Thursday, May 9

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2 Corinthians 9:6-11

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written:

“He has scattered abroad his gives to the poor, his righteousness endures forever.”

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

I could never be mistaken for a farmer. I find farms both fascinating and beautiful in their own way, but I know very little about farming. In fact, I’m somewhat horticulturally challenged. While in college I through it would be fun to have a plant in my dorm room, so I bought a small cactus plant figuring it would be easy to take care of and fun to show my friends. I actually managed to kill that little cactus through neglect – and that’s hard to do!

But you don’t have to be a farmer to understand what might be called the “principle of the harvest.” That is, if you want to reap a large harvest, you have to plant a lot of seeds! It makes no sense to throw a small handful of seeds on the ground in the early spring and then expect to take up a bumper crop come late summer!

I think we can understand Paul’s teaching here both as individuals and as a church.

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

I believe that Paul is teaching us several extremely important things about generosity. First, he is telling us that generosity both originates from and produces joy. When he says we are not to give under compulsion or reluctantly but that God loves a “cheerful giver” he is saying that generosity cannot be forced. In fact, another name for “forced generosity” is taxation! Rather, genuine generosity bubbles up from a joyful and grateful heart. And when Paul says that “whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly” I believe he is talking about joy. So generosity both comes from joy and produces joy in our hearts!

Second, Paul is teaching us that generosity is a response to the gospel. When he says, “God is able to make all grace abound to you…” I believe he is referring to the gospel. For in the gospel, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has made his grace about to us. The gospel is the ultimate expression of God’s own generosity! Remember the words of John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

“For God so loved that he…gave…”

Jesus is the ultimate expression of the generosity of God. And our generosity is simply a response to his great generosity!

But then Paul says:

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

While this portion of the text can be applied to individual believers, I think it is particularly aimed at the church as a body of believers.

He is saying that God blesses us as individuals with abundant resources with a purpose in mind. His purpose is that we would grow in our generosity so that God can enlarge the harvest of our righteousness.

By “harvest of your righteousness” I think Paul is referring to the impact the church is to make in the community and in the world. So he is drawing a kind of straight line from the generosity of God in the gospel to our personal generosity in response to the gospel to the impact our collective generosity can have in the world through the gospel!

Most of us have some kind of investment strategy. That is, we have some kind of strategy to save or invest money for college funds, for retirement, or simply to grow our personal resources.

Not long ago a friend of mine sought my pastoral advice on an investment opportunity that had come his way. It was a very unique opportunity and carried the potential of an enormous return on the investment. But something just didn’t feel right to my friend and so we talked about that. He eventually decided not to pursue the investment.

Paul is presenting us, in essence, with the investment opportunity of a lifetime. Only we aren’t being asked to invest in that which will enlarge our personal portfolios or our retirement accounts. He’s calling us to invest in that which will enlarge the harvest of righteousness; that which will enlarge the impact the gospel makes in the world. He’s offering us the chance to invest in the only endeavor that promises an eternal return.

May we sow generously so that we might reap generously!

Pastor Brian Coffey

Wednesday, May 8

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Colossians 1:6

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day your heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.

Acts 1:8 

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 

A couple of months ago I saw a news story about a meteor that hit the earth’s atmosphere somewhere over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Scientists who studied both the sonic boom and the power of the explosion created as the meteor hit the atmosphere determined that the meteor must have been roughly 10 – 50 feet in diameter and traveling 10 to 12 miles per second.

While this particular meteor broke apart before striking the earth, one can only imagine the size of the crater it would have left had it done so! Other meteors have indeed crashed into the surface of the earth leaving behind huge craters. And the size of those craters is directly related to the force of the impact, and the force of impact is related to the size and speed of the meteor.

I think it’s fun to think of the gospel as a kind of spiritual meteor. 

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day your heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.

The gospel came to earth in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, who, Paul says, “died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures…” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

WHAM! 

The gospel changed everything! The gospel proclaims the good news that our sins can be forgiven and that salvation is a gift we can receive through faith. This gospel left a crater that changed the course of human history; changed the eternal destiny of all who believe; and left a crater that is still growing today!

And the church, in its own way, is also a kind of meteor intended to have tremendous impact.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 

Jesus is saying that his followers, his church, is to have impact that radiates outward like the ripples created when a pebble is dropped into a pond. Or, better yet, when a huge boulder falls with a great force into a large lake; or when a meteor crashes into the earth and its impact can be felt a thousand miles away!

If the church is the gospel community; if the church is to make the gospel visible to the world; then, like a great meteor, the church is to have great impact.

At FBCG we want to be part of that impact. That’s why we remind ourselves often that… 

Our mission is to reach the people and families of our local community, connect them to Christ and his church, equip them through intentional spiritual growth so that, together, we can serve the world in the name of Christ.

We celebrate when a child opens his or her heart to Jesus in faith because the gospel is having impact. We celebrate when a young mother connects to our Moms Together ministry and eventually brings her whole family to FBCG because the gospel is having impact. We celebrate when we pack thousands of boxes of food for families in need because the gospel is having impact! We celebrate “faith stories” at our baptism events because the gospel is changing lives!

Read once again the Apostle Paul’s words to the Colossian church:

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day your heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.

Lord Jesus,

Thank you for your gospel. Thank you for inviting us to share in the great joy of sharing your gospel with the world. Please use us, as your church, to continue to grow and bear fruit!

Amen

Pastor Brian Coffey

Tuesday, May 7

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Ephesians 4:14-16

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Several years ago, while on vacation, my wife and I took our four boys to a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” museum. Ripley’s museums, as you probably know, are filled with all kinds of strange and unusual exhibits; from three-legged chickens to the guy who could lift weights with his eye-lids. And one of the exhibits was a life-sized wax model of the tallest man in the world. Robert Wadlow was born in Alton, Illinois in 1918 and, due to an abnormality in his pituitary gland, he was 6 feet tall by the time he was 6 years old. By the time he was 12 he stood 7’2” tall and still he grew taller. By his 22^nd birthday, Robert was 8 feet and 11 inches tall. Unfortunately, his great size began to take its toll and he had to begin to use leg braces in order to stand and walk. Eventually, one of the braces caused a blister on his ankle, which caused an infection which was complicated by his other health issues and he passed away in 1940 at the age of 22.

As parents we all want our children to grow, and we are glad to see the little marks on the doorframe move ever upwards during their formative years. But we want our children to grow in more ways than just their physical height. We want them to grow emotionally, intellectually, relationally and spiritually. We know that it would actually be quite tragic for a child to grow in only one dimension of his or her life.

The same is true in spiritual life, and in the church. 

In Ephesians Paul refers to our personal spiritual growth:

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.

Here Paul is teaching us that in order to “grow up” spiritually we must be taught the truth. He’s referring, of course, to the truth of the gospel; the truth of God’s word. But notice that he also says we are to in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.

What does he mean by “in all things grow up”? I think he is referring to all the dimensions of spiritual life. I think he means worship, prayer, and scripture study; the classic elements of spiritual learning and growth. But I also think he means that we are to grow in generosity (what he calls the “grace of giving” in 2 Corinthians 8:6-7), in compassionate service, in the “fruit of the Spirit” (see Galatians 5:22); in fellowship with other believers; in love for non-believers, etc., etc.

In other words, I think Paul is saying that as individual followers of Christ, we are to be more than one-dimensional Christians! We are to grow in multiple spiritual dimensions at the same time.

Then he turns his attention to the church as a whole:

From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Here Paul talks about the church, as he often does, as if it is a living organism, a living body. Just as our physical bodies must grow and develop in a balanced way to be healthy, so it is with the church. In order to grow properly our physical bodies need a healthy skeletal structure to support the body; healthy muscles that allow that skeleton to move; strong tendons and ligaments to hold everything together; a strong heart and vascular system to circulate the blood; a healthy respiratory system; healthy organs, etc., etc.

In the same way, the church needs each of its parts to be functioning in order for the whole body to be healthy. That means that each individual believer is to see him or herself as a vital and significant part of the whole. Just as there are no insignificant parts of our physical bodies (just think for a moment about how significant your little toe is when you stub it against a rock; or how important your appendix is when it is inflamed!) there are no insignificant members of the church.

But I think Paul is also saying that the church as a whole must grow in multiple dimensions in order to be healthy. That is, if the church is to grow larger in numbers, it must also grow deeper in maturity. As it grows larger and deeper it must also grow stronger in its organizational structure and leadership. And as the church grows larger it also needs more “exercise” – it needs to use the gifts, abilities and resources God has given to reach and serve others. 

Simply put, just as our physical bodies cannot survive and thrive if they grow in only one dimension, so we as individual Christians must grow in multiple dimensions in our spiritual lives; and the church, as a living body, must also grow in multiple dimensions at the same time. As the church of Jesus Christ we must grow larger while we simultaneously grow deeper. We must grow stronger in our internal fellowship while simultaneously reaching outside our walls. We must grow in our desire to worship God and we must grow in our compassion for others. We must grow in our understanding of the gospel as well as in our expression of the gospel. 

May we as individual Christians, and may we as a whole church family, continue to “in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ.”

Pastor Brian Coffey

Monday, May 6

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Acts 2:42-47

They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

For a brief time, while I was in college, my father served as an Associate Pastor at a fairly large church in Florida. The church facility included a small gymnasium which contained a nice basketball court. My brother and I both were playing ball at the time; me in college and he at his local high school; so we were overjoyed to belong to a church where we could play ball most any time we wanted.

The first full summer we were there we shot hoops together in the church gym almost every day because the gym went unused most of the summer months. It wasn’t long before my brother got the idea to invite some of his teammates to join us. Several of his teammates were African American kids from a different side of town from where the church was located. Sometimes we had to drive over to their neighborhood to pick them up so they could come play ball. And for a couple of days it was great fun.

One day the Senior Pastor of the church stopped by the gym to see what was going on. He stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest and watched this group of black and white kids playing ball. I remember getting the sense that he didn’t look very happy.

The next day when we showed up to play ball we found the doors to the gym chained and locked shut. My brother and I went to our Dad and asked him what was up with the gym being locked. He just said that the Senior Pastor didn’t want us in there playing “without supervision” so he locked the doors.

Now to give that pastor the benefit of the doubt, I understand that sometimes there are issues of supervision and insurance to consider when it comes to the use of facilities. We face those issues at FBCG from time to time. But my brother and I both suspected that the real problem was something somewhat uglier than “lack of supervision”; something along the lines of the pastor being uncomfortable with “unchurched” young men being in the church gym.

It has always seemed to me to be sadly ironic that a church that had the vision and resources to build a gym would actually chain the door shut to keep young men from actually using that gym.

I think we can clearly see that from the very beginning Jesus has wanted the doors of his church to be open:

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

This simple and straightforward description of the earliest Christian church makes it quite clear that Jesus wants his church to grow. The church of Jesus Christ was never intended to be an exclusive club reserved for those who are religious enough to deserve membership, or for those who appear to have their spiritual acts together, or for those who can afford to pay the bills.

The church is better understood as a kind of hospital for the spiritually sick, tired and dying. Jesus himself said,

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17

Now there are problems with seeing the church like this. A church with open doors can get pretty messy. You might wind up with cigarette butts in the parking lot; you might hear a few curse words in the gym every now and then; people might come who don’t know how they are supposed to act or dress in church.

I mean, if you leave the doors open, you just never know who might find their way in!

Exactly.

Pastor Brian Coffey

Friday, May 3

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So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.  - Ephesians 2:19-22

Apparently unity is important to God!  It is important because it reflects the perfect harmony between the members of the Trinity.  The original couple (Adam & Eve) was to reflect God’s image, which included this perfect harmony.  But what they lost through sin in the original creation, God now is regaining in the new creation (2:15 reads, literally, “create the two into one new man”). God wants His people in His church, to reflect His image!  As Jesus prayed, “That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they may also be in Us; that the world may believe that You sent Me” (John 17:21).

Paul uses three analogies to show the unity of the church with its fellow-members and with God: First, we are fellow-citizens with the saints. We are no longer foreigners, excluded from the common- wealth of Israel. There should be no racial or class distinctions within the church, even if they exist in the society at large.

Second, we are members of God’s household. We’re family with God and His people! We have all the rights of family members as children of God. We are brothers and sisters with one another.

Many years ago I was leading a mission trip in Latin America.  The first church we visited didn’t exactly welcome us, and I couldn’t understand why the people were unfriendly toward us. It gradually dawned on me that there was a definite class system in that church culture. The pastor was on top, and others served him. The servant class viewed us as a rich Americans, and so they did not talk or associate with us. Only as we helped them in the kitchen, and in the fields, and served alongside of them did the barriers come down just a bit.  Before I figured all this out, some of the girls on our trip did the cooking one day when the cooks were sick and they made the mistake of serving the servant class first and the pastor last!  I think it was a divinely ordained mistake!  I have often reflected on that experience - that pastor needs to learn the lesson Paul is teaching here: We’re all family members in Christ!

Third, Paul says we are stones in the living temple of God. Paul states that we have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone.  Christ is the cornerstone that ties the whole temple together; the apostles and prophets are the foundation; and, we are the stones of the growing building.

The fact that we are being fitted together as stones and that the building is growing into a holy temple in the Lord implies a process. 

New stones are being added as people come to know the saving grace of Christ.  To be fitted together, the divine stone mason, Jesus Christ, has to chip off our rough edges, which is often a painful process!  But the goal is worth is, that we are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. This means that the church today is what the temple was in the Old Testament, the place where God and His glory are manifested. This does NOT refer to the building where the church meets, but to the people themselves.  To refer to a church building as “the Lord’s House” is misleading and it misses the point of the New Testament. We are the Lord’s House!

Jeff Frazier

Thursday, May 2

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Two stories in the Bible evoke strong feelings in me every time I read them. One is the story of Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 45).  The other is Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). The reason that these stories often cause tears to well up in my eyes is that they are stories of reconciled relationships.

When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, treats them kindly, and forgives them for the terrible thing that they had done in selling him into slavery, it is a moving testimony to the power of reconciled relationships. Later, when their father has died, the brothers fear that Joseph would inflict revenge that he had been withholding. But Joseph wept and treated them kindly because he recognized God’s sovereign purpose in what had happened.

In the parable of the prodigal son, the young man arrogantly rejected the love of his father and chose instead the company of his fast-living, fickle friends. The father’s broken heart longed for the return of his wayward son.  When he finally saw him coming in the distance, the father felt compassion for him, ran to him, embraced him, kissed him, and joyously welcomed him back into the family.  That powerful story shows the tremendous joy both of reconciled human relationships and also of sinners being reconciled to the heavenly Father.

God created us to have close, personal relationships with Him and with one another. Jesus said that the greatest commandment in the Law is to love God with our entire being. The second greatest is that we should love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-39). Those are both relational commandments. But when sin entered the human race, it alienated Adam and Eve from God and from one another. They tried to hide from the presence of God and then Adam blamed God and Eve for his own sin (Gen. 3:8, 12). Sin always causes alienation towards God and between people.

And so the great problem of the human race is, how can we be reconciled to a holy God from whom we are estranged because of our sin and rebellion? And, how can we be reconciled to one another? We need peace between nations in this war-torn world. We need peace in our communities. We need peace in our churches, which are supposed to be models of Christ’s love, but often are marked by division and strife. And, we need peace in our immediate and extended families. But, how?

The Apostle Paul tells us exactly how this happens in Ephesians 2,

Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.   - Ephesians 2:12-18

Paul pictured the alienation between the Jews and Gentiles in his day as “the barrier of the dividing wall.” He was probably referring to a four-foot wall in the temple precincts that divided the Court of the Gentiles from where the rest of the Jews could worship.  We cannot begin to understand the radical nature of what Paul proclaims here unless we keep in mind this centuries-long hostility that had existed between the Jews and the Gentiles. We might compare it to the divide between whites and blacks in the South in our country, or to the conflict between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the Middle East. Paul is making the radical assertion that Christ has erased these centuries of racial hatred, He has torn down all of the walls that divide us!

It is absolutely vital for us (the local church) to display the peace of Christ in order to glorify Him before a world that only knows strife, division and conflict.

Jeff Frazier

Wednesday, May 1

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Wednesday

How would you describe your church to someone who didn’t know anything about it?

Would you begin by describing the building?  Would you talk about the style of music?  Would you describe the various ministries and programs of your church?  Maybe you would talk about its’ history and denominational background?  Perhaps you would mention the preaching and theological convictions of your church?

Read the following description that the apostle Paul gives for the church…

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.  - Ephesians 2:19-22

Paul uses images like fellow citizens, family members, and building blocks to describe the church.  However, the whole time he is talking about people.  It is the people that make up the church!  The church is not the preaching or the programs or the music or even the building – it is the people of God!

This sounds nice, but let's be honest, people can cause problems!  People are imperfect, complex, difficult, and downright messy.  

We dare not look for a “perfect church”, because it doesn’t exist.  Do you know why the perfect church does not exist?  Because there are people in it!

I have a friend in ministry who is fond of saying “If you find the perfect church, you better not go there, because you will screw it up.”


It would be much simpler if the church were simply a matter of the brick and steel of a church building, or the planning of ministry programs.  However, God's word makes it clear that Christ did not come to reconcile buildings or programs to God, He came to reconcile people (us) back to God and to each other!

The church in which God dwells is not some ideal, universal, invisible group of people who behave as we think they should.  No, the church is the local gathering of God’s people with all its cranks and hypocrites, sinners and saints.  We are being built together, we are under construction, and we are becoming what God wants us to be by his grace.  Whether the local assembly looks the way we think it should or not, it is God’s temple and we are part of it.

Ask God to help you grasp that you are a fellow citizen and a family member with all of the people you sit with, sing with, serve with & share with each week.

Take a few moments to thank God for the church…Thank Him for making you a part of His Body and His Temple!  

Father, grant that we your people will be a temple worthy of you, and may your Holy Spirit be so at home in us that the world will long to join us in being a people amongst whom you live and work and express your love. – Amen.

Jeff Frazier