that we are all helpless before God and that we are saved by grace through the propitiation of our Lord Christ. He is our mercy seat. To believe we can be saved through anything but God’s kindness, love, and mercy, runs contrary to God’s word.

While we must be obedient servants, we cannot earn salvation through that obedience. We obey because of hope and salvation in Christ. Romans 5:76-11 reminds us of how undeserving we are of Christ’s sacrifice and salvation in Him. While we were enemies, God reconciled us to Him, and nothing we can do could bridge that gap of ourselves. Luke 17:7-10 reminds us that a servant’s work is never done and to view our service to God as no more that that which we should do because of our role as servants. Ephesians 2:8-9 and Titus 3:4-5 remind us that obedience is nothing to glory in, for our service is a response to mercy. Obedience is not about being deserving; it is a grateful response to grace.

Harmonizing Law and Grace
We cannot believe we earn our salvation. We cannot remove grace and mercy from our salvation. All pride is erased, for our good works do not come from ourselves, but they come from the will of God, works for humble servants to gratefully perform. Luke 18:9-14 tells the story of two supplicants before God. Both believe in God’s law and believe it must be obeyed. The difference between the Pharisee and the tax collector is one of attitude. The Pharisee feels God should favor him because of his meritorious works. The tax collector submits humbly.

This then is how we harmonize law and grace. The proper response to law is obedience. The proper response to grace is faith and trust. His law and His grace are inseparable. John 1:17 tells us grace and truth both come from Christ. Acts 14:3 records Paul and Barnabas preaching a law of grace, and chapter 20:24 of the same book quotes Paul speaking of “the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” We are saved by grace, and we must be obedient to His word, trusting wholly in Him and sacrificing all reliance on self in that obedience and in accepting His grace.

lesson by Tim Smelser

Our New Site

We have a new site, and you can find it at southboonechurch.org.

That's the good news. The bad news is that southboonechurch.com, the URL for our original site, is broken beyond belief. What, you want more details? Are you sure? Well here goes…

The Original Host
When I inherited our site about two years ago, I immediately started having problems with our hosting provider. Uploading new content to our FTP server was hit-or-miss at best, but usually problems would resolve themselves after a few attempts. It was a pain at best. At worst, it would keep our site offline for hours at a time. Even fixing a spelling error was stressful.

Related to this problem was the fact that, after many updates, the site would start requiring visitors to enter a username and password for no apparent reason. Without doing so, though, no images or other media would display. Again, re-uploading a couple of times sometimes fixed that problem.

Finally, the site would only work on our host if the index was .asp instead of .html. Weird, right?

As a footnote, there was also the fact that I could never reach our host by phone; they never returned emails; and their site looks like it was last updated in the late 90s. None of that really added to the hair-pulling experience that was updating our site, but it certainly didn't help.

The Last Straw
Friday was it. I went to add two new pages to our site, and I cleaned up the layout for a slightly fresher look. I uploaded the whole thing…and nothing. The old version of the site still loaded. I double-checked that I had renamed the proper .html files to .asp, found one that I had missed, and the site went up with broken links. Okay, that made sense because some extensions changed.

I fixed the links (read: accounted for our host's weirdness), manually deleted old files on our server that could confuse things, went to upload the revisions, and everything went crazy. The server was randomly refusing to replace some files and folders. It kept insisting some folders were there that I had deleted months ago. Visiting the site was prompting user log-ins. This went on for hours, and none of my usual voodoo was working.

Finally, close to midnight, I set up a hosting plan with Dreamhost, set up a new domain (because I'm not sure how I'm actually going to get our old domain away from this particular host) and went live. And that's where we are right now.

Walking Away for a Bit
I'm not even going to try to fix the issues we're having with the old host or get the old domain redirected for a few days. I'm going to put all my energy into this blog and our new site, and I'll get to finishing the migration after I've cooled off a bit. Not much pushes my patience, but I know my blood pressure was rising earlier tonight.

That said, I like our new site. (And I kind of prefer a .org address for our kind of organization anyway.) Go check it out.