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Here is some more encouragement from Charles H. Sprugeon on your Thursday. For everyone who is preparing a sermon for this weekend, listen to Mr. Spurgeon's advice.  Remember the gospel still saves souls!

"Believe in preaching the love of Christ, believe in preaching the atoning sacrifice, believe in preaching the new birth, believe in preaching the whole counsel of God.  the old hammer of the gospel will still break the rock in pieces; the ancient fir of Pentecost will still burn among the multitude.  try nothing new, but go on with preaching, and if we all preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, the results of preaching will astound us."

from The Soul Winner by Charles H. Spurgeon

Sometimes I thank I am a good Dad. I change diapers, I wash clothes, I fix bottles, I feed babies, I wrestle with my children, we play outside, I take them places, and they seem to like me when I come home from work.

Other times, I know I am a lousy Dad. I sit on the couch when my kids want to play, I look at the computer while they are trying to tell me something, I ignore them when they are crying, I leave diapers on for way to long, I don’t correct them every time I should, and teach them horrible habits. I know it isn’t ideal, but it is true.

The other night, my “good dad” switch must have been turned off, because I had to be instructed by Knox that it was time for bed. He told me that he wanted to go lay down and read the Bible. When I heard those words it wasn’t hard for me to come back to earth and do what he had asked me.

We lay down in his bed and began to read the story of Joseph. As I began to read, Knox stopped me and asked, “Where is Jesus?” Without even thinking, I answered that he was not born yet. I wasn’t fully prepared for the question, but Knox seemed somewhat satisfied with this answer and we continued to read the story.

As I began to think about his question later, it dawned on me that I had not answered him completely and accurately. The answer I gave was a right answer. It was true that Jesus was not born at the time of Joseph. He would not be born until much later. However, Jesus was there. He is on every page of Scripture. The entire Bible is about him. In the Old Testament we see Jesus Christ concealed, while in the New Testament Jesus Christ is revealed. In the Old Testament, God makes promises to his people and in the New Testament he keeps these promises through Christ. As Sally Lloyd-Jones writes in her Jesus Storybook Bible,

        “It’s like an adventure story about a young Hero who came from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince
        who leaves his palace, his throne, everything to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that have come true in real
        life.

        You see, the best thing about this story is—it’s true.

        It takes the whole Bible to tell this story. And at the center of the Story there is a baby. Every story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the
        missing piece in a puzzle—the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.”

In John chapter 8, Jesus tells the Jews that, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” The then Jews replied to him and said, “You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?” Jesus responds clearly when he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” At this, the Jews picked up stones to stone him. (John 8:48-59). Jesus was not simply saying that he was older than Abraham. He didn’t respond with, “Before Abraham was, I was.” He clearly identifies himself with the great I AM. Jesus is the eternal word who was with God in the beginning (John 1:1). He is the image of the invisible God through whom and for whom all things were created (Colossians 1:15-16). In Christ all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). This is especially true of the Scripture. Christ holds all of the Scripture together. He is the centerpiece and the focus.

As Christians, we must read the Scripture with Christ in view. Otherwise, we could descend into a slippery slope of moralism. Whenever we sit down to read the Bible, we would do well to ask the question that my two-year old asked me, “Where is Jesus?”

Some helpful resources:
How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens: A Guide to Christ-Focused Reading of Scripture by Michael Williams

Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church by Michael Lawrence

The Big Picture Story Bible by David R. Helm

The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones

This is an encouraging word and reminder to all Sunday School teachers who are preparing to teach this Sunday:

        Your business is not merely to teach the children in your classes to read the Bible,
        not barely to inculcate the duties of morality, nor even to instruct them in the mere
        letter of the gospel, but your high calling is to be the means, in the hands of God,
        of bringing life from heaven to dead souls.
                                                                                          from The Soul Winner by Charles H. Spurgeon

Remember that teaching the word of God has eternal consequences. People do not merely need to be taught how to be "good." They need to be brought to life! May God bless you as you prepare and teach.

During college, Jonathan Leeman lived in Brussels, Belgium for five months. While in Belgium, his US passport expired. This means he had no valid documentation to prove he was a citizen of the United States. He could not leave the country and therefore did the only thing he could do – he went to the US Embassy and had his passport renewed. The experience made him realize something: the Embassy did not make him a citizen of the United States but it did officially affirm his citizenship. He realized he had no authority in himself to declare himself an American citizen before the authorities in Belgium; only the office with the proper authority could do so.

Leeman is now an elder in a Southern Baptist church and remembered that episode in his new book, Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus. He has studied the concept of church membership long enough to know that a few people think it is necessary and a few think it is completely optional. Most Christians are somewhere in between – they have a vague sense they should be involved in a local church but know it’s not the most important thing in the world. Therefore, most Christians don’t make a big deal about membership and spend several years hopping from one church to another or simply attend one for a long period of time without joining. It’s all good.

Leeman writes, “If you are a Christian living in a Western democracy, chances are you need to change the way you think about your church and how you are connected to it.” We tend to think of our church as a club or a voluntary organization where membership is optional. Others see the local church as a friendly group of people who share an interest in religious things and gather regularly to discuss those same things. Still others consider the local church to be a service provider in which the customer has all the authority.

The premise behind all of these mistaken concepts is the common assumption that we have the authority to conduct our Christian lives one our own, isolated from other believers and including the church when it is convenient and pleasing to us. In this way, the church is a club or friendly association or service provider that exists to meet out felt needs.  This is not all good.

Instead, Leeman writes that we should think of the church in the same way he understands the American Embassies all around the world. We are not people belonging to a club; we are citizens of a nation or kingdom. You don’t really find “membership” in the Bible because “membership” is a club-type word. You also don’t use “membership” to describe someone’s relationship to a nation, kingdom, or empire. Leeman says, “You don’t say, ‘How’s the membership of the British nation doing? Aren’t you guys running, like, sixty million members these days?’”

People in clubs have a common interest. Service providers meet a common need. Church do these things but much more. A church is based on the rule of a common king who requires the obedience of his citizens. Therefore, the Bible doesn’t really talk about membership but instead talks about how God’s people gather together under God’s rule.

Churches are embassies of God’s sovereign and supreme kingdom scattered all over the kingdoms of this world. Just like a nation’s political embassy, God’s embassies represent a home nation inside a foreign nation. They exist to declare its own interests to the host nation and to protect its own citizens who live in the foreign nation. Church membership is actually tied up in this image: a person who walks through the embassy does and claims to be a citizen of the kingdom of Christ. A church member is someone who is formally recognized as a Christian and is part of Christ’s global kingdom.  The local church guards the reputation of God’s kingdom by sorting out true citizens from false citizens and allows the rest of the world to see the beauty of God’s eternal kingdom represented on earth.

So, if you claim to be a Christian, enter an embassy near you and declare your citizenship in God’s kingdom. The local embassy will affirm your declaration and welcome you in and offer all the protection and privileges a citizen rightly requires and deserves.