While most of us in this country will celebrate Christmas this month, a small number of our population will celebrate Hanukkah, the remembrance of the miraculous provision of God of oil for the lamp in the Temple during the time of the Maccabees. Each menorah, or candlestick, lit during this time of year has eight candles, one for each of the eight days that the one-day supply of oil lasted, (and usually a ninth candle—one for lighting the rest.)
When I think of Hanukkah three Bible passages arise in my thoughts as well. The first is Philippians 4.19: And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. While God may not choose to meet our needs with a miracle, He is just as rich and powerful as He has always been; He loves His covenant people as much as He always has; and He is as committed to His people as He has always been. He is not just the God of Paul; He is not just “my” God; He is the God of all those who trust in Jesus Christ and will meet the needs of all of them. We need to trust Him, this month and always, and to celebrate His constant provision for us.
Psalm 119.105 also comes to mind as well: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. In the Holy Place, the first room of the Temple, there were three pieces of furniture: the lampstand, the table of showbread, and the altar of incense. While the altar represented the prayers of God’s people, the table and the lamp represented the Word of God, its feeding us and giving us light for our way. God always provides light for our path, always speaks to our walk in Christ through His Word, always directs us in all our ways. We need to be in His Word, this month and always, and to celebrate His constant provision of such direction for us.
Finally, I am reminded that Hanukkah is a celebration of the Jews. In Romans 1.16, Paul says: I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. Most of us, I fear, read through that passage with ignorance, sometimes willful. The Gospel is for the Jew first—first in priority, first in time, first in proclamation, first in… you get the picture. Yet we ignore them—because we don’t know what to do, because we think their time is past and it’s the “time of the Gentiles,” because we just don’t know them, maybe for other reasons, but we ignore them. We need to remember, as did Paul, that they are a blessed people and that if God should call them to faith in Christ through our witness we who already trust in Him will be even more blessed. This month and always, we need to pray for them, evangelize them when we get the opportunity, and thank God that He has included us among those who trust in Christ even though we were not among His ethnic people.
I am not advocating that you celebrate Hanukkah, although you certainly can if you want. I am advocating that, this month and always, you take advantage of opportunities to think of God’s Word and what it says about the world around us and what it does, and then that you respond to God in gratitude for what He has done for us and in obedience to what He calls us to do. Now, you think about that.
– Pastor Jim

NOVEMBER PASTOR’S PONDERINGS

November 1st is All Saints Day. Most Protestants are more familiar with the evening before, known as “All Hallows Eve,” now shortened to “Halloween.” The day is a feast day in the liturgical church, a day of remembrance and veneration of those who died in the faith but not well enough known to have a day dedicated to their own remembrance. A simple internet search on the phrase rewards one with the understanding that the day is a celebration of saints and martyrs both “known and unknown.” And that brings 3 Bible passages and thoughts to mind.
In Acts 17.16ff, Paul was in Athens and saw the idol to the “unknown god.” The people were so afraid that they might have missed a god in their attempt to venerate them all, that they took no chances, building another altar to appease that unidentified god. Some who choose to celebrate feast days to venerated “saints” do so because they want some special grace or merit they think that saint can provide. In Acts 17, Paul makes clear that man’s only hope is in Jesus Christ, and he calls the men of Athens, and us, to repentance and trust in Christ. Belief in anything else is superstition.
Because of such superstition, most Protestants have simply ignored days dedicated to “saints.” In so doing we have missed out on one of the benefits such days afford. Some suggest that All Saints Day is a kind of “Memorial Day” for the Church, a day on which we honor those who gave their lives for the faith once delivered, those who remained faithful even unto death. One of the sad things of our time is that we either ignore or rewrite history. Hebrews 12.1 says “we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” The word “witnesses,” which in the Greek is literally “martyrs,” means those who have testified to the truth. We need to remember those who have gone before and who faithfully held to and taught the Word of God so that we could have it, could know the God Who gave it, and whose lives set examples of how to conduct oneself in a world alien to righteousness and the Gospel and an enemy to Christ.
My final thought has to do with the idea of “saints.” Those naming this day wanted to honor those they thought “special” in some way. So, they called them “saints,” or holy ones. But these were no “super-Christians;” they were, like you and me, ordinary people who had been with Jesus, (see last month’s “Pastor’s Ponderings.”) In nearly all of Paul’s letters he calls the people to whom he writes “saints.” All of us who put our trust in Christ are “saints.” All believers, all Christians, are saints. We have no special merit or grace to pass on to another generation, but we all have a responsibility to set the example before those around us and those to come of what living by grace and for the glory of God in a fallen world looks like.
So this November, and especially the 1st, let me suggest that you affirm your faith in Christ, that you praise Him that He has made you holy, that you commit yourself to being an example of Godliness in this fallen world, and that you commit to learning of and praising God for the examples of those who have gone before. I know, that’s a lot to think about, but you can do it.

– Pastor Jim

October is baseball playoff season. For roughly 3 weeks, the 8 teams who survived the regular season battle it out to become the champions of the World Series. That final 7-game series is where men become heroes or goats, where legends are made. Some of the most memorable and unbelievable moments in sports history occur in that series. And what is really remarkable to me is that the men who get their teams to that series in the first place are not always the heroes of those final 7 games. Men who played the regular season in relative obscurity are often the ones who shine in those crucial moments when the championship is on the line.

Acts 4 was a crucial moment in the life of the early Church and one would have thought that it called for extraordinary talent. Let me set the stage for you: God had just healed a man who had spent his life lame—over 40 years—and the religious leaders of the people arrested the two men God had used to do it. The leaders asked Peter and John where they got the power to perform such a feat. Peter, always impetuous but after the arrest of Jesus and prior to Acts 2 very much afraid, spoke up, giving credit to Jesus Christ and testifying to His being the cornerstone rejected by these same leaders and the only One through Whom salvation could be obtained.

What is fascinating is what follows this statement. Acts 4.13 says: “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” The leaders saw that they were “ordinary men.” Though we think of Peter and John as “Super-Christians,” in their day they were seen as ordinary men—just like you and me. And that’s the point. Jesus picked ordinary people like you and me and used them to turn the world upside down. Ordinary people like you and me were and are the heroes of the crucial moments in Church history. The question is this: what makes heroes of ordinary people?

Note 2 things from the verse and its context. First note that the leaders took note that they—Peter and John—had been with Jesus. You and I, too, can “be with Jesus,” daily. We can spend time in his Word and time on our knees, discovering His will and power for our lives. But the disciples had been with Jesus for 3½ years and did not know the power and courage of Acts 4. What changed?

Verse 8 gives us the answer: “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them…” Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter and John had not only been with Jesus, now they were indwelt and filled with the same Holy Spirit that filled and empowered Jesus, the same Holy Spirit that Paul tells us in Ephesians 5.18 can and will fill us: the idea there is control. Peter was totally surrendered to and controlled by God’s Holy Spirit. Our challenge is to surrender ourselves to and be controlled by that same Holy Spirit.

It’s playoff time, in baseball and the Church. Are you one of the ordinary people God will make a hero? Will you speak up for His glory in His power? Will you be filled with his Holy Spirit? Think about it… and do it!

– Pastor Jim

Whenever I think of July, I always think of the fourth—it’s a Pavlovian response for me. But for the last sixteen years, I haven’t thought of the Fourth of July in quite the same way as I used to. Oh, I still think of the Fourth as the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and I still love the celebrations for our country, but for the Ferguson family it’s gained a whole new meaning—it’s the birthday of our youngest child.

We still celebrate the day like nearly everyone else—we still go to the fireworks every year—but we do it differently than nearly any other family. At the celebration we eat birthday cake and we watch our daughter open her birthday presents. Right there in the middle of everyone else’s whatever-ing, we have a birthday party, not for the United States, for Kelsey.

And that brings two thoughts to mind. The first is that all days that the world celebrates should be different for the believer. I mean, isn’t that part of what Psalm 118.24 is all about—this is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. 1 Corinthians 10.31—whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God—-adds to that the idea of bringing glory to God for everything and in every moment. For us, every day is a celebration of God’s creation, and especially of what God has done for us in Christ. Every day is a celebration of the forgiveness we have received, the new life we enjoy, the power we can employ over temptation and sin. While the world parties to forget, we commemorate, daily, the work of Christ on the cross and the mercies of God that are new every day, (Lamentations 3.22-23.)

The other thought is that while this country celebrates its independence, we, the Fergusons, celebrate family, at least one member of the family. One of the things we have forgotten as a nation is that societies are built on the foundation of the family. Independence is really interdependence and that is learned in the context of a family. When Christ calls us to Himself, he places us in His family, His Body, the Church, (see Ephesians 5.23, where God likens the Body of Christ to marriage and the family.) We all need each other, and we all should celebrate each other. Isn’t that part of what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 12.21-23, when he talks about the eye needing the hand and how we give honor to all parts of the body?

So, this month when you celebrate America’s independence, remember that in Christ you have a greater reason to celebrate, daily, and a greater celebration: the glory of God. And remember that you also are part of a greater, or more extended family, and celebrate them, too. Wow! What a Fourth! You think about that!

– Pastor Jim

June. The month of brides and grooms. Maybe it’s the good weather, maybe it’s just having graduated from school, but for whatever reason, it’s traditionally the month more people choose to get married than any other. For some it means putting off the ceremony until that date arrives. For others, it means hurrying through preparations to get ready for the big event. And that brings three thoughts about weddings to mind.

First, throughout the Bible, God uses the analogy of marriage for the relationship between God and His people. God created marriage so we would understand the relationship He intended for Christ and His Church. And it’s a relationship we should want, and want in such a way that we would not want to put it off to a later date. Weddings seal relationships that began in dating or courting. Weddings make official and binding what before we were “investigating” as a possibility. Salvation, our committing ourselves to putting our trust in Christ, makes official our “investigation,” as it were, of the truth claims of the Gospel. In trusting Christ, in coming to salvation, we enter into that eternal relationship with God in Christ, that relationship we should want now, not later. In fact, the Bible says, “Now is the day of salvation,” (2 Cor. 6.2.) There is absolutely no reason to put off a relationship with Jesus Christ until some other time in life. Don’t neglect it; put your faith in Christ NOW!

Secondly, weddings incur preparations. And for those who really understand what weddings start—marriages—those preparations include whatever it may take to be ready to live together, happily, for the next fifty years or so. At New hope we require premarital counseling to prepare couples to be ready for marriage. Our relationship with Christ is going to incur some preparations, as well, to love Him as we ought. Rev. 19.7 says that at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb in Heaven, the “Bride,” (the Church), “has made herself ready” for her Groom, for Christ. Our preparations for that day mean getting to know Him a whole lot better than we do, spending time with Him daily, learning how to please Him, striving to serve Him. And remember, our preparations are not just for fifty years or so, they’re preparations for eternity!

Finally, weddings are almost always tremendously happy and romantic occasions that don’t always result in tremendously and constantly happy and romantic relationships. The day of our salvation may be one of almost delirious joy, but the road we walk with Christ is tough, strait, and narrow. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble,” (John 16.33.) Not an exciting thing for the groom to say to His bride, but it’s realistic. And, to encourage us, He adds, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”

So, the bottom line is this: let June weddings challenge you to become a part of the Bride of Christ—His Church—and to remind you to prepare for the eternal marriage, tough now, but joyous forever. You think about that.

– Pastor Jim