Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Mind your tongue...

That’s something I’ve heard several times in my life, maybe not exactly that way but something similar. Maybe it was “Boy, you better watch your mouth” – a warning from my father that I was perilously close to danger; as sobering to me as if I were in the Texas bush and heard the tell-tale warning of a rattlesnake which has made my blood run cold hearing it. You know when you hear a rattlesnake, your first instinct ought to be to freeze, figure out where the critter is and back off from it very slowly! As scary as my dad’s warning was when I was a boy, or that old rattle from that viper shook me in my boots, Jesus issued a warning in Matthew 12:36 that ought to cause all of us to freeze and it really ought to scare the living daylights out of us. He said simply: “But I say to you that every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.” Wow! Every idle word? Is He serious? Yes He is. The Lord is going to hold each of us accountable for our speech some day and I shudder to think about all the stupid things I’ve said in my lifetime that I’ll have to answer for with Jesus. Oh how thankful I am for the blood of Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin! Proverbs 21:23 wisely advises “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.” The Apostle James devotes nearly all of chapter 3 of his letter to the difficulty of taming our tongues. We Christians can sometimes be so self righteous thinking we’re not breaking the 10 Commandments but we say pretty much anything and everything we want and sin with a poisonous tongue that spews venom that would make a cobra proud.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that in the last several days, I’ve gotten feedback about some things people have said to others that grieved my heart and if they would grieve my sinful heart that is sometimes calloused to such things, I know it grieves the very heart of God. In one case a lady was having a tough day in her grief and as she’s coming to worship, someone asked her casually how she was doing and she honestly said she was “just leaning on Jesus.” The person she was speaking to simply laughed at her. While that’s not direct speech, the impact of that response spoke volumes to a lady in distress. In another case I was made aware of, a woman who’d been attending church regularly for a lengthy period of time but had yet to join the church was told that if she wasn’t going to join she had no business attending! How in the world can I engage that woman whose no longer attending now?  One of my daughters shared with me several weeks ago of a verbal beating she received from an acquaintance at her church in Texas that really hurt her feelings. Folks, we need to be reminded to mind our tongues. My dad also used to tell me that it was better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.  I think that wisdom might come from Proverbs 17:28 “Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.” The stupidity bug can bite any of us if we’re not carefully minding our tongues.  Sometimes what you’re wanting to say may be correct but the time to say it is not right.  With most people and how they use their tongues, the approach is usually “ready, fire, aim.”

 

Let me encourage you to realize that words have power and words have meaning. What you say, when you say it and how you say it have great impact on people for good or bad. When you come to church or wherever you go; to school, to work, to the gym, the store; people are hurting. Behind the smiles and superficial responses of “I’m fine”, people are really hurting and struggling as they have life and the hardships of it beating on them. I believe if Christians began to mind their tongues, we would see revival break out in short order that would sweep like wild fire when we used our speech to encourage and edify people who are hurting, even if we don’t know they are. We’ve been studying through the Book of Ephesians in worship on Sunday mornings and it addresses this in 4:29 “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. The very next verse in 4:30 warns us not to grieve the Holy Spirit of God in direct context of what we say. (I’ve also heard some questioning of why our Bible Study lessons are now going to be from Ephesians as well this quarter – Hmm, maybe the Lord wants us to study it in depth until we get it right?) Contrary to the children’s’ rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”; words do bring hurt and heartache to people at home, at work, at school and sadly at church as well. I pray that will not be how you use your tongue. I pray that the word of Christ would dwell in you richly in all wisdom (Col.3:16) and that when you uncoil your tongue to speak, what the hearer hears is a soothing balm of Godly wisdom that edifies and builds up their weary soul, that soothes their heartaches like a bottle of aloe vera cools a sunburn or brings healing to a cut. I think I’ll shut up now, and mind my tongue from my little corner of the world to yours…

Ralph Green

Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church

www.calvarybelair.com

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Posted via email from Pastor Ralph

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Lessons from a boat...

Everywhere I’ve lived as an adult, I’ve tried to enjoy the culture and worked to educate myself on the community that I lived in at that time. I’ve looked for local history markers, embraced the local sports teams, and tried to learn how people think in that area. When we were starting a church in New Hampshire, we got ice skates so we could skate in the parking lot of the town post office when they flooded a portion of it and made an ice skating rink. We enrolled our kids in skiing lessons and for six weeks every winter on Friday afternoon, all 7 Greens could be found swooshing down a mountain near Mount Washington. Since I’ve been in Maryland, we’ve taken in the sights, enjoyed the inner harbor on a number of occasions, found the Rocks State Park and I’ve perched myself on the King and Queen seat (but I soon come down as I can tell I make Cheryl nervous hanging out up there). One day in the inner harbor, I saw a number of sailboats and I thought to myself that day I’d like to learn how to sail. I did some checking and found a great sailing school in Havre de Grace. On my vacation last week, I took our daughter Beth and we learned how to sail a 22 foot sailboat. Honestly, I had a ball being on that boat with Beth for 3 days along with our instructor and two other folks learning with us.

I thought about some spiritual applications from that experience of learning to sail. First of all, you can’t just go down to the dock, jump on a sailboat and go. I had to be trained and equipped to do this. I took advantage of a school and the training it offered me to learn this sport. I was excited about getting trained because I wanted to sail. I wondered why more people don’t take advantage of the training classes offered at Calvary to help them be better equipped disciples of Jesus Christ. Could it be we’ve lost our excitement about being disciples? Let me encourage you this fall to sign up for one of our discipleship training classes we’ll offer on Wednesday evenings after worship. You’ll see more about these class topics soon but let me encourage you to take advantage of this training.

I also learned that sailing takes planning ahead and constantly being on the lookout for dangerous situations that can develop quickly. Life is like that also as Satan is constantly laying traps for you but God has given you a manual and an instructor to guide you through life in the Bible and His own Holy Spirit. He’s offered you the safety and security of a church family to help guide you. All of us on that boat were alert and pointed out danger as we saw it as we were all quite literally “in the same boat”. We studied the manual, learned “the rules of the road” for safe boating and how to get out of the way of trouble when it was looming. We started our day in class before heading out on the water to sail. I must spend time in the Bible each morning before I head out as it shows me principles needed to navigate away from the snares of the devil.

I learned it takes a team of at least two people to operate that sailboat but there was the support of the marina crew we needed. We witnessed a number of boats come to the aid of a little Hobie Cat that overturned. People rearranged their plans to get involved for a pressing need. It takes lots of people to serve in the ministries of Calvary. Many of you have said you’ll serve in some way and we’re thankful for that. Some are still considering it but let me encourage you to get involved. If you’re not yet a member, let me encourage you to commit to joining Calvary and get to work with us as there is a pressing need to reach our community for Christ.

To get certified in sailing we had to successfully complete a “man overboard” recovery drill on the water. If we didn’t do it correctly our “victim” (in this case a life jacket) would drown. As we go about our lives, we need to remember people will die and go to hell apart from Jesus Christ and we must do everything we can to share with them the Gospel – God’s provision for salvation through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. You may be the only one who can get to that friend, co-worker or loved one in time with the good news that Jesus made provision for their sin. In order to reach my "victim" in that drill, I was intentional with a proven plan to reach him. Be intentional in your relationships with a proven plan in order to reach them. (Hmm, "becoming a Christian is as simple as ABC..." comes to mind).

One final thought for now at least. I also learned that while I’m able to sail a small boat, I still have much to learn and even though I made mistakes and was downright overwhelmed at times, patient and faithful perseverance pays off in the end. The more I learn as a disciple of Jesus Christ, the more I know there’s more to learn. I know when I make mistakes, the Lord patiently guides me back to the truth and patient, faithful perseverance in walking with God daily will pay off no matter how overwhelmed I am. In the Gospels, I see that Jesus was comfortable in a boat no matter what storm was raging. Even though His disciples were scared and overwhelmed, Jesus brought peace to them. He does that for you and me too when we trust Him by faith no matter the storm is going on in our life. I thought you’d enjoy just a few lessons from a boat, from my little corner of the world to yours…
  Pastor Ralph Green
Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church
  www.calvarybelair.com

Thursday, August 5, 2010

The power of a vision...

This year is another big year in the Green household as we travelled with our youngest daughter and middle child Beth down to tour Liberty University in June and are making plans for her to head off to college this fall. We’re also seeing our oldest son Ralph headed to High School this year as a freshman. Cheryl and I have always had, as most parents do, dreams and hopes for our children in how they will turn out. We’ve been intentional in our parenting to raise them to love Jesus with all they have and to serve Him all of their days. While this is still an active process and we’re at a very different stage at this point in our lives, where we are today in our relationships with all of our children began as a dream, a vision if you will, that burned in our hearts from before they were born. That vision for what we wanted them to become has meant we’ve had to make some tough choices along the way that were not popular with them at the time but the vision helped shape what we said yes or no to. If we felt like what they wanted to do would help them in line with our vision, we said yes. If we felt like it would prevent them from becoming what we envisioned, we said no and stuck to our guns no matter how much whining or belly aching followed. Cheryl and I have parented with the end goal in mind, the vision of what we desire them to be. (This is not to suggest that as parents we always made or make the correct choice!)

As we walked around the vast campus at Liberty University, I could not but help to reflect back 28 years ago when I was a freshman student on that very campus. I remembered going to Thomas Road Baptist Church and hearing Jerry Falwell casting his vision for a world class university that would someday have more than 50,000 students enrolled. I remembered singing the little jingle they had developed “I want that mountain” referring to the mountain in Lynchburg that has become “Liberty Mountain.”  I walked through a huge building that used to be an electronics manufacturing plant which now houses the new Thomas Road Baptist Church  and also the student center. Driving by the huge football stadium now on campus, I had a flashback to being at an LU football game at the old Lynchburg City stadium 28 years ago and to my delight as a freshman student, there was Dr. Falwell standing on top of a concrete dugout in front of a few thousand fans urging them to get fired up to root Liberty on to victory. As I saw the myriad of changes there that have taken place in 28 years, one thing kept coming to my mind, this is all the result of the power of a vision that burned in Dr. Falwell’s soul and caused him to wake up every day and go to work to see that vision fulfilled. By the way, Liberty University now has close to 60,000 students enrolled worldwide including their online students!

You may be sitting there reading this and thinking ”so what Pastor Ralph, what does that have to do with me or Calvary?” Quite frankly, everything. Part of Proverbs 29:18 says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish…” This is true for your life and family personally, and for our church corporately. We must live personally and corporately with the end goal in mind, the vision of what God wants us to be and what we want to be. The people who find joy and contentment in life are those who desire that their hopes and dreams align with God’s dreams for them. People who resist God’s plans for them find themselves to be miserable.  Last night, I met once again with our vision team members. God is drawing us together and He’s speaking to each of us about what the future of Calvary Baptist Church. We are having a great time together just dreaming and asking God what He wants to do here at Calvary, what He wants to do in Harford County, this region and the world. We’re working through our personal devotions and study of God’s Word, exercises, selected books, even some sermon CD’s to help us clarify a fresh vision for Calvary, how we can help people encounter God and experience life change. How can we fulfill our mission statement your staff has identified “Teach my people very well, so they will love me very much and serve me very effectively.” That’s making disciples, that’s fulfilling the Great Commission in the context of Calvary Bel Air Maryland.  When I begin dreaming what God wants to do in us and through us to reach this community, our region and the world; I see much of what God has in mind for us and it fans my flame. It’s exciting and it’s scary but it’s all good because God is the author of it! You’ll be hearing more as we pray and develop a fresh vision we believe God has for us.

I’m thrilled to tell you under Dr. Carter’s leadership, a number of folks from Calvary worked on a “Strategic Action Plan” several years ago. In looking through those notes and that plan, they dreamed with God and much of what they envisioned has been implemented and is already in place. That vision and plan has gotten us to where we are today. Pray for us as a staff, pray for us as a vision team and pray for us as a church family, that we’ll have the courage to embrace God’s vision for Calvary. Maybe 28 years from now, someone will be strolling through Bel Air Maryland and they’ll see the reality of the power of a vision, that transferred from God to my little corner of the world and to yours…

Ralph Green

Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church

www.calvarybelair.com

Subscribe to Pastor Ralph's Blog: http://pastorralphgreen.blogspot.com/  

Follow Me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RalphGreen  

Posted via email from Pastor Ralph