2014 Resolutions

2014 Resolutions

It’s that time of year for resolutions! Today, I want to challenge you to 5 resolutions (or choices) from Nehemiah 6:1-9 to help you get the most out of 2014. For those who don’t know the story, Nehemiah was a Jewish exile serving in the court of Artexerxes in 446 BC. While a remnant had finished building the Temple in Jerusalem, the city itself still lay in ruins. Nehemiah felt compelled by God to accept the challenge to rebuild the city walls. So, he positioned himself to be a part of the answer to God’s promises to His people, Israel. By the time we get to our text in Nehemiah 6, the work has progressed so rapidly that the enemies of the Jews are determined to put a stop to God’s work through Nehemiah. I want us to see in this passage 5 choices Nehemiah made to give us insight for helping us make the most of 2014.

Nehemiah 6:1-9 ¹ When word came to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it—though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates—² Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” But they were scheming to harm me; ³ so I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” ⁴ Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer. ⁵ Then, the fifth time, Sanballat sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his hand was an unsealed letter ⁶ in which was written: “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem says it is true—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king ⁷ and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us meet together.” ⁸ I sent him this reply: “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head ,⁹ They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.” But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”

1. Choose the Spiritual over the Common 6:1

          While Nehemiah was building a wall with doors and gates, his work was not really about bricks and mortar or doors and hinges. His work actually testified to the promises of God for His people. Nehemiah discovered that what he was doing was “great work” because it was spiritual work and spiritual work always trumps common work for significance.

          Whatever you and I find ourselves doing in 2014, we simply must discover the spiritual element within it. Otherwise, we are wasting our time. If you find that you cannot discover the spiritual element in what you are doing, then you probably need to stop doing it and find some place else to invest your time and energy. The problem is that too much of what we do is just activity without any consideration of its spiritual significance. Consider Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

2. Choose the Important over the Urgent 6:2-3

          When Nehemiah’s enemies called for a parlay, they had no interest in dialogue. They intended to harm the work of God by harming His foot soldier. Nehemiah saw right through their intrigue. He knew that their urgent call for a clarifying conversation served only as a cover for their real intention to bring the work on the wall to a screeching halt.

          The urgent in life has always had a nasty habit of getting in the way of the important. Great followers of Christ seem to have a knack for recognizing the difference between what is urgent and what is important and adjust their lives to take care of the most important things FIRST. You will always face competition over God’s agenda for your life. If you are going to accomplish the purposes God has for you, then you are going to have to choose the important over the urgent. This means that hard choices have to be made. For instance, not everything that can be done should be done. Some things just aren’t that important or significant. Also, not everything that should be done should be done now. Some things are not yet ready to be done and some things you’re not yet ready to do. Finally, not everything that should be done should be done by YOU. Everyone would accomplish far more if each of us worked in our areas of greatest strength.

3. Choose the Principled over the Pressured 6:4

          When the attempt at distraction failed, Nehemiah’s enemies refused to give up easily. They simply would not take “no” for an answer and repeatedly pressured Nehemiah to give in to their wishes. The cousin to the urgent is the pressured, commonly known as the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Nehemiah chose to stick to his principles over giving into the pressure of those who sought to derail his work.

          You and I never face a day when our choices don’t matter. If it was a bad choice yesterday, it’s most likely a bad choice today. The truth is that giving into pressure doesn’t make it go away. It makes it grow. Kids, who know mommy or daddy will eventually give in to their tantrums, only get better at pressuring the parent who serves as the weakest link! People who learn how to pressure you to give into their wishes only get better at pressuring you to give them more of what they want.

4. Choose the Courageous over the Cowardly 6:5-9a

          After the innocuous attempt at distraction failed, followed by the unsuccessful attempt at pressure, Nehemiah’s enemies escalated to the use of intimidation. The veil of politeness is only useful until manipulators cannot achieve their objective through the social graces. Nehemiah would have none of it. After all God had done for him and after all he had already accomplished with the power of God, now was not the time to get weak in the knees. Nehemiah courageously stood his ground, even at great risk to everything he had worked so hard to get done.

When you decide to adopt God’s priorities for your life, you will face attempts to distract you, usually with “urgencies”. You will face attempts to pressure you, usually with phrases like: come on, it’s no big deal, what’s it going to hurt, no one will ever know, don’t you love me, what’s wrong with a little… and the list goes on and on. If you manage to stand your ground in the face of the pressure, you can rest assured that the next thing you will face is intimidation. This is where you have to choose to stand your ground, regardless of the consequences. And you need to be aware that some people will carry out their threats and you may indeed suffer loss. However, know this: no one celebrates the cowardly. We only celebrate the courageous, but there’s more at stake than being celebrated. It is vital to your spiritual well-being that you learn to be courageous. How vital? Consider Revelation 21:8, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Right now, you may be asking, “How can I possibly live completely in harmony with God’s priorities for my life, when faced with daily urgencies, constant pressures, and the threats of intimidation?” The answer is: YOU CAN’T! Not unless you make the last choice in our list, the same one that Nehemiah made.

5. Choose the Power of God over the Power of You 6:9b

Nehemiah knew that all of the things he faced were too much for him to handle in his own strength… so he prayed to God for strength! Nehemiah wasn’t just a principled man. He was a praying man.

No one can maintain his principles very long in his own strength. Everything I have said up to this point is impossible for you to carry out in your own strength. You need God’s wisdom through His Word to define your life for you in spiritual terms and the four previous choices I’ve challenged you to make come from relying on God’s Word to define what is right and wrong for your life. However, you need more than knowledge of God’s Word. You need God’s strength through prayer to empower you to apply God’s Word so that you can overcome all the forces that seek to derail you in living a life of significance. You need to make the right choices. God has given you that responsibility. However, you also need the strength that He provides. He promises to give it, if you’ll ask Him for it.

How do we know the Bible stories are true?

I'd like to answer that with another question: how do you know that any story you read about is true? For instance, do you believe that the United States has put a man on the moon? If you do believe that, what make you believe that is true? There are many people in our country today that believe that the moon landing was all a made up story by movie makers in Hollywood. We have to decide what we believe about any and all stories that we read about or hear about in the world. The way we do that is we ask questions of the stories until we become convinced that they are true.

For instance, who were the eyewitnesses to the people who walked on the moon? Are they trustworthy? Is there evidence that what they say is true?

For the Bible, we need to ask who were the eyewitnesses to the Bible stories? Are they trustworthy? Are there documents outside the Bible that tell the same stories? Is there evidence that the Bible stories are true?

The Bible claims to have been written by people who were eyewitnesses of most of its stories. When we check they eyewitness stories against other written stories of the day and other things that we can know, nothing in the Bible has ever been proven as false - and MANY people have tried very hard to prove the Bible as false. There is also evidence that the most incredible stories of the Bible are true. For instance, did you know that there are fish bones on the tops of even the tallest mountains in the world? How did they get there? The Bible says that a flood covered the whole earth during the days of Noah. Scientists may say that is not possible, but they cannot deny that fish bones are on the tops of mountains. Also, EVERY culture on earth has an ancient story of a great flood that at one time destroyed the world. How is THAT possible? The reason its possible is that it is most likely TRUE! That's just how we come to believe that one of the stories of the Bible is true. We can use that same process to discover that so many of the Bible stories are true that, after awhile, you have to come to the conclusion that all of the Bible stories are true.

I have studied most of the Bible's stories in great detail. I have looked for evidence that they are true and I have never been able to find any evidence that any of them are false. The biggest story of the Bible is the story of Jesus rising from the dead. When Christianity was just starting out, the one thing that the disciples kept on saying is that Jesus walked out of his own grave. Many of them were killed for believing it and teaching it. I've never heard of anyone who was willing to die for something that they knew was a lie. The first disciples of Jesus saw him after he came back from the dead, they heard him, and they touched him. They KNEW he was real and he was alive again and nobody could convince them to say it was false. Even when people ordered them to deny the resurrection of Jesus or die, they chose to die.

At the end of the day, though, you have to do your own homework and decide what you believe. Do you believe the Bible stories are true? I know that I do. Millions of other people believe they are true also. Now, you have to decide.

I'm praying for God to help you understand and believe.

I Love My Church

A relatively new phrase is floating around Christendom these days. Perhaps you've seen it: "I love my church." In part, this is a reaction to an awful lot of church bashing that has gone on over the years. I cringe every time I hear someone bring a charge against what the church has not done that it ought to have done or how it has somehow failed. I cringe, because those well-intentioned speakers are talking about the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ.

God has said in His word that the church is His body (Colossians 1:24). God has also said in His Word that Christ has given "himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:25-27). When we speak of the failings of the church, we speak of a failure of Christ and His promise to build and advance His church. My point here is not to exempt ministers and members of local churches from critique or even censure, but to recognize that the church is a special "being" that serves as a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Peter 2:5) and we need to be careful of impugning the Lord's church even as we observe the errors of the people within her.

On the other hand, I also want to think carefully about what it means to say, "I love my church." We work hard at the church I pastor to help people connect with our church, meaning the family of God that serves together here. I don't want people to say: "This is the church I attend." I want them to say: "This is my church."

Within that construct, however, we will do well to remember that even as we say "this is my church" or "I love my church" that, ultimately, the church belongs to Jesus and it exists for Him above all else. Consider Paul's words in Colossians 1:16-18, "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy."

I draw our attention to the above passage to offer this caveat about "my church." My church is not about me, but about Him first, only, and always. The minute my church becomes about anything less, then we have deviated from the purpose and focus of His church. That Jesus is the foundation and end of my church is vital to your and my participation in the respective churches we attend.

Toxic Baggage

For Easter and the four weeks following, Fall Creek takes a look at the baggage that we all carry through life and seeks to embrace the truth that it is God's plan to help us carry the baggage we cannot avoid, and give away the baggage we do not need.

Sunday, May 1, we looked at the Toxic Baggage of Unforgiveness. Jesus reveals the necessity of learning forgiveness in Matthew 18:21-35. In this text, we find that our baggage of unforgiveness hurts the one who needs forgiveness (see verse 30). Our unwillingness to forgive also upsets those bystanders who experience our hard-heartedness, especially when they know how much we ourselves have been forgiven (see verse 31). In both cases, we tend to excuse our unwillingness to forgive on hard fought grounds.

If our lack of forgiveness hurts the one who needs forgiveness, we can easily conclude that the perpetrator against us deserves whatever he gets. We reason that our offender made his bed; we are simply forcing him to lay in it. Too often, we ignore the truth that the debt owed to us pales in comparison to the debt we owe to God. In our hurt, we cry justice for others but mercy for ourselves.

If our lack of forgiveness hurts those around the situation, we often justify ourselves on the basis that others cannot know our pain. No one knows the loss we have suffered and we cannot be blamed for balancing the scales. We forget that our rush to judgment leaves wounds in our wake and only perpetuates the damage done in the first place.

Most of us, if not all, have little regard for the above arguments as a motivating factor moving us towards forgiveness. Unfortunately, others' pain simply fails to reach our hearts when it comes to our need to let go of the toxic baggage of unforgiveness. If we ever hope to be free of this baggage, we must become convinced of the danger to ourselves. Jesus does not leave us wanting for this incentive.

When we refuse to forgive our offender, we ironically become our own worst enemy. Jesus warns us in verse 34 of our text that the person who will not forgive destroys himself in the end, by subjecting himself to the judgment of the master (God). The bitter spirit within that blocks forgiveness also poisons us by opening us up to Satan's attacks (see Ephesians 4:26-27).

So how can we let go of this toxic baggage of unforgiveness? I offer four steps you can take to help rid yourself of your toxic baggage.

1. Memorize Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you." The Word of God hidden in your heart will strengthen you in your effort to let go of the poison of unforgiveness.

2. Pray, and ask God to help you renew your mind to know that forgiveness is first about obedience to Him. If there were no other incentive to forgive, this would be enough. Jesus commands that we forgive one another. Jesus told us in Luke 17 that forgiveness does not require great faith, but rather simple obedience.

3. Pray, and ask God to help you restore what you've lost by regaining a passion for His forgiveness to you. To put it simply, if you cannot forgive, you have lost sight of how much you've been forgiven. Praying and thinking about this will certainly empower you to be more forgiving.

4. Pray, and ask God to help you react in a God-sized way by praying for and being kind to those who have hurt you. You will know that you have made real progress in the matter of forgiveness when you can genuinely pray for those who have hurt you and show that person the kindness of God.

There is so much more to learn about forgiveness and the freedom it brings to those who have been wounded. I challenge you to dive deep into God's Word to discover how much more God has for you and how you can be free from your own toxic baggage.

The Power of the Resurrection

Everything in life for the Christian depends on the resurrection. Paul noted this in his letter to the Ephesians when he wrote, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms..." (Eph 1:18).


When we accept the truth of the resurrection, we gain access to the power that accomplished it. Power that enables us to think new thoughts to deliver us from our self-destructive musings. Power that transforms all our hopelessness into confident expectation. Power that provides us with every resource we need to display the glory of God through our lives.


The power of God is available to all who believe. The challenge for every Christian is not God's ability or will to act, but whether or not we believe. To be specific, the challenge is whether we believe the Word of God when He tells us to act. For instance, when God tells us to speak of Jesus to the world, promising that they will believe, we have a choice. Will we speak, believing that God will save? Will we remain quiet, convinced that the world doesn't even want to hear. When God tells us to "not let the sun go down while you are still angry," do we believe Him enough to follow His instruction? Or do we give up in defeat and say, "That's impossible."


The power of the resurrection is a deposit from God to those who would follow Jesus Christ, challenging us to believe God with absolute faith. Dead men don't walk out of their grave, yet Jesus did. After that, what has not been conquered or what cannot be conquered in your life? Unfortunately, in our small thinking, too many of us who claim to follow Christ weigh ourselves down with all kinds of baggage that leaves us powerless to really live.


We hang onto hurts, using them as an excuse as to why we cannot be free. We cling to unfulfilled dreams, paralyzing us from moving on to grander possibilities. We pursue volume instead of value, wondering why satisfaction never comes. We persist in patterns that diminish us, lamenting why we can never gain control of our lives.


The resurrection of Jesus changes all of this... if we will believe. Believing is not easy, but it is possible. And Paul gives us the answer as to how at the beginning of the passage we cited above. Paul prayed for his friends in Ephesus to experience the power of the resurrection of Christ and by extension, challenged them to pray for each other and themselves. If we hope to be different, we need the power of God to make us different and we gain access to Him through persistent, believing prayer.

Now Is the Time

As we move through the week from Palm Sunday to Easter, Christ-followers have the single greatest opportunity of the year to reach out to those who do not have a relationship with Jesus. The culture of Christianity in our nation is still strong enough to draw millions to churches this coming weekend. The question is whether or not believers will take advantage of the opportunity and pastors will partner with their congregations for maximum effect for the sake of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Pastors, now is not the time to ridicule all your visitors, by calling them Chreaster's or saying something demeaning at the end of your sermon like, "See the rest of you at Christmas." Now is the time to lovingly, boldly pray for all those visitors coming to your church and be prepared with the best offering in the form of a sermon you can possibly bring. Now is the time to partner with your congregation to reward the work of their invitation by preaching in such a way that helps initiate spiritual conversations between your members and their friends.

Christ-followers, now is not the time to hang back and assume that your unchurched friends will show up at church somewhere and hear the Good News of Jesus this Easter. You simply cannot leave the well-being of their eternal soul to chance. If know that your pastor will be clearly communicating the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ along with a call to repentance and faith, then you need to partner with your pastor to get your friends to church this weekend. You need to pay close attention to the message and make yourself available afterwards for spiritual conversations. You need to be praying for God's Spirit to soften hearts and open minds to the message of Jesus.

Now is the time to be bold, my friends, for the cause of Christ.

Praying for Easter

The Reason We're Here

We are a little more than a week away from EASTER. Were it not for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave, there would be no churches. More importantly, there would be no hope for this life or the next. As we approach this Easter, I pray that believers everywhere will recognize the power of a singular event in history... the resurrection. May we not shy away from sharing that we truly believe something happened. We are not advocating a better religion or a better philosophy. We believe that because Jesus Christ rose from the dead and showed Himself to more than 500 people, He has proven that all He said is true and we can bank our eternity on it.

I'm asking the members of Fall Creek to be bold in your invitations to friends, neighbors, and co-workers to come and consider the claims of the man who walked out of His own grave 2000 years ago.