Monthly Archives: August 2011

Reminder to pray and fast or pray and watch

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Dear Springs of Grace Church Family,

I wanted to remind you of the special opportunities to pray and fast or pray and watch the next few days. As we talked about Sunday, we are asking God to use us in the mission He has given us and asking Him to provide the resources to do what is on His heart for us as church family.

We believe that Springs of Grace exists to glorify Jesus Christ by making much of Him in everything; by doing what He has sent us to do and by loving the people He has given us to love. We are committed to demonstrating love and declaring the truth of the One Hope of Jesus Christ. We believe that life is short; heaven and hell are real; the cross of Jesus demonstrates how serious God is about His glory and the mission He has given us. One of the ways we talk about the mission God has called us to is: we are seeking to use practical demonstrations of love as the means to open the door for the gospel so that the city of Tulsa might be transformed for Christ in a way that brings only God the glory. It’s not about us but we are the body of Christ called to put on display collectively the perfections of Jesus to all those God gives us to love. And like Paul to the Thessalonians, we want to give them “not only the Word of God but our own lives as well.”

Because the leadership team is convinced that this mission is really important and because we only want what is the will of God – we are asking you to join us in prayer and fasting and watching this week. We are asking God to provide the grace and opportunities and resources for this mission.

We have a significant need financially for the One Hope Academy for the coming school year and the summer has been tight financially as far as our general budget is concerned. We simply want to do everything God has called us to. We have no interest in God relieving the financial pressures unless it would help us accomplish His mission. The financial pressures might be exactly what we need in order for God to use the gospel in a way that the city of Tulsa is transformed for Christ in a way that only God gets the glory. God can provide through gifts from heaven as He amazingly has in the past or He can provide through His people or He can give us the grace to do without what we think we need. We are trusting Him and have no backup plan.

Because He is our hope, we are asking all of our church family to take this Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday – and consider giving up at least one meal and that time to fast and pray and/or consider giving up two or three hours of sleep in order to pray for God to move in the life of this church family and this city.

Not everyone should give – you ought only to give if God gives you a joyful heart and the ability to give and trust Him… BUT all of us can pray. Let’s ask Him to incline His ear to us and hear and open His eyes and see and let His mercy flow! and let’s obey all that He shows us as lovers of Jesus.

Thankful to be a part of this family,

Pastor Joe

One Hope Academy

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I have the privilege of serving as the Superintendent of the One Hope Academy. One Hope Academy is an important ministry in the life of Springs of Grace and for our city. I would encourage you to read the front page of our handbook that is copied below.

Why does the One Hope Academy exist?
At One Hope Academy, we believe that everything we do is motivated by the fact that God is the greatest treasure of the universe. As a result, the education students receive at One Hope Academy has the ultimate purpose of helping them to see the value and glory of God and to live a life of love for God and neighbor.
What makes the One Hope Academy special?
RELATIONSHIP BASED
We believe the most effective way to educate is in the context of strong relationships. Our staff places a high priority on building relationships with students and commits to spending time mentoring students outside of school.
RESEARCH BASED
We are committed to utilizing the best and most current research in the way we structure school policies, expectations, and lesson plans.
COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE
We want students to pursue excellence not just success both in and outside of the classroom. We are never satisfied with a student being anything less than the absolute best he can be. We believe, “Pretty good is not good enough.”
NO SHORTCUTS
We recognize that there are no shortcuts to achieving the goal of each of our students attending college and becoming a compassionate, productive member of our community. Students have to spend more time learning, more time reading, and give more effort than they have ever have before.
FOCUS ON PEOPLE OVER PROGRAMS
We believe that what makes the One Hope Academy a special and successful organization is not primarily clever instructional plans or groundbreaking innovation. It is our commitment to employ high quality staff who are also people of integrity, compassion, and commitment.
WRAPAROUND SERVICES
We are committed to doing whatever it takes to help a student succeed. That is why we offer counseling services and work to the best of our ability to help students find other services they require.
FOCUS ON READING
We recognize the crucial role reading plays in education and are committed to ensuring that each one of our students becomes a reader for life. We intentionally structure our school days, lesson plans, field trips, and educational priorities with each student’s growth as a reader as a central focus.
LEARNING FOR THE WORLD
We believe that what separates the One Hope Academy from many other quality private schools is our commitment to inspire our students to learn for the world. By that we mean our students are not just learning and working hard so they can be one day be successful personally, but they are learning and working hard so they can become leaders and philanthropists in our community and around the world.

Beginning 1 Corinthians

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Last Lord’s Day we began a study of 1 Corinthians. Unfortunately we failed to get an audio copy of the message on CD. I want to provide some of the notes from that message for those who were unable to attend.

1 Corinthians – Why Study It?

The Author of 1 Corinthians was Paul
It was written during a time of personal discouragement
1 Corinthians 2:3 – “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” and 1 Thessalonians 3:7 – “for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith” give us five word descriptions that capture something of where the Apostle Paul was as he ministered in Corinth: Weakness, Fear, Much Trembling, Distress, and Affliction

Outline of 1 Corinthians
I. Greeting – 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
II. Paul deals with problems reported to him – 1 Corinthians 1:10-6:20
III. Paul answers written questions – 1 Corinthians 7:1-15:58
IV. Concluding remarks – 16:1-16:24

So why study 1 Corinthians?

1) Because it was written to Springs of Grace Bible Church – verse 2 “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:”
2) Because it was written to a people very similar to the society we live in. It was a very modern city with a large urban center full of great diversity racially, economically, sociologically and religiously. It was a sin with rampart sexual sin and materialism.
3) Because of the issues that are dealt with in this letter (church divisions, sexual immorality, loving people from different backgrounds, marriage, divorce, singleness, roles of women in ministry, charismatic gifts, the church as a body, how to relate to a world outside of the church, life after death)
4) Because of the problems which the letter confronts
The letter of 1 Corinthians sets forth answers to two key questions that were at the heart of the issues in the church at Corinth and immensely important to us.

#1 – How do we live as Christians in an ungodly world? Do we shelter ourselves from the world or do we identify ourselves with the world? Both extremes were in the church at Corinth and are struggles we have to deal with to live as the body of Christ today in Tulsa.
#2 What is the true nature of spirituality? Is it certain gifts or experiences or personalities or is it perseverance and love and serving and holy living or is it evangelistic effort and spiritual prayer or ….?

5) Because of the method which it teaches
I love the fact that Paul often doesn’t give black and white answers. He often gives the Corinthians the great principles of the Gospel and the character of God and calls them to THINK how to apply them. He doesn’t offer a rule book but a Lord to walk with and truths to think through.

6) Because of the core truths that hold everything together not only in this letter but in all of life and eternity.
THE CROSS – Chapter 1 – For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. No one walks long with Jesus who doesn’t keep the cross in front of them (the glory Jesus displayed there and the mercy we received there). It is our message, our hope, our glory, and our life.
The GOD-CENTEREDNESS and CHRIST-CENTEREDNESS of everything – Chapter 3 “For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” Everything has its purpose and being and fulfillment in Christ. It’s always about Him!
LOVE – Chapter 1-16 is a love letter. Chapter 13 may well be the greatest description of love ever given. The letter ends with these words: “let all that you do be done in love.“ – My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.”

I hope you will come each week anxious to study this portion of God’s Word with us. I can hardly wait for next Sunday!

Just one of your Heavenly Father’s spoiled children!

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Charles Spurgeon’s wife was an invalid for many years and usually unable to accompany her husband on his travels. She writes:

“One ever-recurring question when he had to leave me was, ‘What can I bring you, wifey?’ I seldom answered him by a request, for I had all things richly to enjoy, except health. But, one day, when he put the usual query, I said, playfully, ‘I should like an opal ring, and a piping bullfinch!’ He looked surprised, and rather amused; but simply replied, ‘Ah, you know I cannot get those for you!’”
Mrs. Spurgeon recalls how they “made merry” over her request for two or three days. Then one Thursday evening Charles returned from the church “with such a beaming face, and such love-lighted eyes, that I knew something had delighted him very much.” He held in his hand a tiny box, from which he took a ring and placed it on her finger. “There is your opal ring, my darling,” he said, and told her how he’d received it. An old lady whom Spurgeon had visited once when she was ill had sent a note to the church requesting that someone come and pick up a small gift for Mrs. Spurgeon. His secretary picked up the parcel and brought it to Charles, who unwrapped it to find the ring.

Mrs. Spurgeon writes, “How we talked of the Lord’s tender love for His stricken child, and of His condescension in thus stooping to supply an unnecessary gratification to His dear servant’s sick one…I can remember feeling that the Lord was very near to us.”

Not long after that God surprised Mrs. Spurgeon again. She writes,

“One evening, when my dear husband came from London, he brought a large package with him, and, uncovering it, disclosed a cage containing a lovely piping bullfinch!…He had been to see a dear friend of ours, whose husband was sick unto death; and, after commending the sufferer to God in prayer, Mrs. T– said to him, ‘I want you to take my pet bird to Mrs. Spurgeon, I would give him to none but her; his songs are too much for my poor husband in his weak state, and I know that ‘Bully’ will interest and amuse Mrs. Spurgeon in her loneliness while you are so much away from her.’”
She writes, “When ‘Bully’ piped his pretty song, and took a hemp seed as a reward from the lips of his new mistress, there were eyes with joyful tears in them, and hearts overflowing with praise to God, in the little room by the sea that night; and the dear Pastor’s comment was, ‘I think you are one of your Heavenly Father’s spoiled children, and He just gives you whatever you ask for.”

Mrs. Spurgeon reminds us,

“He who cares for all the works of His hand, cares with infinite tenderness for the children of His love, and thinks nothing which concerns them too small or too trivial to notice.” She concluded this story saying, “‘Bully’s’ sweet little life and ministry ended at Brighton; but the memory of the Lord’s tenderness in giving him to me is a life-long treasure; and the opal ring glistens on my finger as I write this paragraph.” (from The Full Harvest, The Autobiography of Charles Spurgeon)
Let us thank our Heavenly Father for his intimate care. Jesus reminds us, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Mt. 7:11) What a loving Father we have!

Bring all your needs and requests to him. Nothing’s too small or too great to ask – he even gives his children opal rings and piping bullfinches.

Undimmed and Undiminished

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Tim Challies writes about a book and a concept that has shaped my life and ministry. I was blessed to read it again and spend time praying for all those I can leverage my influence with to have correct and high views of God.

It was A.W. Tozer who wrote (in The Knowledge of the Holy), “what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” That is a broad statement, a grand one, but one that merits some thought, for as Tozer says, “the history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” If no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God, the same must true of individuals. We can never rise above our idea of God.

Tozer says, “We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. …Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.” I think he is right. Once we have decided who God is, we chase after that image. The application becomes obvious: It is critically important that we gain an accurate understand of who God is through the Bible, God’s own self-disclosure. Otherwise, we will inevitably move towards a fabricated and false image of him. We will put aside the real thing and chase after a mere shadow.

Here are words that have long gripped me and are worthy of lengthy reflection: “Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, ‘What comes into your mind when you think about God?’ we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the church will stand tomorrow.” This is a sobering thought and not only for those who pastor megachurches and enjoy a national platform. If Tozer is right, then what he says applies to the smallest local church, it applies to the family and wherever else there is spiritual leadership. What comes into the pastor’s mind will predict where his church stands tomorrow. What comes into dad’s mind will predict where his family stands tomorrow.

“It is my opinion,” writes Tozer, “that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.” If this was true of the middle of the last century, it must be equally true in the early years of the current century. And yet, “All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared with the overwhelming problem of God: That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.” But still many Christians do not think deeply about God, about what he is like, or about what we must do about him. They do not seek him. “I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.”

This is a serious matter. “Before the Christian church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind.”

And here is Tozer’s charge to the church of his day and the church of our day: “The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worth of Him—and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.”

That is a heavy obligation, indeed. Yet it is one that we ought to do fulfill joy. It is one we can fulfill with confidence, trusting that with the help of the Spirit—help he longs to give—we can know God as he truly is, pursue the God who really is, and have our minds full to overflowing with the reality of the God who made us, the God who saved us and the God who soon enough will call us to himself.

DIVE IN

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This article spurs my heart as we approach the next phase of ministry. May God give us the faith to “dive in”.

If God has birthed a vision in your heart, the day will come when you will be called upon to make a sacrifice to achieve it. And you will have to make the sacrifice with no guarantee of success.

I talk to people all the time who have what seem to be “God ideas” but who are unwilling to commit with both hands and feet. The conversation often begins with, “If I had a million dollars.”

A well-meaning lady once said to me, “You know, I am so burdened by the problems in the inner city. If I had a million dollars, I would love to go down there and start a school for underprivileged kids.”

As sensitively as I knew how, I said, “I know people with far less than you have now who have started schools for inner-city kids. You don’t need a million dollars to start a school.” What she needed was the courage to act on her vision.

The difference between those with a burden for inner-city kids and those who actually do something is not resources. It is a willingness to take risks and make sacrifices. The people who make a difference in this world commit to what could be before they know where the money is coming from. Their vision is enough to cause them to jump in. Money usually follows vision. It rarely happens the other way around. Consequently, vision always involves sacrifice and risk-taking.
- Andy Stanley, Visioneering