Rocky Point Baptist Church

"Whatever you do, work heartily for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Jesus Christ." (Colossians 3:23-24) 

The last tool in the toolbox of the Christian life that God uses to keep us focused on Him and his kingdom is: Working for Christ. What we have in mind is serving Christ weekly through the context of a local church. There is no greater reward than working hard for Christ...period. When a person serves the Lord on a regular basis and works "heartily" at it, God will use it to grow the worker, strengthen the church, and advance the gospel. We could pour over countless Scriptures that talk about serving the Lord and how in the early church this was not some optional thing. It was not something that those early believers had to think about and pray hard over. Working for Christ was the overflowing response in their hearts of a life lived in God. It was not something they did out of a debtor's ethic or because they felt "guilty" if they didn't serve. It was not some half-hearted commitment that they did only if it didn't interfere with their busy schedule. It was something they wanted to do because they knew there was no greater reward than working in the kingdom of God and seeing lives changed through Christ.

As a pastor I have heard just about every excuse for not working for Christ in a local church. Here are some of the ones I have heard frequently: " I just don't have the time'" or "I don't think God can use me" or "I can't be there every Sunday" or "I just have too much on my plate right now." Sadly most of these excuses are just that--excuses. Most often the people who use these excuses have misplaced priorities. Life is all about choices. In Christ you have the power to choose to serve the Lord if you want to. It all starts with putting Jesus first. On the other end of the spectrum we sadly have people who serve for all the wrong reasons. You will hear things like: "I feel guilty because no one else is stepping up" or "It's my duty" or "I want things done right so I will just do it" or "I'll do it for the kids or I'll do it for so and so." These reasons for serving can be just as bad as the excuses people give for not serving. People like this have the wrong motivation. They are not serving out of a devoted love to the Lord but a devoted duty to religion. They usually are the people who serve for the wrong reasons, with the wrong attitudes, and the wrong giftedness. They usually zap all the joy out of a particular ministry because they are not delighting in the Lord or his work. They serve people or an institution, but not the Lord.

So what's the solution? We need quality people in the church not just quantity people. We need people who are not half-hearted in their commitment to the Lord and we need people who are working for Christ not just for people. As leaders, we don't need to elevate people to a position or place of service until they learn how to worship Christ and walk with Christ. At the same time, we need to make sure we have a biblical process in place that disciples, trains, and equips people ready to do the work of the ministry. A process that helps them to align their priorities to that of the church. In our church this process starts with our new members class called "Peak Performance." It is a required class for all new and prospective members. It shows them the priorities of our church, what is expected of them, and what they can expect of us. It helps them align themselves to the mission of advancing the gospel. At our church we will not accept a member who has not agreed to the basics of weekly worship, small group attendance, and working for Christ.

I think if we hold up the standard that we see in the New Testament and show people how they can meet that standard through a vital and fruitful relationship with Jesus then they will strive to meet that standard and "work heartily" for the Lord. They will see that there is great reward in not just attending a church but serving the Lord through the church.

In our church this commitment of service looks like this: I commit to work hard for Christ in a specific area of ministry without complacency. It is my prayer that you will make that foundational commitment today and spend yourself in service for the Lord Jesus Christ knowing that from him you will receive a great reward.

For the Fame of His Name,

Pastor Ryan

"So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing." (1 Thess. 5:11) 

I love the idea in the bible of walking with Christ. Here is just a little sampling from the Bible: 

• Genesis 5:24: "...and Enoch walked with God..."
• Ps. 26:3: "...I have walked in Your Truth."
• Psalm 116:9: I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living."
• Galatians 5:25: "If we live by the Spirit, let us walk by the Spirit." 
• Colossians 2:6: "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him"

The main way we walk with God is in daily fellowship with the Word. A Christian who does not walk with God daily in the Word is like a person who forgets to open his eyes while hiking. That person will eventually stumble and miss out on the beauty that God has in store for them on their journey. What I have in mind here is not just a personal walk but a weekly walk of studying the bible with others. This is something that the early church throughout the book of Acts and the New Testament devoted themselves to: regular study of God's Word TOGETHER. One of the great things about going on walks with my wife is that we get to do it TOGETHER. We can talk and connect in ways that we so easily forget to do otherwise. I believe the church today has many professing Christians who are not doing the walk together on a weekly basis. They are not studying the word together in the context of a small group and as a result they are stumbling and fumbling around when they could be built and lifted up by others. I believe that even though a person can sit in a pew with someone on a regular basis in church, they can easily be disconnected and isolated from each other. Far too many marriages are failing, families are being destroyed, believers are backsliding, and churches are disconnected because Satan has figured out how to get us from walking in the Word TOGETHER. I believe that bible study is something that a believer should do every day with the Lord but I also believe it is something we should do with each other on a weekly basis. It has been my experience that studying the Word together in a small group of believers on a weekly basis greatly encourages my heart to keep going after Christ and not quit or give up. All studies indicate that a person who joins a church and does not get consistently involved in weekly small group will eventually quit going to that church because they never got connected to each other outside of a regular service. Sadly, I have seen this happen in a church way too often. A person walks an aisle, says a prayer, and joins the church and never attends a small group or Sunday school class. The next thing you know they are complaining about how they "don't feel loved" or "connected" to anyone in the church and they leave never to return. They will pass the blame on to others instead of taking responsibility for themselves. They had the opportunity to go on a hike with others but they decided they would go it alone or they only show up once in a blue moon even after many invitations. Even if they go on the hike they keep to themselves and don't open up. I have been in ministry long enough to know that these people are only fooling themselves and it won't be long until they give up the walk completely.

So let me give you five practical reasons this weekly walk with a small group is so important: 

1)  Accountability

When I attend a small group Bible study it keeps me accountable.I am being held accountable to not just attend church but to invest time and effort in the Word of God and buidling relationships with others. I know from my experience in the Army with road marches that the hardest leg of the journey in not the beginning but the end. It's when you have already been hiking for some time that you feel like giving up and qutting the march altogether. What keeps me steadfast to finish the walk? It is the encouragement of the one in front and the one behind me that says, "Keep going! Don't stop now!" It's the person behind me who comes along and helps me get back up on my feet when I feel like cowering to the ground in pain and exhaustion. It keeps me accountable. "We started together and we will finish together!"

2)  Building

When I attend a small group Bible study on a consistent basis it helps in the buidling up of my soul. There is just something encouraging about being around a group of people who have learned to never say "no" to God even in the midst of great trial and difficulty. We all have people in our lives that can tear us down and put us down wouldn't you agree? Where I thrive as a believer is being around other people who lift me up, believe in me, and God's best for my life. They have been through the trial and they want me to make it through the trial as well. As we study the Word together "iron sharpens iron" and we are built up to withstand the storms and trials of life TOGETHER. The old saying is true: Together we stand, divided we fall.

3)  Learning

Sometimes when I study the Bible for myself I have difficulty taking what I just read and applying it directly to my life. If not careful, I can also only see one side of the truth I am reading and studying. When I get around others I can bounce the bible off of them and get their feed back. I can learn some things that someone else has already learned and it can help expand my understanding of God's Word. It's often seeing and hearing how others have downloaded a truth into their life which helps me apply it to my life. The proclaimation of God's Word to each other helps me preach and teach God's Word to myself.

4)  Staying Power

I can dehydrated on a hike pretty quick if I am not careful. I need to make sure I stay fueled up if I am going to finish the hike. When I get around a group of people that are fired up about God's Word and as a result the Lord is infusing that group with the Holy Spirit, it gives me staying power. Here is a group of people who have gone through the fire together and are still fired up and not giving up. They have staying power because God's Spirit is giving them the fuel they need through the Word to "keep on keepin' on." All of that can be used to help me put the fuel in my tank to keep on going and it can be a tremendous motivator to keep tapping into the same energy source as the rest of the group.

5)  Protection

When I go it alone on a hike it can be a dangerous thing especially if I am not aware of all the particular dangers on a given trail. When I learn from someone else who has been on the trail and who knows to what watch out for, that helps protect me from those dangers. When I get into a small group on a weekly basis it helps to protect me from the dangers of isolation, attack, and the pitfalls of Christian living. The Christian walk was never met to be done alone because Satan is not working alone and he wants to bring every danger he and his fellow snakes can bring together against me. Bottom line: Their is strength in numbers when you walk into an unknown and dangerous area and watch out for one another.

So there are five practical reasons to get in a small group on a weekly basis. At our church the commitment looks like this: I will committ to a weekly walk in small group without inconsistency.

Will you make that same committment right now? If you do, it will help keep you from isolation and push you towards deeper devotion to God's word and God's family. It's a choice you can make every week even if you don't feel like it, so choose today! 

For the Fame of His Name,

Pastor Ryan

"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." (Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV) 

The first "W" tool that will help keep the toolbox of our heart in order and clutter free from the hinderance of self, sin, circumstances, and suffering is this: Worship Christ Weekly. If you had to sum up the theme of the entire Bible in a sentence it would be: "Worship the Lord Jesus Christ--period!" That's the whole point of life: attribute worth to Jesus and not yourself, not your sin, and not your stuff. That is a principle found through out all of Scripture that you can look up for yourself and I will not take the time to expound upon here. What I have in mind is not just worship, but Weekly Worship. No matter which way you try to spin it or dice it, the Bible is crystal clear in the book of Acts...believers met together on a weekly basis for the purposes of discipleship, prayer, fellowship, worship, and evangelism (See Acts 2:38-40). For them, weekly worship was something they prioritized, anticipated, and committed to regardless of their circumstances. Weekly worship did not get added on to a long list of "to do" activities for the week and get worked around little Johnny's baseball games or the spouses mood and feelings on Sunday morning. Weekly worship was something that was at the center of their lives and one their core committments. This was not just something Christians looked on as duty but as a delight. However, today most professing Christians look on weekly worship as a burden rather than a blessing, more duty than delight, and more option than command.

In Hebrews 10:24-25 we have a command and warning. In verse 24 the writer says "Consider" which is the same verb used in Hebrews 3:1 about Jesus. Simply, it is an invitation to look at things the way Jesus did and respond to those things the way Jesus did. "Consider" means to give it your complete attention and diligent observance. The Hebrew church had a problem: Their intial attraction to Christ was in danger of eroding and the writer is saying that mutual encouragment to make full committment is crucial. He states that collective and corporate worship is a vital part of the spiritual life. The warning here is against apostasy: an intentional falling away or defection. Apostates are those who move toward Christ, hear and seem to understand the gospel, but utlimately rebel and turn away. They are not people who lose their salvation but people who prove they never had a genuine conversion experience to begin with. This is one of the most serious warnings in all of Scripture. While attending a weekly worship service cannot save or sancitify you (make you more holy), it can help keep you from drifting away from the Living God and living in rebellion against Him. Weekly worship is one of the tools God uses in the life of a believer to sharpen their faith and sharpen the faith of others. Sadly, most professing Christians treat weekly worship like a roadside emergency kit. They will use it only when they get in an emergency or when they have a break down. It's an optional thing or used only when I think I need it. However, the Bible is very clear that "the heart is wicked and desperately sick, who can know it?" People who play the game on Sunday morning, "Do I feel like going to church today? Do I think I really need it today? Nah....I will be fine," are ultimately in danger of destroying their spiritual lives. They begin to drift away with excuses and the next thing you know, one Sunday becomes two, two becomes three, three becomes four...and well, you get the picture. Many professing Christians don't just wake up and say "I am done with church!" No, for most it happens more gradually. One of the things they will do to justify their habitual absence from church is: Compare. They'll say, "Well, look at so and so. They go to church every week and they're a mess! I know I don't go much, but at least I don't have thier problems." Uh, word of warning to that type of thinking: When you compare yourself to all the other boats in the water, you don't realize how far YOU have drifted from the shore! You will stand before God and give an account of the way you lived your life, not the way someone else lived theirs. Compare yourself to God not people. Another thing they do is: Catergorize. I have on numerous times communicated this to our church: "Jesus first, then family, then church." This is something I try to practice in my own life. However, there is a danger. When a Christian who is caught up in busy schedules of work, school, kids, extra this and extra that hears that, they usually think to themselves: "Yeah, thats right, family first before church!" but they end up using that excuse to justify all their busyness. They end up not just putting their family before church, but their family before Jesus. We have to be careful that we don't use the "family" thing as an excuse or an idol. There is no justification in Scripture of people forsaking fellowship on a weekly basis for "family time" or because they had a "hard work week." When people say to me, "Well I have been working alot of hours...or we haven't had any family time," that sounds all nice and practical but usually it's just an excuse for a lack of priorty and committment. We all have periods in our lives of lack of time, sleep, and/or family. According to the text, that's all the more reason we need church not forsake it, because of all of those things and more can cause us to fall away from Christ.

So the challenge in my life is to stop making excuses as to why I am not going deeper with the Lord when it comes to weekly worship. The challenge for us is to look in the tool box of our heart, pick up the tool and start using it for what it's meant for. Stop making excuses and stop ignoring the problem. Someone has once said, "You can't follow Jesus by yourself. You must be connected to his body. To dismiss the church is to reject his Bride & Family." The problem isn't just your schedule...the problem is you. The problem is your commitment to using the tools God has given you. Don't use the tools and the Lord can ultimately take them away and allow you to go your own way. This is very serious and not an option. So make a choice to prioritize weekly worship and schedule it into the begininng of your week and not the end of your week.  

One of the new distinctives in our church (which is not really new at all) is this: I commit to weekly worship without compromise or excuse making. I encourage you to make that your core conviction based on Scripture and considering how believers are to respond to Hebrews 10.

For the Fame of His Name,

Pastor Ryan

"For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10)

I am so irresponsible when it comes to tools. I have this one tool box that is just a mess. It has all this stuff in it that I never use and then it is so loaded with nuts and bolts that are justing taking up space. It's so hard to try to find anything in that tool box when I need it most! The other bad habit I have is that I keep losing my tools. I don't put them back in the box when I am finished. I leave them just hanging around or I put them in the kitchen junk drawer where they get swallowed up never to be seen again, kind of like when my couch swallows the t.v. remote. I am also bad about lending out my tools to people with no communicated expectation to bring them back. And of course the other problem is that I just don't take the time to replace the ones that are lost. The result is I have a tool box that is a mess! I need to retool and simplify my tool box! I need just the basic tools in the box and I need to not to lose them or allow them to get buried by a bunch of stuff that I don't need, and I need to tell people to bring back what I lend out! I need to be more responsible with the tools I have.

Life in a church can be alot like that tool box. If we are not carefull we will throw in all these nuts and bolts that complicate things. If we are not careful we don't keep track of our tools and we lend out tools with no expectations or conditions. We put tools in the wrong places and we don't hold ourselves accountable to replace the ones we have lost or misplaced. Wouldn't church life be simpler if we would clean out our tool box and just stick to the basic tools we need with proper accounatbility and responsibility? 

That's what I am in the process of doing in my spiritual life and the life of our church: retooling. It seems I have allowed Satan into my tool box and it seems I have allowed myself to clutter things up and get myself to lose sight of the basics of my faith. I have been so focused on the nuts and bolts of circumstances and I have been so irresponsible with the tools I was given. I am not repsonsible with the spiritual tools God has given me...at least not like I should be.

The Bible says. "For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10).

That tells me that God is the master craftsman and he had his tools out, especially the chisel, and he created me with his tools for the express purpose that I would take those same tools and perform good works with them. I just need to stick to the plans he made beforehand and walk in them, which means "do what He does." 

Jesus doesn't allow His tool box to become cluttered and a mess. He doesn't like it when the tools he has given the christian and the church become neglected, lost, or misused. Over the course of the next several weeks and months I will be challenging myself to get back to basics and use the tools that God has given me in a more responsible and worthy manner. We are also going to be "retooling" our church and simplifying the tool box so that people are not confused, cluttered, or careless in their good works for Jesus Christ. But for now I want to impress upon your heart three main categories of tools that God has given us to use for His glory: 

1.  Worshipping Christ

2.  Walking with Christ

3.  Working for Christ

That's it! Just three categories of tools that we will come back to, discover, and unpack over the next few weeks. But let me challenge you to do something first: Check out the toolbox of your life that God has given you by His Spirit. What are you doing with the tools he has given you? How is that worshiping Christ thing going for you? How is that walking with Jesus thing going for you lately? And that serving Christ thing? How's that going for you these days? What's that? "You've kinda got the tool box of your life in a mess?" So what are you are you going to do about it? 

There is only one thing I know that can change your heart and situation. I know this by personal experience: Allow God to inspect the tool box and make a list of basic things you need to get back to. Allow Him by the Word of God and His Spirit to clean out all the junk and retool you for future use because the truth is you can't get the job done the way you are going. You need to simplify your heart by removing all the clutter of sin and their excuses and just get back what you've been missing: Back to worship, back to walking, and back to working. But it all starts with a simple choice: Retool and simplify your life with Jesus. I know you can do it and I know we can do it together. Now where did I put that toolbox? Stay tuned!

For the Fame of His Name,

Pastor Ryan