Pray For Your church: 31 day Challenge—Day Thirty

Mike Leake

Day 30: That we would be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16)

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16 ESV)

Hidden. Trampled. Thrown out. Those are words which describe a useless church. When we become silent in times when we should be proclaiming truth we aren’t shining our light before others. In the same way when we are noisy when we ought to be silent we aren’t seasoning the world with grace. Christ calls his bride to be salt and light in the earth. We are to fight for their good and not for our rights. Salt isn’t meant to be enjoyed by itself—it seasons something else. Likewise light is meant to be a blessing to others—to push back the darkness. May we as the church be spent for the good of others.

Father, we thank you that through your power we have seen light and tasted the salt of grace. We thank you for those you brought into our lives who shined the light of Jesus into the darkness of our hearts. We thank you for allowing us to hear your Word through jars of clay. Now we ask, dear Lord, that you would cause us to be shining vessels as well. May your light shine through us. Give us wisdom to know when to speak and when to be silent. Might we, as your Son, be full of grace and truth. Amen.

Your Last Sermon

Mike Leake

I read a quote awhile back that really struck me. I can’t remember where I found it, though I’ve a suspicion that its from one of the Puritans.

“We all, one day, will hear our last sermon”.

I also remember that the Puritan, Jeremiah Burroughs, was fond of saying that folks listening to his sermon were either nearer or further from hell upon their response to the Word of God.

This preaching—and listening to the preached Word—isn’t a trifling thing. Our task, as Richard Baxter so aptly put it, is “to preach as a dying man to dying men.” It’s true that we will all, one day, hear our last sermon—and its also true that we will one day preach our last sermon.

This sobering truth was brought to my mind again a couple weeks ago in the aftermath of the Robert Dear incident at Planned Parenthood. One of the police officers that was murdered by Dear was a pro-life pastor who had stormed into Planned Parenthood to protect the employees. The Sunday before he had closed out his last sermon with these words:

Lord, You are tremendously patient with us, and in that patience we can become inattentive, thinking that somehow your grace, patience and mercy is something for us to consider, as a default position where there is not judgment or punishment for sin. Lord, let us view grace as what it truly is: a costly tremendous gift that cost You everything, that we might be in relationship with You. And because of the high price of that gift, that we might make You and the Gospel the forefront of our minds as the most valuable thing we possess, as we sang this morning, “You can have all this world but give me Jesus!” Give us You! So Lord as we sing I ask that our hearts would be attentive towards You, that we would consider You and what You’ve done, and that we wouldn’t just leave it here, but as we go about the day…that this would be the conversation that’s on our lips. that this would be what we post on Facebook, that this would be at the forefront of our Bible studies, that we would read attentively recognizing what a precious gift You are! In Jesus name, Amen. (You can see notes and a link to the whole sermon here)

As he stepped down from the pulpit I doubt he figured it was his last sermon. I just finished preaching yesterday and I’m already preparing for this next Sunday’s sermon. That’s just the routine of things. But as I’m doing that I’m also praying that each week won’t be routine. I want to preach each Sunday as if it could be the last sermon I preach or the last sermon that some folks might hear.

This means that we preachers mustn’t make the applause of men even a bit of our aim. I’m reminded of the words of another Puritan, Thomas Boston, when he said this:

And when the applause is obtained, what do you have? –A vain empty puff of wind. They think much of you, you think much of yourself and in the meantime God thinks nothing of You.

I want to, then, preach every sermon as if it is my last and measure it based upon whether or not I’d be found faithful if I stood before God the second I descended from the pulpit. Likewise, when I come to hear sermons I want to weigh them and apply them in such a way that if this were my last sermon I heard it’d be pleasing to the Lord in the way that I applied it to my life.

What you do on Sunday morning at church, as you sit under the Word (or bring the Word) isn’t a small thing. It could be your last meal. May we live and preach with this blood-earnestness.

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Photo source: here

Today in Blogworld 12.07.15

Mike Leake

Three Emotions Pastors Bear Which Are Unknown to Most Congregants

Yep.

Can I Drag That into Church

I really appreciated this reflection inspired by tracking snow into the church.

What the Golden Rule Does Not Mean

As is our tendency, we’ve somehow made the golden rule about us.

The Most Important Word I Learned in Seminary

I love his point—I also love the little bit of nerd talk in this one about Tolkien.

Wonderful. I need one of these, but one that I can drive too:

Pray For Your church: 31 Day Challenge—Day Twenty-Nine

Mike Leake

Day 29: That we would fix our eyes on Jesus

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2 ESV)

What is your church all about? I imagine we could have several good answers to that question. We are all about missions. We are all about training leaders. We are all about love. We are all about grace. But if we really stop and think about the picture that God has given to us of the churches relationship to Christ we’d have to admit that none of these are truly what we are all about. To be a faithful bride we should really be all about our husband. I’m not intending to cheapen our relationship with Christ by recalling images of shallow puppy love. And yet, shouldn’t the church be smitten with Christ in such a way that we are all about Him? Shouldn’t our eyes be fixed upon our Savior much the way a newlywed couple can’t seem to take their eyes off one another?

What would change in our churches if we truly went about fixing our eyes upon Him? I bet we’d still have missions and discipleship and grace and love and all of those precious things. But we’d be passionate about them because we first saw them in the eyes of our Savior. We’d be less like a shamed husband buying guilty flowers for his wife and more like the smitten husband who can’t keep from buying flowers because of His affection for her.

Father, you have given us everything we need in Jesus. As the old hymn says help us to turn our eyes upon Jesus. Help us Lord to fix our eyes there. Our hearts are so jaded and corrupt that we can look upon the absolute beauty and radiance of Jesus and somehow want to look away. Help us to see Our Lord as he truly is. Chain our wandering hearts to thee. Amen.