Where have all the Christian heroes gone?  Where are the people of faith who would risk fame and spotlight because of Christ?  It is interesting to me that the Olympics are in China this year.  And that one missionary to China was a great Olympic athlete and a great Christian witness.

Those of you who have seen the movie, “Chariots of Fire” may be familiar with Eric Liddell; for those who haven’t here is what Wikipedia says about him, “During the summer of 1924, the Olympics were hosted by the city of Paris. Liddell was a committed Christian and refused to run on Sunday (the Sabbath), with the consequence that he was forced to withdraw from the 100 metres race, his best event. The schedule had been published several months earlier, and his decision was made well before the Games began. Liddell spent the intervening months training for the 400 metres, an event in which he had previously excelled. Even so, his success in the 400m was largely unexpected. The day of 400 metres race came, and as Liddell went to the starting blocks, an American masseur slipped a piece of paper in his hand with a quotation from 1 Samuel 2:30, “Those who honor me I will honor.” Liddell ran with that piece of paper in his hand. He not only won the race, but broke the existing world record with a time of 47.6 seconds. A few days earlier Liddell had competed in the 200 metre finals, for which he received the bronze medal behind Americans Jackson Scholz and Charles Paddock, beating Harold Abrahams, who finished in sixth place. (This was the second and last race in which these two runners met.)

Because of his birth and death in the country some of China’s Olympic literature lists the Scotsman as China’s first Olympic champion.”

Again I ask, where have all the Christian heroes gone?  I doubt any athletes today would refuse to participate in the Olympic games on Sunday and yet many athletes are Christians.  Eric Liddell didn’t condemn others who chose to participate in the games on a Sunday but he stuck to his conviction that it was wrong for him to do so.  Where are the men and women of God today who would stand up with similar convictions?

I know I said last week that at 39 I was getting old in longing for the “good old days”.  I realize that America may never return to the days when the sidewalks are rolled up on Sundays and the businesses are closed.  But perhaps we need to do a better job of instilling a passion for worship in our Children and make them excited for Sunday morning again.

For most Sunday is just another day.  Even in our community we have baseball games and swim meets on Sunday mornings.  And a host of other activities and events one can choose to be involved in.  For me and my household I will repeat the story of Eric Liddell who stood up to say “NO”, and I will urge in my children a wonder and excitement for Sunday morning worship.  This is my time to worship with my family, the family of God, and nothing will make me AWOL from spending time with God’s people.

I have never, ever had anyone come up to me and say, “Todd, I really enjoy your friendship and enjoy being around you, but I can’t stand your wife.”  Those of you who are married will probably agree with me that, that is not the way to best encourage friendship with me.  In a few weeks my wife and I will have been married 18 years.  I still remember that day that I said, “I do” and we started our life together.  My wife and I are a package deal.  You want one you get the other.  That’s just the way that God designed marriage to work.  We are a team in the truest sense of the word.  So if someone decided they would like to be friends with me but wanted nothing to do with my wife, I’d probably tell them to take a hike.  We’re in this together.  Mark 10:7-9 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wive, and they shall become one flesh.  So they are no longer two but one.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  We are a team, so if you treat my wife badly I take offense at that.

Funny how Christians today don’t make the connection to Christ and His Bride the Church.  Millions of Christians today are not committed to a local body of believers.  Yes, I am concerned about those who have never entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ.  But my heart breaks for those who say, “Jesus, I really enjoy your friendship and I enjoy being around you, but I really can’t stand your wife.”  The excuses are varied, “I can worship God in nature.”  “I don’t care for the institutionalized church.”  “I don’t have to belong.” But the results are the same–I don’t think Jesus likes it one bit.  You cannot have Jesus without His bride, the Church.  They too are a package deal.  Ephesians 5:25-27, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

Jesus looks at the church and says, “That’s my bride.  I love her.  I gave my life for her.”  How can we dare call ourselves Christians if we do not love what Christ loves the most?

Hebrews 10:24, 25, “And 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.”

I saw a book title with this name on it once and thought it would be a good thing to read, but never got around to it.  It’s that how it goes with the status-quo?  We have good intentions.  We have big dreams and plans, but life tends to keep us fixed in a narrow parameter.

For many years now I have heard a lot of doom and gloom regarding America’s religious future.  Persecution is coming people say.  I have even heard of those in other countries that pray for our nation to undergo persecution.  We’ve all heard the maxim, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”.  We all know that in countries where there is true persecution that Christianity is growing.

However, I don’t see persecution coming to America anytime soon.  The biggest reason behind my thoughts is that “Churchianity” in America is no different than the culture around us.  We have settled for the status-quo.  We have become content to merely fit in and be like everyone else.  Why would the government or anyone else for that matter want to silence a group of people that look, think, and act just like them?

Until the church starts being the church…..  Until we un-quo the status and act like Christians……  Until we become counter-cultural… things will continue on.   Anyone want to join me in praying that Christ shakes up His Bride in America and that we make faith something worth living and dying for?

American Idol the TV show has cashed in on America’s desire for fame and glory.  We love to cheer on the every day man or woman in the pursuit of their dreams.  But America has many idols today that tend to get in the way of people’s relationships with God.  Whether it is the pursuit of wealth, pleasure, the worship of movie stars or sports figures, many things tend to get in the way of our devotion to God and to His Church.

I for one have been a little blue this summer at the summer church slump.  I know we all need a trip away once in a while, but Americans these days seem to place everything else in a higher place than the weekly worship of God and spending time with His family the Church.  I have missed my fellow family members and have been discouraged instead of encouraged in my faith because of those who are gone.  This is not uncommon and happens in many churches in America in the summer, but just because it is common doesn’t mean I don’t miss the fellowship of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

At 39 I realized this summer at summer camp that I was among the senior staff.  How did that happen?  I mean 20 years ago I was 19.  Being “older” I still remember hearing the stories of many people who parents were “mean” when they grew up.  It used to be that parents put their foot down and whether the kids were involved in baseball or basketball or music or whatever activities they enjoyed, parents said Sunday morning and Wednesday nights are off limits.  I don’t care if your coach schedules a game or a practice or it is the State Championship, you will be in Church on Sundays and Wednesday nights.  Now there aren’t enough parents willing to stand up and “force” church on their children and we see that reflected in a lack of love for the local Church.  This year I even saw baseball games and track activities going on in our city on Sunday mornings.

Those children of “mean” parents in years gone by usually, by and large, tell of how grateful they were to their parents for setting Church and worship as a priority.  As God and Fellowship become more and more of another “option” for people I sure miss the good old days.  And I wonder with Jesus if faith will be found on the earch when He returns?  (Luke 18:8)

Taking a verse or two of Scripture and benefiting from it or using it to grow in our faith is not too difficult a process if we are willing to apply it and let it work on us.  But there are times in life that it is hard to make two seemingly contradictory Scriptures work together.  I have been struggling with these two passages of Scripture for quite a while now and I have asked many friends and Pastors to help me balance them and no one seems to have the answer.  Maybe you have some thoughts I haven’t thought about:

Philippians 1:15-18, “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will.  The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.  The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.  What then?  Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”

Titus 3:10, “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him,”

By themselves these words from Paul seem pretty straightforward.  Paul realizes that there are those who are sincere in the preaching of the Gospel and those who do it out of envy or to harm him.  Paul isn’t concerned as much about the motives of those who preach the Gospel as he is that the Gospel is being preached.  I too celebrate with Paul every time the Gospel is preached no matter what the motive of the message bearer.  But as we look at Titus 3:10 Paul does not advocate the “life and let live” philosophy of life either.  There are those who have damaged the body of Christ by division.  Church splits in America today seem to be a pasttime like baseball rather than viewed as sinful and destructive to the body.

I don’t see Christians today striving to reconcile once, twice, then have nothing to do with those who cause division.  Instead I see Christians just sweep divisiveness under the rug and we want the “can’t we all just get along” attitude.  I pray for union where there has been division, but that is never done by simply saying, “let’s just forget the past”.  I think it is done by taking a hard look at the past and then dealing with it in a Biblical manner.

I know part of my struggle with these two passages of Scripture has to do with my own past, but perhaps others have some new reflections on these verses that I and others haven’t thought of.

Need some encouragement?  Try reading through the book of Ephesians.  We have been studying that on Sundays and as I prepare messages each week I am overwhelmed by Paul’s description of Christ’s love.

Eph. 3:20, 21, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen

Think about that first sentence for a moment.  God is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think.  The fact that he loves us so much.  That Christ died for us.  That we have been brought back to life from the dead (read Eph. 2) overwhelms me.  Spend some time this week in the book of Ephesians for the encouragement boost from God.

We recently finished a class in our congregation on Elders and tomorrow I am starting a class on Deacons.  You can listen to the audio files on our church website www.rivchristian.com under Leadership.

It is amazing to me how many opinions we have that we don’t take the time to back up with Scripture.  We hear a preacher or teacher teach on church leadership.  We read books on church leadership.  We have functioned in churches with different attitudes and styles of church leadership.  And then we form opinions.  Unfortunately, very rarely do we try and do a study of the Word of God first and then form our opinions.  We have a lot of baggage we haul with us.

We have ideas of what Elders and Deacons should do.  What they should look like.  What types of people they should be.  But then when we go to study we may or may not be able to back up our ideas.

My plea is that we have opinions but make sure they are educated.  That means we take the time to actually study the Scriptures and see what they say and they don’t say and then base our opinions on that.  Brother so and so may have been a great preacher and preached for 50+ years, but his opinions may not always line up with Scripture but maybe he is teaching what he has been taught.  Brother so and so may have just released a great new book on leadership and it sells a million copies, but he too may be teaching just what he has been taught.

Some of the best teaching on any subject is just getting us to ask questions.  Why do we do the things we do?  Do we follow a Scripture?  And Opinion?  Or a combination of both?  If we start by asking the questions maybe we will be honest enough with ourselves to look for the answers.

Have you noticed how the current generation seems to have commitment issues?  Very rarely anymore do I see those notices in the paper for couples who have been married 50 years.  Couples today live together.  Maybe get married but just as easily get divorced and start the process all over again.  This summer my wife and I will have been married 18 years.  It doesn’t seem like that long but it is the same about of time we spent in our homes growing up.  We don’t rank with the 50+  crowd but we hope to get there some day.

Likewise you can’t find a lot of folks who have a long track record with churches either.  It seems like with our consumer mentality more and more people shop for churches like they shop for clothes.  I’ll go to the one that give “me” the best deal.  And when another good deal or excitement is happening elsewhere I’ll move on down the road to the next best thing.  You don’t hear much about those lifelong members who have suffered blood, sweat, and tears for the sake of building up their church.  Instead we get involved until someone or something makes us upset and we move on down the road to another church.  Whatever church you are a member of, you need to have a vested interest in seeing it succeed.  You are the church, not the building.

And lest you think I’m speaking only of church members and not preachers.  Unfortunately, preachers today only stick with a church for a little over two years on average and then move on to greener pastures.

Let us not make church about “me” or “you”.  Instead let us put down roots and grow where God has planted us and work toward building up His kingdom and not our own.

I’ve been thinking about Estate Planning in the context of church life.  Now we usually hear those words in conjunction with College’s or Institutions that aggressively look for funding from alumni that have passed on.  And even though the concept of inheritance is Biblical we don’t often hear it preached from the pulpit.  In fact, the words, “Estate Planning” are enough to make most people go, “what?”

My concept of church is that my Church is my family.  The members of my congregation are just as much family to me as my flesh and blood and I will spend eternity with them.  If my church family means so much to me shouldn’t I consider not only my “flesh and blood” family when I die but also my “church family” as well.

Maybe you’ve already had these thoughts and they are simply fresh to me.  But what a better way for a church body to plan for the future but with church members planning on leaving gifts to their church.

As my wife and I work on redoing our wills (the last edition is from ‘97 and we only had two children then not the four we do now) we will work on planning on leaving assets to our children but we will also make sure that we leave a legacy to our church family.  One that will continue to help them reach others with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, long after we are gone.  I’m not sure what it will amount to at this point in time, but at least a tithe of our assets or even the level of giving we are striving to give now.

What will you leave behind to your church family?