Simple Truths about Heaven

I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t want to go to Heaven, if such a place exists. The question is not, however, whether or not Heaven exists. The question is: Are you prepared? In John 14:1-4 Jesus suggests three truths about Heaven.

Heaven is a place – a real place. Jesus says He is going to a place, not a state of mind. Heaven is not some existence where our disembodied spirits ride clouds and play harps.

This earthy life, this brief journey through the shadowlands, is like the sweet smell of supper. The fragrance promises something good to come, but it is not the promise itself fulfilled. The aroma is only the first suggestion. The promise is not realized until the food meets the palate. The meal is the real.

Heaven is real and immensely substantive. The most exhilarating, satisfying experience in this life is but a foretaste of the life God invites us to enjoy eternally in Heaven. Heaven is where God lives, and where God lives we truly come to life.

Heaven is a prepared place. Jesus says He is preparing a place for us. The places He is preparing are perfectly suited for people to become all that God originally purposed for us to be. Imagine becoming again like Adam before the Fall – real flesh and blood, without sin or encumbrance, free to know God and walk with God and talk with God. Heaven is a place prepared and suited perfectly for that purpose.

Heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. Though God does not want anyone to perish, He requires without exception that any who would enter Heaven be prepared (1 Peter 3:9; John 3:16). How does a person prepare? The only way to prepare for Heaven is to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of your life (John 14:6). Receiving Jesus is as easy as ABC:

A – Admit to God you are a sinner (Romans 3:23).
B – Believe that Jesus is Who He says He is (Romans 10:9-10).
C – Commit your life to know Jesus and to make Him known (James 2:26).

Friend, Heaven is indeed a place, a prepared place for prepared people. I have heard it said that we are prepared to live until we are prepared to die. Are you prepared?

Hurry up and Wait: How God Called Me to FBC

Just over two years ago this month, God confirmed to Donna and me His call for me to pastor this church – a full three months before the Pastor Search Team presented me and you then voted to extend to me that call. Actually, as early as January 2002, God began to draw me to this fellowship, this family of faith. I did not recognize it then. I thought I came to Michigan to become a denominational servant. Today, I know God brought me to Michigan to prepare me to become your pastor. Indulge me. If you will, and follow this timeline with me:

In 2001, The Church Growth Ministries Committee of the Baptist State Convention of Michigan (BSCM) interviewed Donna and me for the position of Associate Team Leader. During a break time, we talked with Pastor Bob Beddingfield. The spiritual markers in our journeys hinted at an intriguing crossroads in our respective ministries.

I moved into the parsonage next door in January 2002. On my first Sunday in Michigan, I attended the morning worship service here. I enjoyed a very friendly conversation with Mark Daves. Though I was missing my family terribly, I recall the strangest feeling that I was right where I was supposed to be, as if I were home.

I think I knew within my first year at the BSCM that God’s purposes in my life probably did not include a career in denominational work. I was where God wanted me for the moment, but He was most assuredly clarifying my call to pastoral ministry in the local church. When Pastor Beddingfield announced his retirement in July 2002, however, I was surprised by a tug on my heart and a whisper in my spirit. I wondered if God might be calling me to this church. I sought God’s will in prayer and sought godly counsel from some of my friends and colleagues. Was it time for me to return to pastoral ministry? God said, “Not yet. I am at work. Wait. Watch. Keep doing what you know until I say otherwise.”

BSCM leaders came alongside First Baptist Church to serve short interim ministries after Pastor Oliver had resigned. I preached here three Sundays in July 2005. Several people asked if I would pray about becoming your pastor. At the time, however, I was already praying about the Team Leader position recently vacated by Mark Donnell. I learned a long time ago to avoid praying about more than one opportunity at a time. That inevitably leads to comparisons, to weighing the pros and cons, to man-centered reasoning that confuses and makes God’s path less clear. Though my heart welcomed the prospect, I could not with integrity pray about the pastorate here while I was seeking God’s will on another matter.

By Christmas 2005, God had made it clear to me that I should not pursue the Team Leader position at the BSCM. I was certain He was preparing to lead us back into pastoral work. God was no longer whispering when He spoke to me in an unexpected “chance” encounter with David Rudd at some meetings in Indianapolis in January 2006. I went from dinner to my hotel room to ask God if He were not only calling me back to pastoral ministry, but also if He were actually calling us to this church. After I prayed, I called Donna and asked her what she thought. We prayed some more. The next morning, I was certain God wanted me to submit my name to the Pastor Search Team.

You need to understand, I only submit my résumé to a committee when I already have a strong sense that God is indeed bringing me to that ministry. So, when I gave my résumé to the Pastor Search Team here, I was already pretty sure God’s will was for me to come here to serve. In mid-March, however, the Lord seemed to test my trust in Him. He made it painfully obvious that I had to withdraw my name from consideration. (The explanation would take too much space here. I love to tell this part of the story, though, so feel free to ask me sometime). Though it pained me to do so, and certainly confused the Pastor Search Team, I had to obey the Lord and withdraw my candidacy.

The next six weeks were agonizing for me. I checked what I knew of God’s will for my life and how I understood Him to have directed me. I was still convinced He was leading me away from the BSCM back into pastoral ministry, but I had all but abandoned what I thought He had said to me about this church. Then, one Monday night in early May, I received a phone call from the Pastor Search Team. Things had changed dramatically. They wondered if I would be interested in reconsidering. They had me at hello! I knew before I hung up the phone that God was calling me to be your pastor!

While you and the Pastor Search Team continued to seek the Lord’s will for a pastor, my prayers in July 2006 were already focused on what God had in mind for us together here. God was telling me He was preparing us, His church, for a transition that would take at least seven years. It would take at least that long to get ready for what He was about to do.

My first Sunday as your pastor was August 20, 2006. I came with a deep conviction that God has brought us together for His purposes – chiefly, to know Him more intimately and to make Him known more intentionally. Now, in June 2008, we are 22 months into what I believe will be at least seven years of transition – a transition that will so align us with God that He will make Himself known to His church and the world with power as He accomplishes His work through us.

Why the walk down Memory Lane? In this week’s Experiencing God study, I recognized a number of key lessons I should have learned from God’s call to bring me here. First, and foremost, God has one great plan for our lives, a plan that will last for eternity. His greatest desire is for a continuing love relationship with you and me that is real and personal. If we will not get in a hurry, if we avoid getting hung up on what we think we are supposed to be or do for Him, if we will focus on the relationship, He will lead us day by day by day. Each day we obey His daily assignments (to know Him, believe Him, love Him, trust Him) prepares us for His Great Assignment for the rest of our lives, including our lives in eternity!

Pastor Rob

Jesus' Kind of Disciples

Pray before you read this, beloved. A strong probability exists that Lord Holy Spirit may reveal Truth to you here, the kind that messes with you. I received a message from Herb Hodges this week. In his email, our friend and teacher wrote:

It is my firm conviction that the command that Jesus gave in the Great Commission to “turn people into disciples” (the only command in His Great Commission) is not to be tampered with, but is to be taken literally. If Jesus had intended to say something else, He had clear language to use in conveying that “something else.” But He avoided other terminology such as “soul-winning” or “church planting” and used a term that includes all activities of the Christian life. I have heard His command in the Great Commission interpreted in several inadequate ways. The only thing that has ever satisfied my heart is to take these words literally and seriously, which means that I will spend my life being His disciple on His terms and seeking qualitatively to build disciples according to His model and His Mandate – that is, on His terms.

The importance of disciple-making to Jesus is revealed by His model, His method, and His mandate, and yet it is very easy for traditional interpretations to bury His emphasis and substitute inferior standards. Each individual Christian is responsible to be a disciple on New Testament terms, and to build other disciples as He commanded. That discipleship is to be standardized by Jesus only, not by the Christian’s dedication, or desires, or limits. That is, no Christian should determine the dimensions or set the limits of His life in Christ; that prerogative belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Let me address you by addressing myself for a few lines. Do I as a Christian have a strategy to reach people who are without Christ? If not, am I willing to repent of my sin of indifference and inactivity? If I have a strategy, would it be more accurately described in terms of the mere duplication of Christians (basically, soul-winning), or in terms of the multiplication of Christians (winning people to Christ, then building them into reproducing disciples who will multiply in an enlarging way through future generations—as Jesus did)? As a committed Christian, am I more in the business of counting people, or more in the business of building people who count?

Just this morning, I was in a group of disciples in which five generations of disciples could be traced from one disciple-making believer, and each one in the succession is continuing to enlarge his network of multiplying disciples. … It is astounding to see what God can do with just one man who agrees with Him about the Strategy He commanded in the Great Commission. What a blessing!

Measure Herb’s comments against those of our Master Himself. Consider Jesus’ own words in our Experiencing God memory verse this week: “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:33, NIV).

My, these are challenging words! Such is the call to follow Jesus. My journey with Jesus this week included these words:

Day 1: If you want to be a disciple of – a follower – of Jesus, you have no choice. You must leave where you are to follow Him. You must make major adjustments in your life to follow God. Until you are ready to make any change necessary to follow and obey what God has said, you will be of little use to God (Experiencing God, pp 157-8).

Personal Prayer Response: O, God! Help me believe. Help me trust You totally. What could I honestly consider more important or valuable than You? Bring me to that place of absolute abandonment to follow You.

Day 2: … the God Who calls you is also the One Who will enable you to do His will (Experiencing God, p 163).

Personal Prayer Response: Lord, Your Word teaches: “For it is God Who is working in you, [enabling you] to will and to act for His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). I am amazed at and grateful for Your activity in our lives.

Day 3: … every step of faith could be interpreted as presumption by others. Only obedience and God’s affirmation of our obedience would reveal that we were doing God’s will (Experiencing God, p 165).

Personal Prayer Response: Dear God, this hurts! I have felt the sting of brothers opposing Your work in me. Help me to love and know and crave the joy of Your affirmation as I obey you rather than be dismayed, distraught, or discouraged when other believers misinterpret my surrender to You and Your ways as willful or selfish.

Day 4: God will reveal His plans and purposes to you, but your obedience will impact [read “cost”] you and others around you. … Not obeying God would be much worse (Experiencing God, p 168).

Personal Prayer Response: Lord, it is one thing for my obedience to cost me. It is a much harder thing when my obedience hurts the people around me, especially my family. Still, I trust You. I know You love me and the people near me. I know Your directions are right. I know You can be trusted to protect and provide for my loved ones.

Day 5: If you walk in a consistent relationship with God’s provision for you – the provision of His Son, His Holy Spirit, and His own presence in your life – then you should never come to a time when you do not know God’s will. Nor should there be a time when you are not enabled to carry out His will (Experiencing God, p 175).

Personal Prayer Response: WOW! My Lord, thank You for pursuing this kind of love relationship with me!

Pastor Rob

Pastor Rob Encounters God

I received a call the other night from a family in need. The hour was already late, and I was nearly finished running the Freshour Family Evening Shuttle for my children’s various practices and games. I was within 30 minutes of closing the world out for the rest of the day, when I would sit back with TV remote in hand and my feet propped up, all set to switch channels from NBA playoffs to NHL playoffs and even to the Tigers just playing awful. After all, as I tend to reason at that time of the day, I had already put in my 10-12 hours. Besides, I could better serve this family with a fresh day when I could focus my attention better on their need … right?

Still, I took the call (as I usually do) and began to pray for God to give me ears to hear and eyes to see (as I have learned I must always do) as the dear lady on the other end of the line began to pour out her heart. Though not members of our church, nor even occasional attenders in our services, apparently their casual connection with me through a couple of weddings made me the closest thing to a family pastor they knew. Right now, they needed a pastor to help them find God’s comfort in the midst of heartache, impending death, and grief.

The dear woman laid out her family’s need. Their daddy was dying. I listened, prayed, and then promised to come by the next day to visit with her and her family. Then I prayed with her on the phone and pledged again to contact her the next day. It was the best I could do. After all, the evening was fading into night, I was still on the last two legs of the family shuttle, and I was tired.

I hung up my cell phone, dropped my son off at the house, and began to pull back out of the driveway to retrieve my daughter. As I drove, I sang along with one of my praise CDs and mulled over my memory verses from Experiencing God. I had not left our subdivision before a still, small voice began hammering my heart, and an encounter with God ensued.

Rob, haven’t you been praying that God would reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways to you in fresh new ways that were clear and certain?

Yes, Lord. I want to recognize You at work around me, like You say You do. I want my dull senses to be rejuvenated and tuned in to Your activity so that I can be a part of what You are doing.

Rob, when you see something going on that only God can do, isn’t that your invitation to join Him?

Well, yes Lord. … What are You getting at, Lord?

Rob, what are the first things you think of that only God can do?

Only God can draw people to Himself and cause people to seek Him. The Bible says that no one comes to Jesus Christ unless the Father draws them (John 6:44). Also, no one is good or righteous on their own. No one seeks after God of their own initiative (Romans 3:10ff).

Rob, didn’t you just get off the phone with a lady who, along with her siblings and their respective families, was looking for God? Does that not sound like something only God can do? Have you not learned and professed to teach your own children that delayed obedience is disobedience?

Excuse me, Lord. I have a phone call to make, … and an appointment to keep.

An hour later, after getting all my kids home, I was on the road again. This time I was praying for God to give me His Word for this family gathered around their dying daddy. The Spirit of Truth reminded me what He inspired the beloved disciple to write in the Good News according to John 14:1-3, Jesus says:

Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also (HCSB).

The Lord directed me to share three simple truths with this dying man and his family. (He has since revealed five anchors for our faith to me from this text, but they will wait until another day). Here’s three truths we can use to share Jesus:

1. Heaven is a place – a real place. Jesus says He is going to a place, not a state of mind. Heaven is not some existence where our disembodied spirits ride clouds and play harps. Heaven is the meal for which this earthly life has been only an aroma, the hint, the foretaste. Heaven is real and immensely substantive. Heaven is where God lives, and where God lives is where we truly come to life.
2. Heaven is a prepared place. Jesus says He is preparing a place for us. The places He is preparing are perfectly suited for people to become all that God originally purposed for us to be. Imagine becoming again like Adam before the Fall – real flesh and blood, without sin or encumbrance, free to know God and walk with God and talk with God. Heaven is a place prepared and suited perfectly for that purpose.
3. Heaven is a prepared place for prepared people. Though God does not want anyone perish, He requires that any who would enter heaven be prepared by repentance and faith in His one and only Son, Jesus (1 Peter 3:9; John 3:16).

I asked my dying friend and his family, “Are you prepared?” I ask you today, “Are you prepared?”

How does a person prepare? The only way to prepare for Heaven is to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of your life (John 14:6). Receiving Jesus is as easy as ABC:

A – Admit to God you are a sinner (Romans 3:23).
B – Believe that Jesus is Who He says He is (Romans 10:9-10).
C – Commit your life to know Jesus and to make Him known (James 2:26).

Friend, Heaven is indeed a place, a prepared place for prepared people. I have heard it said that we are prepared to live until we are prepared to die. Are you prepared?

Pastor Rob

Faith Is the Victory!

Many of our church’s core leadership are currently engaged in their seventh week of Experiencing God. This is a critical juncture in this study and in the life and future of this church. We are at that place where we must decide whether Experiencing God will simply be another study course, another workbook we have filled in, or it will become a new life direction, a process that will fill our lives, indeed, take over our lives, and define our life together as His church.

Frankly, I cannot imagine how anyone who has continued to this point with Experiencing God does not find the realities God is revealing to be nothing less than revolutionary. Each week, each day now, God drives truth deeper into my heart very much as a sledgehammer pounds a stake deep into hard ground. Consider our Scripture memory verse this week:

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).

Consider as well these daily samples from this week’s journey:

Day One: The way you live your life is a testimony of what you believe about God (p 134).

Day Two: When God lets you know what He wants to do through you, it will be something only He can do. What you believe about Him will determine what you do next (p 139).

Day Three: When people see something happen that only God can do, they come to know God (p 142).

Day Four: Jesus rebuked them [His disciples caught in a storm at sea], not for their human tendency to fear but for their failure to recognize His presence, protection, and power (p 149).

Day Five: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26). … Faith without action is dead! (p 150). A faithful servant is one who does what his Master tells him, whatever the outcome may be (p 151).

As a Christ-follower, I yearn to know Jesus more intimately and to make Him known more intentionally. As your pastor, I am acutely aware of my responsibility to God and to you to lead, to perceive what God is up to and champion His activity in our fellowship. I often look out my study window and ask God to reveal Himself, His purposes , and His ways to us. To my dismay, more often than not all I see is piles of dirt. When I persist in prayer, however, and ask God to show me what He is doing and what He wants to do through me and His church, I envision a vibrant community of faith here …

… a church that reaches and touches the lives of hundreds – yes, hundreds, of children and their families,

… a church that brings healing and hope to broken men and women, broken marriages, and broken families,

… a church that stokes a white-hot fire in a new generation of Christ-followers that will burn to the nations,

… a church that makes disciples who make disciples and sends disciple-makers to the ends of the earth,

… and a church that plants new churches in Howell, Hartland, Africa, and beyond.

What would it take to see these visions become reality? Such a God-sized idea requires more people engaged in ministry than we presently have – people who may never have served before, but are willing to try, and people who have given up the notion of “retirement” from active service in church life and who now re-invest themselves for the rest of their days to the advance of God’s purposes. These visions require more energy, more devotion, more passion, more evangelistic zeal, and more biblical disciple-making fervor than we currently display. We need more parking, more space, new buildings, and new uses of existing properties. We must equip and enable new leaders, younger leaders, and older leaders stepping up to support them. Honestly, to set our feet on a path toward God’s purposes in His church requires more money than we can raise ourselves. Essentially, we need more faith in Jesus Christ – Who He is, what He says, and what He can do.

How we respond to these demands reveals what we truly believe about God. When I dare even to entertain the possibilities of what God may be calling us to be or become, I am almost immediately attacked by adversaries. Here is a short list of the thoughts the enemy provokes in me:

Fear – I could never do that. People will laugh at me, ridicule me, or hate me. It’s just too big, too high, too deep for me.

Flaws – I don’t have what it takes. I am not smart enough or strong enough or cool enough or good enough.

Failure – I fall short every day. My psyche or my reputation would never recover if I failed at something so big.

Feelings – I am not comfortable with that. It chases away my calm and makes me feel uneasy.

Frustration – I get so frustrated when things are beyond my control. I don’t need anymore of that in my life right now.

Fraudulence – I am not everything I am cracked up to be. At least for now, I am the only one that knows that, right?

Perhaps you recognize the real problem right away. It is found in a one-letter word prominent in each explanation. I have a big “I” problem – self-centeredness.

Faith, however, is fundamentally Other-centered, God-centered. So, Faith says, “Do not fear. This is not about your flaws, failures, feelings, frustrations, or even the enemy’s accusation that you are a fraud. God’s reputation is at stake, not yours. He knows who and what you are. And He loves you.”

Faith only asks us: “What does your life prove about what you say you believe about God?”

Faith is indeed the victory! (1 John 5:4).

Pastor Rob

Amazing Love

Recently, I heard someone say, “No one anywhere under any circumstances is beyond the reach of the Gospel.” The Bible tells the stories of many people who appeared to be unreachable. One such man was named Saul. Several aspects of Saul’s life suggested he was a man who would never become a Christ-follower.

Saul’s family was wealthy. Wealth often presents a real barrier to the Gospel. People who have a lot of money and material possessions usually do not easily recognize how desperately we all need God.

Saul was highly educated. The Bible warns that knowledge without love tends to make people proud. Highly educated people are subject to the allure of elitist thinking that makes ideas like faith and grace and mercy and submission and servanthood seem simple-minded and archaic.

Saul was also extremely religious. The problem with religion is that it is man-centered and works-oriented. Religious people tend to believe they are good enough to get to heaven. Biblical Christianity is God-centered and grace-oriented. The Bible says that no one is good at all, to say nothing of being good enough for God. That’s why we need grace. That’s why we need Jesus.

Saul was Public Enemy #1 to the early church. He hated Christ-followers with a scary zeal. He was angry, ruthless, and cruel in his fanatical attacks against the early church.

On the way to capture more Christ-followers, Saul was knocked off his high horse by a personal encounter with none other than Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus revealed Himself to Saul. He showed Saul that his fervent religious attacks were actually personal attacks against Jesus Himself. Rather than serving God as he thought, Saul was fighting against God.

Saul came to know what he had done and what he deserved. If anyone ever deserved to be snuffed out under the Divine Thumb, it was Saul. However, far from wrath and death, Jesus extended love and life to Saul. Moreover, Jesus declared that Saul, formerly the murderous tool of Satan, was now God’s chosen instrument!

Saul never got over God’s grace. Everywhere he tried to tell people that no one anywhere under any circumstances is beyond the reach of the Gospel. Here’s a truth I hope we will remember for the rest of our lives, every day of our lives. No one anywhere under any circumstances is beyond the reach of the Gospel!

Pastor Rob

The Hope of the World

Brad Powell pastors a dynamic church just down the road in Plymouth. Under his leadership, the NorthRidge Church has made great strides in the advance of the Kingdom. Brad says, “The church is the hope of the world – when it is working right.” (I know by referencing Brad Powell I may have just lost some readers, but I suppose any successful writer must remember what any successful leader knows intuitively – you choose whom you will lose).

I agree with Pastor Powell. “The church is the hope of the world – when it is working right.” The trouble is most churches do not appear to be working right. Today, 92-94 percent churches are plateaued or dying. That doesn’t sound like prime conditions for hope enterprises, does it?

In a recent message at First Baptist Church, I posed seven questions and seven implications for the church from Jesus’ declarations in Matthew 16:13-19. I thought you might benefit from this outline. It would be worth your time to read the Bible passage before you finish this article. Frankly, a best first practice is always to start with what Jesus says.

1. Who do people say Jesus is? People then and now publish all kinds of ideas about who Jesus of Nazareth is or was. Jesus does not ask His disciples this question in order to get information for Himself. Christ followers need to know and understand who people think Jesus is. This is vital to engage our culture in meaningful and winsome dialogue.

2. Who do we say Jesus is? We need to know and understand Who Jesus actually is. If Jesus is Who He claims to be, this represents quintessential truth, truth upon which eternity hangs for every human being. The living church must tell people Who Jesus Christ is and why it matters. To do so, we must know what, why, and Whom we believe.

3. How do we know Who Jesus is? Jesus says the Father reveals this to us. We cannot get this by our own logic or study or religious practice; although, these are invaluable aids to any truth seeker. Ultimately, knowing Jesus is a gift from God. As we engage the world, then, we must trust God to reveal the Truth more than our ability to win debates.

4. Who does Jesus say Simon, son of Jonah, is? Jesus calls him Peter, literally, “petros,” which means a piece of rock. Then He contrasts Rocky with the “petra,” or great solid rock of Simon’s declaration: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Our confession and conduct should earn us a designation – a nickname, if you will – that reflects our commitment to the Truth.

5. Who does Jesus say we are? Jesus has moved from “Who do people say I am?” to “Who do you say I am?” to “I say you are blessed of God and rock-like” to “I say all who know Me like Peter does will be among My ‘called out ones.’” He calls us His “ekklesia,” His church. To be called out implies purpose, a purpose which originates from the One Who called for the assembly. We are the people of His purpose.

6. What does Jesus pledge to do? We should expect Jesus to do what He promises to do. He guarantees He will build His church. Most church-goers grant mental assent to this notion but then act as if we are responsible to build His church.

7. What do we, His church, do? For our part, Jesus expects us to be and to do what He called us to be and to do.

a. Overpower the gates of Hades

b. Employ the keys of the kingdom – the Gospel witness

i. To bind those already bound in heaven (unbelievers).

ii. To set free those already set free in heaven (believers).

“… I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18).

The problem is that most churches are not working right today. Today, 92-94 percent of churches are plateaued or dying.

Pastor Rob