Mt. Pleasant News Desktop Atricle for June 2015

            “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

(John 13:35 ESV)

           

            As a pastor, I have to wonder from time to time, what kind of message does the world get from the church when the two interact together.  I understand that in this same gospel account that Jesus taught that the world would hate us because it hates Him, but then we find this line in John 13:35.  So the thing that is supposed to mark the church, the thing that is supposed to show the world that we are Jesus’ disciples is our love for one another.  How are we doing?

            If we look at the media, the thing the world seems to get from the church is that it is filled with intolerant, bigoted haters.  Sometimes, when you stand for the truth of Scripture, you’re going to be accused of that.  I can accept that.  But if they were to see us in the church setting, or even church folk interacting with each other out in the world setting, what would they see, what message would they get?

            In a discussion on a similar topic with our Young Adult group the other night, we discussed what genuine love looks like and why genuine love should be something true believers are marked by (based on Romans 12:9).  We talked about phoniness, and the self-seeking ways love is understood in the world, and that believers, having been loved differently by God, are able or at least should be able to show genuine love to others.  All too often, relationships rise and fall based on a “what’s in it for me?” kind of attitude.  Do we love someone else based on how they will treat us in return.  Loving someone means we will have to risk something, it may require “getting dirty” and being inconvenienced along the way.

            A number of years ago, when our families lived closer together, my brother had been to our home a number of times to help with some “fix-it” project I was working on.  I remarked to him at the time about how I felt that I owed him, because he was more often helping me with projects at my house than I was helping him with projects at his house.  He said something pretty profound that has stuck with me through the years.  “Family means we don’t keep track of that.”  What he meant was that because we were brothers, he was not keeping track of how many more times he was helping me than I was helping him.  That’s just what family member should do for one another.

            It seems to me this is more what it should look like in the church.  We show love to one another, not because of what we expect in return, not because of the benefit to us, but because we are family, we are brothers and sisters, children of our heavenly Father.  We stumble and fall, we get it wrong from time to time, we go through difficult times in our lives, but our church family should be one place we can count on being treated with genuine brotherly love because we have been so incredibly loved by our heavenly Father.

           

By His Grace Alone,

Pastor Bruce Jacobsen

Pastor's Desktop Article for May 2015

“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it’.”

Matthew 16:24-25  ESV

            Just recently we held our first church-wide fellowship night, and the devotional passage we looked at was from Matthew 16:24-25, the passage above.  We had some good thoughts related to that passage, what it meant to the disciples gathered there, and what it means for us today.  There is to be a definite humbling of ourselves, and submitting ourselves to Christ in order to truly follow Him.  My thoughts later that night, and into the next morning ran into another line of thinking related to the difficulty man has in submitting himself to anyone else, whether God or man.

            Even in theological circles we argue the validation of our free will against the election or predestination by God.  Some would say that God cannot override man’s free will.  But stop and think for just a moment about what that would mean if it were true.  If God was not sovereign over the will of man, his own creation, would He then truly be sovereign at all.  Could not other aspects of creation overrule the will of God?  Even if one small aspect of God’s creation could overpower the power and authority of God, it would make Him not sovereign, or all powerful, and thus susceptible to other threats on His power.  Would He then have power over the devil who wants to destroy us?  Does He truly have the power to save us?

            The answer to this is that while man has a measure of free will, that free will is completely subject to the power and authority of God.  Think if it this way.  In a family, at least as God has designed the family to function, there are parents, and then if so blessed, there are eventually children.  As those children grow, while they are given room to grow, and an increasing ability to make their own decisions, those children are still subject to the authority of the parents.  We can very easily see the results of what happens when a child is given autonomy, or complete ability to make decisions, and even override the authority of the parents.  Children grow up to have no respect for authority whatsoever, because they’ve never been forced to be subject to any authority.  But when a family operates under the pattern God has established, the children are subject to the parents, but by the time they are nearly adults, they have learned to make wise decisions, they have learned what it is to respect those in authority over them, and can relate in a world where there is always some balance of free-will and submission to some form of authority.

            Autonomy and free-will are not synonymous.  R.C. Sproul writes, in Chosen by God, “If God is sovereign, man cannot possibly be autonomous.  If man is autonomous, God cannot possibly be sovereign.  These would be contradictions…  We are free, but there are limits to our freedom.  The ultimate limit is the sovereignty of God…God is free.  I am free, but God is more free than I am.”

            This is why Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”   A follower of Christ is someone who has willingly submitted themselves to a Sovereign God, accepted his way, and has determined to make pleasing Him the focus of their lives, despite all the influences and attractions the world throws at us.  It is His incredible love for us that motivated Him to save us and set us free from the weight of our sin.  “In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will.”   Eph. 1:5

           

By His Grace Alone,

Pastor Bruce Jacobsen

Pastor's Desktop Article for April 2015

“When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.  They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.”

Revelation 6:9-11 ESV

           

            I am saddened to learn of the brutal killing of nearly 150 Christian college students at Garissa University College in Kenya on Friday, April 3^rd, known to Christians as “Good Friday”.  I cannot understand the kind of hatred those four gunmen must have had toward those they gunned down to treat them as they did, singling out Christians for execution.  I cannot find words to express my sympathy for their family members who must now deal with this tragic loss. 

            While the news saddens me, I am comforted by the promise that these martyred individuals hold a special place in God’s heart and near His throne in heaven, as John writes in Revelation 6.  We can also trust that in His time, and in His way, God will hold accountable those responsible, and not just those who fired the shots, but those who encouraged and even instructed them to do so.

            I am also saddened to see the increasing persecution that Christians are beginning to see in our own country.  When people stand up for their deeply held and Scripturally inspired beliefs, they are called “haters” or “bigots”.  Jesus told us that this would be coming.  In John 15:18-19, He said, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

            While it is a sad day when we hear of such things happening, we should remember that although the world seeks to silence and eradicate the church through these acts of persecution, history records that the reality is that it has the opposite effect.  Christians may move to areas of less persecution, but they take the gospel with them, and bring God glory there, but expanding the borders of the church. 

            Let’s not fail to pray for those who are dealing with such harsh persecution on a regular basis, and for the families of those left behind, that their faith will not waiver, even in the face of such incredible hardship pain and loss.  May their stories be told again and again, and may those stories embolden those who hear to stand firm in their faith.

            In the words of the writer of Hebrews, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”  (Heb. 10:23-25 ESV)

By His Grace Alone,

Pastor Bruce Jacobsen

Pastor's Desktop Article for March 2015

“I thank my God every time I remember you.  In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Phil. 1:3-6  NIV

            I’ve had some opportunity this past week to be very blessed as I’ve reflected on relationships that God has allowed me to have in my life.  It’s almost overwhelming when I stop and consider all the folks that God has brought into my life at various points—people I’ve ministered to and with, family and friends who have supported various aspects of ministry that I’ve been involved with, and those who have added so much to my own life.

            I can relate to Paul as he writes to the church in Philippi about how he thanks God every time he remembers them.  There are so many people in my life who bring that kind of thought to my mind as well as a smile to my face.  As I think of them, and how our paths crossed, I am happy to bring them once again to the Father’s throne, asking Him to bless them and watch over them and for Him to continue to make Himself known to them.

            I thought of those who helped support my recent trip to South Sudan, who offered to pray or helped me to raise the funds needed to go.  I thank God for every one of them.  They were a part of an amazing trip where I saw God at work as we ministered to more than 900 people, making gospel presentations to all of them, and knowing that each was seen by a medical professional to help improve their health in some way.  45 of those who heard the gospel made a profession of faith in Christ.  Many others were renewed in their faith as they recommitted their lives to Christ and returned to church.

            While in South Sudan, I was given an opportunity to speak at a retreat for young men that was going on at the same time while we were there, and in the process of that opportunity to preach, I was able to greet and encourage a man who had been my translator on two previous trips, and another who had been placed as a pastor in a church I had helped to plant.  It was exciting to renew those friendships, and catch up with where they were now in ministry.

            On the long journey home, we landed in Atlanta, (the next to the last stop on the way home) only to learn that our flight had been cancelled and due to the number of weather related flights cancelled, that there were no rooms to be had in the Atlanta area that evening.  I posted an update on Facebook relating our dilemma, and got a response from someone that folks here might remember, Alyson Bomberger, now Alyson Nagle.  She and her husband and family lived in the Atlanta area, and were willing to drive to the airport, pick up myself and the two ladies traveling with me at that point who were also stranded at the airport, host us for the night, and take us back to the airport in the morning.  Who, but God could take a long difficult day of travel and turn it into such a grand blessing?

            Now that I was getting home a day late, and at a time that Nancy would not be available to pick me up, I had no anxiety at all about getting home from the airport, as I knew I would only have to make a call or two to find someone from the church here who could help me get home from the airport.  Sure enough, I was able to reach Glenn, and he gladly met me and brought me home.

            Then as I made my breakfast Friday morning before heading into the office, I listened to Mark Kell preach the message from last Sunday’s service as he filled the pulpit for me.  As I think back on these and many other ways that I have been blessed by connections God has allowed me to make through the years, I can only echo the words of the apostle Paul once again.  “I thank my God every time I remember you…because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”

By His Grace Alone, and with a heart full of gratitude,

Pastor Bruce Jacobsen