Spring Forward Into Eads!

What a glorious day God blessed us with last Saturday!

Over the last 3 1/2 weeks our families at New Life have adopted 6 neighborhoods, have diligently prayed for those neighborhoods, went prayer driving with their families thru those neighborhoods, and last Saturday, went door-to-door to intentionally share the gospel with our neighbors.

It was a sweet moment as 5 teams of missional families gathered together at 10am to spend time praying specific taylor made scriptures for our efforts to share the gospel. Around 10.45 am the soldiers were deployed into Eads and South Arlington to pursue the lost, to share the gospel with those pursued and hopefully one day be able to teach those whom God will save and bring into fellowship with New Life Church.

It was truly a means of God's grace to be a part of such a wonderful moment in the life of our church. Thank you to my pastor friends who teamed up with our families in order to demonstrate to them a true gospel witness and give them encouragement to share the gospel themselves. It was a beautiful time spent in dependence upon the Holy Spirit to give us the utterances of God.

We have one family who will Spring Forward Into their neighborhood this Saturday. Please join us in praying for them as they pursue the lost and share the gospel with the lost.

Next we gather, Lord willing, this Sunday to Celebrate the Resurrection!

The gospel was planted in many lives, for some it was watered, now please pray with us for God to cause the growth!

Thank you Father for blessing Your church!

Let's Not Just Proclaim The Gospel...Let's Live The Gospel!

Dear men,

In light of yesterday's sermon on Living the Gospel....

Over the next two days I would like for each of you, as the spiritual leader of your home, to gather your family and to talk specifically about 1 area, for each person in your family, where confession & repentance needs to take place today!

I want the spiritual leaders of our homes to be intentional about seeking out at least one specific sin that your wife is wrestling with and is having a difficult time overcoming. One specific sin that your kids are wrestling with and are having a difficult time overcoming. For the little ones, just ask them...what is something that you're doing, that you know God doesn't like, and you wish that you could stop doing? Just and example, but you know your children. And then for you (spiritual leader) to open up about one specific sin that you are wrestling with and need to confess and repent. All sin is significant, so don't get me wrong, but let's 'man up' and get real about the real strongholds in our lives.

Men, this is what it means to live the gospel and pastor your family. Every single one of us, sin. And hopefully every single one of us are wrestling with a particular sin, trying to pin it down and leave it there. We must spiritually coach ourselves and our families in confession, repentance, and forgiveness so that they can leave that sin behind and never go back to it again.

It is time that we as a church be aggressive about abiding in Christ as individuals and as a family. This means war...spiritual warfare for your family. Don't let the enemy invade and overtake your family with sin any longer. Fight the good fight of faith and persevere to abide in Christ.

Be doers of the Word and and not hearers only! Don't be like the foolish man who looked at himself in the mirror...saw who he really was and turned away and forgot what he looked like.

A Proclamation So Majestic...BUT MISSED!

"I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus said to him, You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN."

Then the high priest tore his robes, saying, "He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy" ~ Matthew 26.63-65

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"Never had the members of the Sanhedrin heard a proclamation so majestic as that which fell on their ears when Christ declared his Messiahship and warned of his second advent.

But unbelief and prejudice blinded them to the truth."

~ The Cross He Bore (p.45)

Predestination Keeps Perfect Time

Commenting on God's sovereign schedule in the hour of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, Klaas Schilder says,

"He allowed neither the forces above nor the forces below to tamper with the clock of history. He directed the battles of Caesars, the conflicts of kings, the migration of peoples, the world wars, the courses of stars and sun and moon, the change of epochs, and the complex movements of all things in the world in such a way that this hour would come and had to come."

Frederick Leahy adds...

"Yet as he prayed in the very shadow of the cross, Christ saw his death as the means to true glory, and he saw his own glory closely connected with that of his Father. Indeed they merged into one."

~ The Cross He Bore (p.25 & 28)

Encouragement For Sharing The Gospel

God controls how people feel toward us. “I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples” ~ Deuteronomy 2:25

(HT: John Piper Twitter)

Change We Can Believe In!

“It is a growing conviction of mine that no parish can fulfill its true function unless there is at the very center of its leadership life a small community of quietly fanatic, changed and truly converted Christians. The trouble with most parishes is that nobody, including the pastor, is really greatly changed. . . .

We do not want ordinary men. Ordinary men cannot win the brutally pagan life of a city like New York for Christ. We want quiet fanatics.”

John Heuss, Our Christian Vocation (Greenwish, 1955), pages 15-16.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

Spring Forward Into Eads!

Spring Forward Into Eads is our theme for our outreach efforts to Eads this spring. We will also have some in-reach focus as well. We will have two major events that we will make a push for this spring and they are: Celebrate the Resurrection and The Eads BBQ Fest. Listed below are the details of everything going on this spring. We would definitely appreciate your prayers as the Holy Spirit would bring us to your mind.

CELEBRATE THE RESURRECTION

Evangelism Sermon Series: Over the next four weeks Pastor Keith will be preaching a series on evangelism. Learn what Scripture says about why we should share the gospel, what is the gospel, and how we should share the good news of the gospel.

Adopt a neighborhood: We have chosen 6 neighborhoods for our NLC families to pray for.

Prayer Driving: Each NLC family will choose a time to go prayer driving through their adopted neighborhood between March 13th and April 3rd.

Door-to-door Outreach: On March 27th we will Spring Forward Into Eads and go door-to-door in our adopted neighborhoods. Please pray for God to go before us and bear much fruit.

Annie Armstrong Offering: We will be participating in this effort to support our North American Missions, which New Life Church is a part of this effort.

The Cross He Bore: This wonderful book depicts the last days of Christ from the garden to the cross. We were blessed to have read it last year and we will read it again this year starting on Sunday, March 21st. We will take a chapter a day and finish reading the book on Good Friday, April 2nd.


THE EADS BBQ FEST

Eads BBQ Fest: On Saturday, April 10th, NLC will participate in the BBQ festival at the Eads Civic Center. More details to come…

A Tale Of Two Sons

The second book in my recommended reading from our church is The Tale Of Two Sons: The Inside Story Of A Father, His Sons, And A Shocking Murder. This was recommended by wife Stephanie. She has been trying to get me to read fiction for some time now, but I just can't seem to get into it much. So she thought this book would help to facilitate that desire. Thank you Steph for recommending this book, it really made me see the light of the gospel and the glory of Jesus Christ from a fresh angle.

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The Tale of Two Sons was written by John MacArthur. It is an in-depth look at “one of the greatest stories every told—The Prodigal Son, found in Luke 15.11-32.” The book begins by discussing just how superb of a story this is and how many of the most well-known literature works find their origin in the prodigal son. Those who have “expressed admiration for the parable as literature was: William Shakespeare, Garrison Keillor”, and even Charles Dickens who “famously called the parable of the prodigal son the greatest short story ever written.”

The sad truth about the prodigal story is that many have missed the meaning of it. It is placed in the context that is filled with the values and morals of the contemporary atmosphere of the day. Jesus’ meaning must be appreciated in order to understand the significance of the prodigal son. Over the centuries many well intentioned people have taken this exceptional story and have reworked it into their own tale without any regard to Jesus’ central aim for telling it. So what is Jesus’ point and aim?

As many already know this story is about a wayward son, a merciful and generous Father, and a miserable, self righteous elder brother. Each of these characters was a character in real life. One of the story’s main emphases was directed at the elder brother. This elder brother possessed a terrible problem of not being able to celebrate the repentance, return, and restoration of his younger brother by his Father. He was indignant toward his Father. There was never a genuine love for his Father or his younger brother and the celebration of his brother's restoration made it even worse. The elder brother in the story is the Pharisees. MacArthur says,

“This parable is a rebuke of the attitude of the religious leaders who resented His ministry, which was done for the joy of God. Jesus was exposing the error of the Pharisees’ own self-righteous superiority complex by contrasting their contempt for sinners with the spirit of divine compassion that permeated His whole earthly ministry. The ugliness of the Pharisees’ hypocrisy and self righteousness were thus laid open for all to see. This was yet another devastating public humiliation for them.”

The prodigal son represents everyone. He characterizes everyone who comes to their senses and recognizes just how good and wonderful the Father is in spite of their own rebellious nature and deeds. It is about everyone who has come to the “end of their rope” and recognizes that only the Father is at the end of the rope ready to forgive, restore, and then to celebrate that restoration and reconciliation because of their new life in Him.

The Father is Jesus Christ. He is the one that despises the shame of running out to meet the prodigal before he makes his way through the village. He is the one that despises the shame of embracing the prodigal who deserves nothing more than eternal separation. He is the one that despises the shame of forgiving and restoring such a son that is looked upon as worthless in the eyes of the religious rulers…the elder brother.

Overall this was a terrific read on a very well known, but misunderstood, parable of Jesus Christ. It’s almost as if MacArthur pushes the reader further and further under water to discover more and more of the meaning behind each character and nuance of the story. The story boasts of a never before heard of ending and it definitely delivers! One final quote from MacArthur,

“If you can hear the parable of the prodigal son and not identify yourself, you are missing the unspoken point of Jesus’ message. It is a call to repentance, and it applies to prodigals (immoral, outcast sinners) and Pharisees (moral, respectable hypocrites) alike.”

I totally recommend this book. The best price I found was at Christian Book Distributors. Just click on this link A Tale Of Two Sons.

Pray For The Wells!

Please pray for my best friend Brent Wells and His lovely wife Amy. She is six months pregnant and went today to find out whether the baby is a boy or girl and discovered that the baby has died.

This is all I know right now.

Religion And Your Many Words

"If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless." ~James 1.26

"This is usually the hypocrite's sin. Hypocrites, of all people, are least able to bridle their tongue. Those who seem to be religious are the most free in censuring others. They are aware of the guilt of their own spirits and so are most prone to suspect others. Censuring is a trick of the devil, which excuses indignation against their own sins.

Gracious hearts reflect most on themselves. They do not look for things to reprove in others but things to lament in themselves. When a man is aware of his own failings, he is very sympathetic in reflecting on the weaknesses of others: "You who are spiritual should restore him gently" (Galatians 6.1). The quality of many people's religion can be discerned by the intemperateness of their language. Words are the overflow of their wickedness." ~ Thomas Manton

"When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, But he who restrains his lips is wise." ~ Proverbs 10.19

The Abiding Fullness Of Truth In Christ

“Brethren, there is an abiding fullness of truth in Christ; after you have heard it for fifty years, you see more of its fullness than you did at first. Other truths weary the ear.

I will defy any man to hold together a large congregation, year after year, with any other subject but Christ Jesus. He might do it for a time; he might charm the ear with the discoveries of science, or with the beauties of poetry, and his oratory might be of so high an order that he might attract the multitudes who have itching ears, but they would in time turn away and say, “This is no longer to be endured. We know it all.”

~ C.H. Spurgeon