As an early promotion of our upcoming stepfamily conference I wanted to let you know that Focus on the Family will be airing three radio broadcasts next week, Nov. 15-17 on the topic of becoming a smart stepmom. Laura Petherbridge and Ron Deal are featured in at least two of the broadcasts (there is a panel of stepmoms for the third) and the book is the featured product. Also, next Wed, Nov. 17 she and Ron will doing a live webcast with Focus on the Family.
To help our community as well as church members get excited about our upcoming conference, I want to you let them know about the broadcasts.
To listen to the audio broadcasts, listen online or get info: http://listen.family.org/daily/A000003006.cfm
To watch the live webcast (or watch on demand later): http://www.focusonlinecommunities.com/community/webcasts
To learn more about The Smart Stepfamily conference that is coming to CBF in April, visit www.successfulstepfamilies.com
Start spreading the word of this great upcoming resource for families! Questions are welcome.
--Barry
What a great Sunday this past week! If you missed the “boxed” announcements by Cody Van Scyoc, then you missed a “never seen before at Cornerstone” moment! Be sure to check the web site for the specifics of Operation Christmas Child! (And then be sure to ask someone who was here about the shoe-box announcements!)
I’ve received a several questions from last Sunday’s message (titled: "I Lived a REAL Horror Story!") that I have answered personally and wanted to pass on for all who may have similar questions. Feel free to add to the questions or discussion below. Thanks to those who asked these because in the words of your first grade teacher, “there are no bad questions!”
Q1: Was Pharaoh predestined to be a unbeliever? "But I have raised you up for this very purpose,..." did he stand much of a chance, if demonstrating this lesson was God's purpose for his existence?
A1: This issue is directly related to the issue in Dave’s message from a week ago: Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart? God?(As is indicated 10 times in early Exodus) or Pharaoh himself (as is indicated 9 times in early Exodus). The answer we are left with is “yes”. God hardened it and Pharaoh hardened his own heart and how those two co-exist is one of the mysteries that is unrevealed to us for now.
“That the Bible teaches the doctrine of election/predestination (henceforth, election) is not at issue for the Christian. All Christians believe in election. After all, it is in the Bible! The question is not, Does the Bible teach election? but, What does election mean?
There are two primary positions with regard to the doctrine of election:
Conditional Election: God’s election is based on the foreseen faith of the individual. God “elects” people because they first choose him. (There are other variations, but the essence is the same.)
Unconditional Election: God’s election is not based on anything in the individual, but on God’s mysterious sovereign choice. This choice is not without reason but is unconditioned with regard to any foreseen goodness in the elect.”
For centuries, Christians have taken one side or the other on this question. As Dave pointed out last week, there are problems with both views if either is taken in the extreme.
A problem believing only in conditional election is that it seems to leave God out of the equation. According the strict adherents of this view, He simply set up the terms of the deal and individuals either accept it or not and that choice is totally up to us and every person ever created has the exact same ability and choice. People were all created with the same opportunity to believe, the difference being what each one does with that opportunity. With only this perspective, we can end up on one end of the spectrum which is “open theism”, the idea that the future is totally dependent, and only dependent, on mankind’s choices. In this extreme, we are either the all-stars and think way too much of ourselves and our choices, or we are totally depressed because we can’t do anything good enough to change ourselves or the world!
The problem with unconditional election is that is seems to leave any individual choice out of the equation. According to this view taken in its extreme everything about the world and the individuals who inhabit it has been predetermined before the world began. Therefore everyone who believes does so not because they made any choice to believe, but only and solely because God chose them. Conversely, those who don’t believe (i.e. Pharaoh) were never given any opportunity to believe, never had and never will have any ability to believe. People were created to believe and be saved or they were created to not believe and be condemned, neither of which has anything to do with their own choice. This can lead to “fatalism” which means the belief that nothing any of us does matters at all because God has predetermined it all and He’s responsible, not us. Those on this extreme can get apathetic about everything and just say “It doesn't matter what I think or do because God's will is being played out and I have no choice or influence on anything”, or very prideful because they have been chosen (and therefore must be more loved by God) and others weren’t.
Q2: Here's a question born from Sunday's message from Exodus 9:6 from "The Plague on Livestock":
6 And the next day the LORD did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. and 9:9-10 from "The Plague of Boils": 9 It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land." 10 So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on men and animals.
and 9:20-21, 25-26 from "The Plague of Hail":20 Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside. 21 But those who ignored the word of the LORD left their slaves and livestock in the field. 25 Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields—both men and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. 26 The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.
If "All the livestock of the Egyptians died", in the "Plague of the Livestock", then how is it that more animals died in the next two plagues? The notes in the NIV Application Bible asks the same question of verses 20, 21 and proposes an answer "If all the Egyptian livestock were killed in the earlier plague, how could the slaves of Pharaoh put their cattle inside? The answer is probably that the earlier plague killed all the animals in the fields, but not those in the shelters."
But this doesn't seem to be consistent with the word "All" in verse 6. I wondered if maybe the Egyptians confiscated at least some, maybe most, but probably not all of the Israelites livestock after "The Plague on Livestock" and before "The Plague of Boils"?
A2: I have come across 3 possible answers to what seems like a contradiction in terms related to livestock left alive after Exodus 9:6. (Yours, that they may have confiscated some from the Israelites is now 4!) They are:
Time – The plagues probably took at least 9 months from the first to the last, plenty of time for a wealthy country to replenish their livestock (only to have the Lord decimate them once again in another plague.)
2. The Hebrew word kol (“all”) shouldn’t be taken to mean every single one, but rather as a from of “all over the place” or “all sorts of”. (See commentary notes below). So the livestock not in stables at the time died, those stabled for weather or other reasons were unaffected.
3. "Livestock” is different and less broad than the later referenced “beasts”. (See commentary quote below.)
I really appreciate the detailed reading of the text from last Sunday! What a great example to us all to meticulously comb through God’s word for all that He would teach us through it!!
Barry
Notes from selected commentaries on question Q2:
“This apparent contradiction is not due to inconsistency among the plague accounts, multiple contradictory sources for them, or any similar cause. It is due simply to the fact that the Hebrew word kol, usually translated “all,” can mean “all sorts of”88 or “from all over” or “all over the place.”89 In this verse the better translation of the full expression would be “all sorts of Egyptian livestock died” or “Egyptian livestock died all over the place.” - [1] Douglas K. Stuart, vol. 2, Exodus, electronic ed., Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2007), 223-24.
“There is no need to press the expression “all the livestock” (v.6) to mean each and every one and then find there are no Egyptian cattle left for the seventh plague (vv.19, 25), for it is already plain in v.3 that the plague affected only those cattle “in the field.” Normally the Egyptian cattle were stabled from May to December inclusive, during the flood and the drying-off periods when the pastures were waterlogged. Thus some of the cattle were already being turned out to pasture down south; so it must have been sometime in the month of January.” - Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "Exodus" In , in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 2: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990), 357.
“The speculation that this sixth mighty act is somehow a variant account of the one preceding it and the question whether there would be any animals left outside Goshen for this infection (cf. Rylaarsdam, “Exodus,” IB 1:903; Hyatt, 115) are likewise beside the point at hand. Even the terminology employed in the two accounts, מקנה “livestock” (9:3–4, 6–7) and בהמה “beast” (vv 9–10) denies a discrepancy; the former refers to domesticated grazing animals of the species listed in 9:3, the latter to beasts of all kinds (BDB, 96–97). But more important still is the cumulative sequence of theological assertion. The point of these narratives, both singly and in compilation, is not animal husbandry and stylistic verisimilitude, but their declaration of the Is-ness of Yahweh.” - John I. Durham, vol. 3, Word Biblical Commentary : Exodus, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002), 122.
88 That כול/כל can mean “all sorts of” or the like is well known. E.g., it is usually translated either “all sorts of” or “all kinds of” in modern Eng. translations in the following sampling of contexts from early and late biblical Hebrew: Gen 4:22; 24:10; 40:17; Exod 35:22; Lev 19:23; Deut 6:11; 2 Kgs 8:9; 1 Chr 18:10; 22:15; 29:2; 2 Chr 2:14; 32:27–28; Neh 9:25; 13:15; 13:20; Ps 45:13; Prov 1:13; Eccl 2:5; Ezek 8:10; 27:22; 39:20; 47:12. The semantic range of nt Gk. πας is similar: more often than not it means “all,” but in a wide variety of contexts it means “all sorts of” or “all kinds of,” one of the most important being in 1 Tim 6:10, which does not say that the love of money is the root of all evil but the root of all sorts of evil. Plenty of evil has nothing to do with the love of money; but there are few evils that people will not resort to if the money for doing them is great enough.
89 So commonly in the Hb. expression “all Israel,” which in many contexts refers only to representatives (e.g., 1 Sam 12:1; 1 Kgs 18:19; 1 Chr 11:1; 15:3) or soldiers (Josh 8:24) or leaders from all segments of the nation (2 Chr 1:2) or the like, not literally to “every single Israelite.”
IB The Interpreter’s Bible, ed. G. A. Buttrick (12 vols.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1951-57)
BDB F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs (eds.), Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford/New York: Clarendon/OUP, 1907; reprints with corrections, 1955; corrected ed., 1962)
Faith in God when facing trouble is bringing all of your God-given talents and resources to bear and then trusting God for the result.
Sunday, Aug 1, 2010
“How to Get Rich and Have Everything!”
7th in a Series
LIFE: Upside Down
Teaching Pastor Barry Wingfield
Remember how you used to define what “rich” was?
2 Cor 6:10(b) “poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”[1]
The one word, sure fire, can’t miss, 100% guaranteed, full proof way to get rich quick and have everything: POVERTY
2 Cor 8:1-9
How the poverty of Christ equals riches for you:
1. The gospel is free to you, but it was bought at the highest price.
1 Cor 6:20; 7:23; Acts 20:28; Rom 8:32
Too often we treat the grace God has poured out on us like a child who goes to a famous art museum and is handed a what he thought was a copy of an original masterpiece but which was actually the priceless original itself, who within 5 minutes goes from admiring it, to adding to it with crayons, and then to leaving it under his bed with other trash and forgotten toys.
2. You can’t buy salvation, but it will cost you everything.
Philippians 3:7-8
Matthew 13:44-46
Jesus isn’t teaching that it can be bought, but rather the new attitude toward life that is lived out by the one who recognizes its value.
Again, too many Christians tend to live like they bought the pearl on ebay at an online auction for .01 because no one else bid on it! “Hey, look! I got the deal of the century! A valuable pearl, one I know I could probably never afford to buy in a store, but I got it for a steal, and you know the best thing about it? I didn’t have to hawk all my stuff to get it!”
(If it doesn’t, then it’s cheap grace.)
Our family visited the first and longest running Nazi concentration camp from WWII this summer. It was a very sobering experience that reminds everyone who visits such a place of the depth of evil that exists in the human race. Yet one concentration camp victim would be executed, not because he was Jewish, not because he was a communist, not because he was sick or had physical malformations.
What’s so ironic about this 20th century theologian who wrote about cheap grace is that his words were published in 1937 and just 8 years later, in 1945, he would demonstrate to the world exactly what costly grace was all about when he spent his last days in a Nazi concentration camp and experienced a martyr’s death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer earned his seminary doctorate in his early 20’s and then spent the next several years travelling the world studying the church. He studied in the US in New York and then traveled through the deep south visiting mainly in black churches with some of his closest American friends who were African American themselves. He also studied the Catholic Church in Mexico and Rome (including a visit with the Pope), and took pastor positions in Spain, London, and Berlin, all of which occurred before WWII began. Before he, or anyone else, had any idea that he would die a martyr’s death for his convictions in a Nazi prison camp by hanging. As early as 1936, Bonhoeffer was distraught over what he saw Christians around him buying into. They were living lives on the basis of what he saw as “cheap grace”: (The Cost of Discipleship, pg 44-47).
Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian 'conception' of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins.... In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. 45-46
Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. 'All for sin could not atone.' Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin....
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. 47
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man’ will gladly go and self all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus. It comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
3. To die rich you have to live poor.
To one claiming to seek the eternal life found through Christ, we find a very challenging response from Jesus.
Matthew 19:16-22
Lights fade to black at the slowing of the reading – immediately play VIDEO at the end of verse 22.
The lie that the rich young man bought was that to die rich, you have to live rich! NOT TRUE Jesus says. In fact, if you are so bent on living rich in this life that you’re unwilling to live poor, then you’ll NEVER be truly rich!!
I think a valid conclusion we can draw from Paul’s teaching and example as well as from Jesus own words is that…
Living poor is a mark of a Jesus follower.
(It has nothing to do with how much money you have, but it has everything to do with what you do with your money and other blessings.)
“Ok, so how, exactly, does one ‘live poor’?”
Paul wants the church in Corinth to know what living poor looks like for them as they live for Christ.
First he challenges them in 8:10-11.
Then he tells them what is really going on with his request in 9:6-15.
Living poor means being rich in
1. Good deeds (vs. 8)
a. Everything supplied to us from God has been given by him so that we would have what we need to overflow with service to Him. Ever wonder why God has blessed you with so much? Now you know.
2. Generosity (vs. 11)
a. Thankfulness to God is directly proportionate to the generosity you exhibit. Not only will others give thanks to God for what he’s has provided through you, but I also believe that you will never be truly thankful for any blessing that you’re unwilling to generously share with others. Don’t have money to give? Do you have food, clothing, or shelter to share with a brother or sister in need? With a stranger in need? Know any Samaritans traveling your path to Jericho?
3. Giving Life (vs. 15, 6:10)
a. Paul’s whole reason for living poor wasn’t for bragging rights, but for the opportunity to be a vessel, a tool, a clay pot in the master’s hands so that the riches of heaven could be poured out on those he was sent to present God’s indescribable gift to. You and I have been given so that through us the riches of heaven might be given.
Ever hear a church described as a “rich church?” What is usually meant by this is the size of their property, how many seats in their worship center, how ornate the fixtures, the blue book value on the average car in their parking lot.
I’ll confess, and I think every honest pastor would, there are some weak moments when I desire our church to be rich in those ways.
And then God’s spirit corrects me in one way or another and reminds me that a church’s wealth has nothing to do with any of these things. He reminds me that a church of 20 that is rich in good deeds, generosity, and the giving of spiritual riches can be wealthier than a church of 20 thousand that lacks these things.
Church, if God grows us from 500 to 1000 in 2 months and quadruples our budget and building, gives us 20 teaching pastors and a staff of 100, our wealth will remain solely fixed on our daily commitment to living poor because of our wonderful, indescribable, invaluable riches we have in Christ.
The example of the gospel itself is the giving of life through the giving up of life. We have been given life through Jesus life that was given up for us.
