Please pray for CJ Mahaney and the SGM Leaders conference.

On Wednesday morning, CJ Mahaney spoke at length about his time away as leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries. He addressed the Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference, spending considerable time outlining many regrets in his own leadership. He also outlined three deficiencies in Sovereign Grace–a misapplied doctrine of sin, inconsistencies in pastoral evaluation, and polity.

The first part of his remarks was spent addressing the growing criticism of his leadership and several decisions that he had made over the last four months that he regrets. Although there were decisions he does feel were in the best interest of Covenant Life and Sovereign Grace, he described the inner anguish he felt as a result of his own actions: “My heart aches and breaks because I want to serve you, I don’t want to create more work for you. So I pray that my sorrow and sadness is evident to you. I want to open my heart to you. I feel like it’s been four months of mourning for the people I love the most.”

After outlining various personal and corporate failures, he ended by pointing out areas of strength in Sovereign Grace. Having spent more than an hour outlining weakness and failure, he ended by saying “Do we have areas of deficiencies? Yes, but these things do not define us.”

You can listen to his comments about the deficiencies in Sovereign Grace and his concluding comments here. A portion of video from his evening message has also been posted on You Tube below.

ORIGINAL POST: It’s no secret. Sovereign Grace is at a pivotal moment in its young history. In the grand scheme of things, considering the entirety of church history, our lives are a blip on the radar screen. But for me personally–having grown up in the movement, and owing it the entirety of my spiritual development and whatever maturity I currently possess–the leadership conference currently underway is a milestone moment in my history.

Sovereign Grace has been in a season of turmoil, upheaval and reconciliation for the past number of years. Mistakes and sins of the past are being discussed, confessed and repented of in an unprecedented way. For example, my dad just shared a great testimony of redemption with the church he started in Fairfax. It has intensified recently when we found out that CJ and Larry Tomczak had been reconciled after many years of estrangement. My prayer is that the same thing will happen with Brent Detwiler, a man I deeply love and respect.

Please be in prayer for the leadership conference. We need God’s help and wisdom like never before. I do plan on sharing updates thoughts in real time here if you’re interested. The pivotal meetings seem to be 11:30 am tomorrow in our family meeting, and when CJ’s shares at 7PM.

UPDATE: 9:54 am – Dave Harvey is speaking on “Walking Forward Together” from Ephesians 4:1-3. He said, “the burden behind this message is not ‘What message will unite us right now? It’s too soon for that. The question is how do we walk forward together in the face of unaddressed questions? When things are still in process? When the path is not entirely clear?”

Here are a couple of clips from the Skype stream: Clip 1 | Clip 2

UPDATE: 12:30PM: CJ Mahaney shared. He said a number of things about this past season, including areas of personal sin and areas of deficiencies for Sovereign Grace. He listed three of those areas Sovereign Grace needs to address.

1. Doctrine of sin
2. Pastoral Evaluation
3. Polity

Here is how he expounded upon the deficiencies of pastoral evaluation: “A pastor shouldn’t be blindsided by evaluation. There are pastors who feel they have been inappropriately evaluated and even mistreated in Sovereign Grace. I have pursued a number of these situations. Each situation is very different. Once we have a pastor in place in Sovereign Grace, we want to do all we can to keep that pastor in place. We do not want our pastors fearing that in some way we are looking for reasons to disqualify them. We want to do all we can for our pastors so they can have lengthy, fruitful service.”

He summarized by saying, “Do we have areas of deficiencies? Yes, but these things do not define us.” He commended the pastors and thanked them for how they have served SGM through this season.

We also announced that my year of bi-vocational ministry (working as a pastor and for ProVisionIT) would be coming to an end. I will be working full time in secular employment, with some promising possibility to actually work in politics for the year. Here are the thoughts I shared to the church after Danny made the announcement about me.

——————————————-

After what Danny just said, you may have a number of thoughts or questions, which I can’t answer fully right now. We will have some more extended time at a later date, but I wanted to communicate a couple things right up front:

First, let me share why I felt the need to do this—that is, end the bi-vocational work:

The original decision to work bi-vocationally was in my mind a short-term one. The hope was that splitting my time between the church and ProVision would relieve some of the financial pressure from the church for 6-8 months or so until the economy turned around and enabled me to come back on as a full-time pastor. I never viewed it as a long-term arrangement.

However, as we’ve continued to watch things financially, it doesn’t seem as though we’re any closer the day when I might transition back in. So, while the decision in front of me last summer was whether I wanted to enter a short-term bi-vocational ministry (a question I eagerly answered “yes” to then, and would probably say “yes” to again), the decision in front of me now is do I want to enter a long-term bi-vocational situation, and I don’t feel as though that’s the best thing for the church or Rebekah and the boys.

The reality of pastoral ministry is that it’s easier to cut back your time than it is to escape the weight of responsibility. I was only working on Deluge for 1-2 days a week, but it was weighing on me all the time. That weight has an effect on thought, energy and focus. There were days when I felt like I wasn’t able to give Deluge the time it needed, nor Josh the time he needed, nor Rebekah and the boys the time they need. This isn’t the kind of arrangement that I think is going to be the most beneficial for anyone long term.

Paradoxically, there are some ways in which Deluge and Metro Youth have really grown and changed and made a lot of progress over the last year, and yet I feel that in order for it to take the next step the ministry needs someone dedicated to it more than my time allows me to be.

I am thrilled for Deluge and Metro Youth to have Aron leading it with Chris. I trust you hear my heart in that—I want what’s best for Deluge and Metro Youth.

Secondly, I just wanted to answer a potential question regarding my political involvement. I’d be happy to talk to anyone in person about what I might actually do, but I’d imagine one question you may have is whether I feel “called” to politics.

What I’d like to say to that is that I feel called to be a pastor. That hasn’t changed and I hope to be one again someday. But, there seems to be real fruit for some reason in the small ways I’ve been involved politically. As a result of that fruit there’s potential for this to be a means of God’s provision this year.

So what do I do? I’m not going to sit around and complain that I can’t do what I really want to do and be a full-time pastor. If God is closing that door for now and opening another one then I have faith to walk through it.

And that idea of faith is one that I really sense God is testing and growing for me in a wonderful way.

I spoke to Deluge recently about faith, taking risks and trusting God even when you don’t know how it’s all going to work out. And then at the Senior’s banquet I spoke about the Holy Spirit giving new dreams and visions to young and old alike to step out and start new ventures.

These things were shared out of my own experience where I’m at and what God’s showing me in his word these days and I try and trust him and walk by faith even though so much of the future right now is unseen.

Dave Harvey put it best when he was reflecting on the life of Abraham. He spoke of faith in terms of “going without knowing”. Abraham left his home city even before God told him fully where he was going to end up. In some ways, like I’m sure you’ve felt at times, it feels like God calling me to go, set down pastoral ministry for a while and go to the land that he’ll show me.

I’m saying these things so you can have a window into my heart and communion with God, and so that you can pray for us. Pray that God would continue to grow our marriage and strengthen our family and bless Josh’s business. Pray that God would provide for us and let his will be known. There are some phone calls happening over the next week or so that will greatly shape what the next year of our lives look like.

Folks, life is a journey and a wonderful walk of faith. There are many things that we don’t know; but we know God, so here we go.

——————————-

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” Acts 2:17.

THE HOLY SPIRIT’S DISRESPECT OF AGE
God’s perspective on aging is much different than this world’s view. The world views aging in terms of decreasing fruitfulness and increased dependence on others. We start our lives dependent on others. In the middle of your life we’re a source of blessing and provision for others. At the end of your life we return to a place of dependence again. There’s a sense in which this is good and appropriate.

And yet, these verses contain wonderful insight about how the Holy Spirit interacts with the aging process. What becomes very clear is that the Holy Spirit doesn’t see such a difference between young and old. God is not a respecter of ages.

“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” young and old, “your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.”

The point here is not to figure out the differences between a vision and a dream. I think, rather, the point is that it doesn’t matter your age. If you’re young, the Holy Spirit’s going to fill you with vision, and if you’re old, the Holy Spirit’s going to be poured on you in the same way.

Youth may be wasted on the young, but the Holy Spirit’s not. God pours out the Holy Spirit on old people. The Holy Spirit gives dreams to old people.

Here’s the word of God for you today: you never get too old to dream about the future. If you have a pulse, you have a purpose. And the work of the Holy Spirit in continually renewing and enhancing your faith, vision and dreams that motivate you in what you do.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WISE
As Christians, we live in a world that resembles a busy marketplace in which there are so many things clamoring for attention, claiming to be the thing we absolutely need, the thing you can’t do without. And yet the true value of wisdom is calling out for you in the market place, raising it’s voice above all the noise, saying, “seek me, find me.”

Yesterday our neighborhood had a garage sale. We made $100 selling junk, stuff we would have thrown away. If they had simply come tomorrow, they could have taken our trash for free. The world pays serious money for junk.

There are two types of people go to garage sales. Some people have needs and are looking for something cheap. They need a couch or TV, so they garage sale. Other folks are treasure hunters. They are hoping to buy something for $1 that’s worth hundreds of dollars, to discover some antique or little known collectors item that the seller thinks is just a piece of garbage. These people are very committed to finding that hidden treasure. We had people scanning our items into their phones to check the prices on Amazon.

In a way, this illustrates our calling as Christians to seek after wisdom. We have to sort through the junk of this world to find the hidden treasures of God’s wisdom.

Those of you who are gathered here at our Sr. Appreciation Luncheon have lived in this type of world, and over the years you have learned how to value things the way God does. You’ve learned what matters and what does not. You’ve learned that the urgent things are not always the most important. You have found God and his wisdom and you possess this treasure of Christ in you.

Now, perhaps for the first time in your life, you have something to offer people who don’t have what you have. You have wisdom. So, think of how destructive would be for you at this critical time in your life, when you are on verge of being to give away of what God has given you, for you to give into the world’s temptation to spend your remaining years in the Caribbean. The lies of the enemy that you can somehow be too old to be useful is nothing less than Satan’s attempt to bury the treasure of Christ in you and limit your most fruitful years.

Your experience in gaining wisdom gives you the great responsibility to give of yourself and of that wisdom like never before. You might not feel like you have much energy, but spend it all. Pour yourself out like a drink offering as you fight the fight and finish the race. You have sought wisdom your whole life so that you, at such a time as this, could be a blessing to future generations.

There is no group of Saints that could gather in this church that would be wiser than this group here. Therefore, there’s no group that could gather that would be more essential or have a greater sense of responsibility than us here. The responsibility o the wise is to give wisdom to those who need it.

THE NECESSITY OF OLD DREAMERS
One of the great temptations of aging is to stop dreaming. It’s hard to dream big when you’re on the back 9 and you’ve had a few bogies along the way. I keep a list on my computer of all the things I want to do by the time I’m 30. I’d imagine that when I sit down and make those lists of goals to be accomplished by 40 and 50, it’s going to be a little bit harder to dream big. And with each successive decade, I’m sure the goals get a little smaller and more primitive, like staying alive.

If that’s you, God is with you and he wants to encourage you. Remember, if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. The Holy Spirit is poured out on you and giving you a vision of what he wants you to do. You may be 55, and God wants to ask you want you want to be when you grow up to be 65. Maybe you’re 65 and God’s asking you to dream about what you want to be when you grow up to be 75.

It’s very easy to start out life with big dreams. And your enemy the Accuser loves nothing more than to use the challenges, sins and failures to turn young dreams into bitterness in old age. But the Holy Spirit, through his wonderful disrespect of the aging process, loves to turn young dreamers and visionaries into old dreamers and visionaries. The cynicism of the world says, “Let the dream die.” God says, “dream on” (or maybe that was Aerosmith).

Old dreamers are absolutely essential to any church and movement, and are a product of any move of the Holy Spirit. I’m not sure what you think, but my sense is that God has some vision to rekindle here today. Metro Life Church, your old men shall dream dreams.

God’s about to visit some of you at night and pour out his Spirit and give you vision and dreams about projects he needs started, and people that need to be reached, communities with needs to be met, countries that haven’t had the gospel preached well, languages that don’t have a faithful translation of the Bible, schools around town that need Bible studies led by students that you need to mentor. Desperate times call for big dreams of God’s power and both are necessary now.

You’re temptation is going to be to laugh at God like Sarah did when God told her about giving birth to Isaac in her old age. When that happens, when God speaks to you about the ground he wants you to break and the new ventures he wants you to lead, don’t laugh at him, and don’t tell me you weren’t warned. I’m warning you now, the Spirit of God is coming and old men will dream again. Fan into flame the gift of God.

FUTURE FULFILLMENT OF DREAMS
Part of the discouragement is rooted in the fact that we don’t always see the fulfillment of our dreams. We may work our whole lives only to build something that seems so much less than what we thought it would be at first. This is a discouragement because we think that the fulfillment of our dreams is supposed to come right now, in this life.

One of the reasons why God delays the fulfillment of your visions is because he wants to be there with you when that vision comes to fruition. More than that, Christ himself IS the fulfillment of your dream and vision. At that moment when you see him, everything you labored for and suffered will be fully explained. And you and Christ will share a moment of fellowship in which he’ll revisit all of these dreams and with the perspective of eternity, you’ll look down and see the fulfillment of those hopes in those who came after you, and how they carried on the very desires you longed for until they were finally answered at the return of Christ.

This is why we sing to Christ, “Be thou my vision O Lord of my heart.” May Christ pour out his Holy Spirit on you, that you might dream of him and his work through you.

Jason VanLue

My friend Jason VanLue was recently diagnosed with Crones disease. He is an amazing man who is handling this situation with an inspiring faith. He has created a new blog on Faith and Function which I’d encourage all of you to check out.

This picture, however, was a masterpiece. Even though I consider myself somewhat artistic, I could never pull off a crayon drawing of this beauty. The rendering of Jesus was so beautiful, I almost started worshipping the Savior right then and there.

Figuring that he had grabbed someone else’s work of art, I took the paper from Issac to return it to it’s rightful owner. Then I noticed the name “Issac” etched in adult handwriting across the top of the page. Indeed, this was his picture to take home.

I told him, “That’s a pretty good picture, Issac” and then asked, “Did somebody help you draw it?”

He replied, “Yes.”

That’s impressive honesty for a toddler. As a father I was proud.

I then asked him, “Who helped you draw it?”

His reply was simple: “God.”

The future is bright for him. While the other kids are scribbling on the page, our prodigy Issac is churning out Crayola masterpieces under divine empowerment.

When we arrived at home, I posted the picture on the refrigerator as a daily reminder of the benefits of being charismatic.

Then, after being invited by his friend DL Moody to join him overseas, he put his wife and four daughters on a ship, planning to join them after he took care of some business affairs. His four daughters were killed when their ship struck another vessel, and he later received word by telegram that his wife was the family’s only survivor. He wrote “It Is Well With My Soul” while on a ship that was retracing the path of the doomed vessel that carried his daughters to their grave.

Having been greatly served by the re-telling of Spafford’s story, the words to the songs third stanza jumped out at me with fresh impact when we sang them on Sunday. Spafford wrote:

My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord O my soul!

In my mind I wrestled with those words, asking myself why he would be thinking about his sin in a moment like this. He had just lost almost everything he loved–his son, his four daughters, all his land–a level of suffering that few people can relate to. His circumstances are such that when he meets Job in Heaven, they are going to have a lot in common.

And yet, in the midst of this unthinkable personal tragedy there is a thought that provides him bliss. “O the bliss of this glorious thought!” he writes. What was that glorious thought that provided him joy even through his tears? Was it denial that his circumstances were very bad? Was it hope that his fortunes would be restored? No, it was nothing of the sort.

It is interesting to note that the only exclamation points that appear in the song surround the glorious bliss of his sin, in its entirety, being lifted off of him, and it’s severe penalty being born by his crucified Savior, peirced by nails and affixed to the cross.

That’s cross-centered living and thinking. That’s gospel-centered hope. That’s Christ the High Priest sympathizing with a troubled man as only He can by the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, refusing to minimize either the problem or the remedy. You can’t make this stuff up.

The cross provided him joy through this tragedy. He celebrated with great joy fact that all of his sin had been nailed to the cross even as he grieved over his loss.

This is where I am provoked. When something bad happens to me and I am dealt a cruel hand by life, the first question out of my mind is, “what did I do to deserve this?” I’d imagine, since Horatio Spafford is human like the rest of us, that he struggled with the same question.

But somehow he emerged from that struggle. That’s not the question he was asking himself when he took the trip overseas. Instead, somehow Spafford understanding of the gospel created a dynamic where sin loomed in his mind as a more serious problem than his circumstances. He was a man who recognized the seriousness of his actions and how no earthly suffering could equal the pain and suffering he had deserved, and yet in the absolute kindness of God Christ had suffered instead.

How else could a man sail over his four daughter’s watery grave and yet describe the thought of his sin being taken away from him as blissful unless his sin had been for him a great problem, and its removal such a great relief that it even outweighed his material and family loss.

So, when one of our friends is suffering, should we tell them they deserve worse? Hardly. But when we’re the ones suffering, and tempted to question the love of God, should we remind ourselves of the Savior who died so that we might be spared a much greater suffering under the wrath of God? Absolutely. And with great relief and joy.

The doctrine of sin is an anchor that keeps us close to the gospel in personal tragedy because it highlights the grace of God that is unaffected by circumstances, and sustains us through them.

Issac, the architect of Babel blocks

Not every attempt to apply the scripture is equal. We recently studied the Tower of Babel in our reading time.

One day, Issac was playing with his blocks and said, “Look, mommy, I built the tower of Babel.”

Apparently the whole idea of the confusion of speech as a sign of the judgment of God on this sort of behavior was lost on my three-year-old.

Oblivious to that angle of the story, his take away point was, “Towers are cool. I should build Babel with my blocks.”

Guess I need to make my point more clearly next time.

His speech is hard to understand sometimes. Shoot, you might even say it’s “confused”, especially when he answers every question by saying “mommy” regardless of what he is asked.

Seeing God confusing his speech is making me increasingly suspicious of what he’s been doing in his room at night with his blocks.

The other day, when he went rambling on in a dialect of toddler gibberish I couldn’t understand, I asked him, “Issac, you’re not making any sense. Have you been building Babel again?”

He didn’t even understand me or what I was asking, which only confirmed my suspicion.

Support John Stemberger

A young woman from Ohio named Rifqa Bary was invited by one of her friends to attend church. She had been Muslim, but secretly converted to Christianity. The leaders of the mosque her parents attended discovered that she was a Christian and she fled to Orlando after her parents threatened her life.

Here in Florida, John Stemberger graciously agreed to defend her in the lawsuits that followed. After Rifqas case was won, her parents’ lawyer retaliated by filing two separate lawsuits against John, one of them a $10 million defamation case in Ohio federal court.

John is a good friend of mine who needs your help raising the necessary money to fight this shameless act of retaliation. Men like Newt Gingrich and David Barton are helping raise awareness. We need your help as well.

If any of us can be subjected to crippling legal attacks for the simple act of defending someone from persecution, then all of our religious freedoms are in doubt.

So, I’d invite you to do two things:

1. Visit the Defense Fund website that has been set up for him and consider what you can give, however small the amount

2. Help spread the word via email and Facebook. Invite people to join the Facebook page we have set up for him, so they can stay up to date as things progress

Much more information is available on the website if you have any questions. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you for your consideration,
Jesse Phillips

The local mission field

This months issue of Tabletalk is one of the best they’ve put out in a long time. They address several issues in the style of “Screwtape Letters” by CS Lewis in which various demons oppose the gospel by sending correspondence to each other.

Here’s the letter regarding “Missions.” So often we are prone to think of missions as something we have to go overseas to do. This past Sunday there were four guys baptized in our church after sharing their testimonies of how God saved them, a moment just as rewarding as any mission trip I’ve been on.

What a joy it is to counteract the enemy’s strategy espoused by this letter and do missions work by planting churches throughout America’s fields which are ripe for harvest.

———–

Our Dear Diabolos,

It is clear that you have not quite got the hang of this temptation thing. Take the matter of what the enemy calls “mission.” We understand what this is–to bring the dreadful news of His Son with all the spiritual weapons that we find so appalling. However, you are making a major error when you try to take all thoughts of mission out of the mind of your client. That is too obvious a tactic and one that often just does not work. Perhaps you will allow we more senior experts to give you some instruction.

Encourage your client to think about mission. Allow just enough guilt and awareness that it is what he is supposed to be doing and then let him assuage his conscience by giving some money, attending a few “missionary” meetings, and in general feeling “positive” about mission “over there.” These last two words are the key. Let your client always have in his mind the impression that mission is something that occurs in a faraway land, that it is always done by superheroes, and that it is usually tied up with circumstances that are well outside his own personal experience–pictures of emaciated children in a third-world country are always good both for a guilt trip and for taking his mind off the real mission. Let him think that giving a few dollars more is real “mission.”

Our dear Diabolos, this is what you must aim for: Let your client always see mission as something “over there,” and he will never consider how he is supposed to do mission wherever he is. As long as we can convince the enemy’s servants that where they are is not the needy place, we need not fear.

Your master,
Legion

What recession?

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Romans 8:31-32.

Let’s talk about the recession: the recession can’t stand against us. Reading passages like Romans 8 build our confidence in God by taking our eyes off our circumstances and alleviating our concern that the gospel could be rendered powerless through corrupting influences or stopped by any earthly power. Romans 8:31-32 amounts to a categorical pronouncement of anxiety-quenching truth that should set even the biggest worrier at ease.

“If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things” (8:31-32). If God is for us the recession has nothing.

I find it amazing how insensitive Paul is toward fear. He essentially says “quit your fearing, God is for you.”In one sweeping verse he undermines every possible reason for fear.

When someone you know possesses infinite resources, perfect wisdom and unrivaled power, you have nothing to worry about. The only people who have need to worry are the ones who stand against you and your God who is for you. They should be afraid, not you.

Money has always been something that people have worried about. But if God is for us, what recession can stand against us? God did not spare his own Son, but gave us Jesus Christ, all that we’ll ever need. A recession threatens nothing that we need. Don’t get me wrong. It can threaten what we feel we need; and that’s exactly why God sent it. They don’t threaten what we actually need.

There are two simple points of application for us: recessions don’t threaten 1) Christians, or 2) Churches.

A. Recessions don’t threaten Christians

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith. Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” Matthew 6:26-33.

Here is a question this verse makes us consider: Does a recession have any impact on a flower? Is the health, well-being and happiness of a flower in any way impacted by the unemployment rate or stock market?

Recessions don’t threaten flowers. God cares for flowers and has created the world in such a way that they will be tended to by nature. If recessions can’t threaten flowers, would he put you at risk in such a way that he wasn’t even willing to put flowers at risk? No, he put his Son at risk for you in a way that he didn’t put his Son at risk for flowers. If cares for flowers, won’t he care for his children?

God has invested far more into your protection and happiness than he invested into flowers. There’s far more at stake in terms of his reputation, faithfulness and glory when it comes to his own children over any other aspect of creation.

The effect on the flower when shown my credit card bill should be the effect on my own heart when I read the same. God is for you. Who can be against you?

B. Recessions don’t threaten the Church

My church recently met to discuss some of the ways we’re adapting and what we’re doing in light of the economy. Everybody has to make adjustments and we’re no different. Here’s what I’d like to say as it pertains to the recession and the mission of the church. There is no connection between recession and mission. Economies change; missions don’t.

It has long been a hope of our enemy the church could be shut down by cutting off the money supply; that the message of the gospel could be suppressed through financial means. The pages of scripture are replete with examples of financial threat to God’s purpose and people:

• Moses resisted the lure of the treasures of Egypt, which threatened the very deliverance of God’s people from slavery.
• Simon the magician tried to buy the power to cast out demons, an attempt to quench the power of the Spirit and make it subservient to the market.
• The owners of the slave girl retaliated when the power of the gospel removed their source of income through fortune telling.
• Early persecution and seizing of Christian’s property was another way that the enemy attempted to use financial pressure to stop the church.
• Catholic system of indulgences and purchasing salvation is a way that the church has used financial burdens to suppress the true power of the gospel.
• Modern online tithing boycotts where different people oppose certain churches by encouraging people not to give to them.

Although the strategies vary, the idea is that money can be used to exert control over the church and the gospel. If you subscribe to that thinking, then a recession is a huge threat to the church, since in a recession people don’t have as much to give and the church’s money supply is seriously threatened.

This thought process forgets one important detail: the church is not a business. Its goals are not economic. Our asset is free grace. We don’t offer a service. We offer a context to serve the Savior who came to serve us. We’re not a brand. Our marketing plan is to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, a message of utter foolishness which hopefully will offend them to the point of conviction over their depravity which produces a desperate cry for mercy and forgiveness by the blood of Jesus Christ whose death they are responsible for. Try making money off of that!

Our capital is unlimited and stored in a place where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal and recessions cannot devalue. In fact, our asset, the gospel, actually tends to become more valuable as these things align themselves against us. Since we don’t exist to make money, and since our message and our methods are incompatible with the forces and systems of this world, and since our formula for success doesn’t include money as a variable, we can be wildly successful without a dime in the offering basket. If this recession crashes our economy and the market dies a slow and painful death, the church is going to attend the funeral in full health to comfort people with a gospel that’s very much alive, untouched by money, and unscathed by a recession.

The gospel saves poor people and rich people. God accepts the unemployed into his family as well as those who have jobs. God can reach blue collar and white collar equally as well. Jesus died for the prosperous and the downtrodden. Churches can influence their neighborhoods and cities while meeting outside or inside. Pastors can counsel in their offices or in their houses. The recession has nothing on God and therefore nothing on us because God is for us and no recession can stand against us.

If you’re like me then you really wrestle with this fear that losing money will stop the gospel or at least make us less effective in sharing it because money is helpful. One of the most helpful things to do is read about Stephen. He was killed and the word of God spread. The reality historically and biblically recessions fall in the same category of property seizures and martyrdom; they are tools God uses to expand the gospel and make us more effective. If killing Christians only helps the gospel to increase, budget cuts can’t hurt. This recession is not a threat to the church, it’s a tool God is using to grow it.

If you take away this building, you haven’t touched our asset. Moth and rust can destroy this place. Thieves can break in here and steal. Recessions can devalue it. This building is a valuable utility, but the gospel is our asset and God himself is our power. Our home may be destroyed without affect on our joy or progress in the faith, and that would work out for our good and for the furtherance of his church and expansion of the gospel.

You can take away a church’s money only to watch it’s true profitability soar. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but lose his soul? You can take away salaries without touching the calling to serve. You can take away the pastors’ offices, but not their determination to show up to work every day for you to wage war with the Word of God against the powers of this present darkness which align themselves against your marriages, which they help you fight for, and your parenting we fight for, along with you in your battle against sin and your fight for joy. As pastors and as a church we’re compelled by something much different. We are servants and ministers of the gospel and come rain or shine, spending raises or cuts, building or not, new sound equipment or old, the gospel is very much alive and Metro’s open for business. Silver and gold we may not have, but what we have is the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Any enemy of the gospel that doesn’t like that message being preached is going to have to cut off a lot more than a church’s funding. This recession has nothing.

If you want to shut down a church you have to cut us off from Christ. Last time I checked, that never happens. This is what it’s like to be part of a team that can’t lose. God is for you. All of forces and powers of hell are aligned against us and attacking us from all sides, in every medium and avenue whether physical, financial and spiritual. In light of that assault, what should your response be? Laugh. Laugh at your enemy. Laugh at the days to come. God is with you and he is for you. He is laughing and mocking his enemies all the way to their death. So let’s join God in chasing fear of the recession out of town.

Worry ruins the fun of the adventure of trusting God. It’s far too enjoyable watching God be God to waste another minute worrying about what man or money can do to us. God is for us. This recession has nothing.