An earthquake in Nepal kills over 5,000 people.  Massive rioting and protests brings another major American city to a grinding halt.  The Unites States Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments regarding same-sex marriage.  On a local level, massive storms cause major damage to homes, businesses, and vehicles across our region.  This has all happened within the past week.  It’s easy to look at all of these things and get discouraged.  Especially when you factor in all the things that are going on in our personal lives, from financial concerns to physical ailments to broken relationships, it is abundantly clear that these are bad times.

So what’s a person to do?  More specifically, what’s a Christian to do?  How should we respond?  Many people have many different thoughts on this, but it seems to me that Scripture makes it abundantly clear what our response should be.  Look at Psalm 37 (NIV):

¹ Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; ² for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away.

³ Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. ⁴ Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

This passage is good news for bad times!  I see three appropriate responses that we can take away here.  The first is found in verse one.  Do not fret.  We generally think of fretting as worrying.  In the ancient Hebrew, it means to be hot, or an inner vexing.  That certainly adds another layer of descriptiveness.  Do not let your spirit be vexed.  To be vexed certainly is to be much more than worried.  It means to be totally consumed with something to the point where your spirit is disturbed.  Essentially, we are being told not to be consumed with the injustices and evil that we see.  So, if the Lord doesn’t want us to fret, what are we to do?  How do we not become vexed about everything that is happening in our lives and in the world around us?

Well, look at verse three.  This is the second response.  Rely on His faithfulness.  His.  Not yours.  Not on those around you.  His.  Why?  Because He will supply what you don’t have.  He will sustain what you already do have.  He will satisfy you about what you can’t have.  In the New American Standard version of the Bible, the second half of verse three is translated as “dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness”.  What a thought!  The Lord commands us to rely on Him for all things and do good in the world around us (dwelling in the land).  By doing that, we are cultivating faithfulness in Him.  Are you beginning to see the process here?  Don’t fret.  Don’t be vexed when you see all this bad stuff.  Instead, rely on Him.  Trust Him by doing good in the world around you and allow Him to cultivate faithfulness in your life.  Wow!

There is one more part to this process, and we see it in verse four.  Rejoice in His fellowship.  The New International Version of the Bible says to delight in the Lord.  What a beautiful thought!  The point is to rejoice and take comfort in being with Him.  Find sustenance and joy in Him and the things that bring glory to Him.

If we do that, we are told that we will be given the desires of our heart.  But let’s be clear here.  Scripture is not saying that we should delight in Him simply to get what we want.  What this verse is saying is that when our first desire is Him, every other desire will line up with Him and His purpose for our lives.  Our hearts will be made to look more like His.  The famed evangelist Junior Hill probably said it best when he said “If you get your desires before you get your delight, then you will never delight when you get your desires.”  Are your desires in tune with Jesus?  Do you delight in Him before anything else?

So, I think the psalmist David makes the process pretty clear.  1) Do not fret.  Do not be vexed.    2) Relay on His faithfulness.  Trust in Him and do good in the world around you, cultivating faithfulness in your life.  3) Rejoice in His faithfulness.  Find delight in Him, and His desires will become your desires.  My friends, that’s good news for bad times.  That’s an appropriate response for all the bad stuff swirling around us.  We might not be able to control all that happens, but we can use control our response to it.  May we point people to Christ not only in the good times, but in the bad times as well.  Be consistent!

Love and grace to you to you on the journey.

Until Next Time,

Pastor JP

I’ll be honest.  I’m still getting used to being a pastor.  Don’t get me wrong.  I absolutely love it.  However, at times, I feel like I’m living in a fishbowl.  That feeling sometimes comes with the temptation to always try to do the right thing or say the right thing so I don’t mess up.  What I’ve quickly realized is that I am (and probably already have) going to mess up.   I won’t always do the right thing.  I won’t always say the right thing.  If I spend all my time trying not to “mess up”, I will likely do just that all the quicker. 

Maybe you sometimes feel like that.  Can I tell you something?  You’re going to mess up too.  It’s inevitable.  So what do we do about it?  Well, it seems to me that instead of worrying so much about trying to be perfect, we should spend our time, energy, and efforts on trying to be the most consistent models of Christ that we can be.  It’s more about consistency than it is perfection.  If we strive to be like Christ on a daily basis, then we are far more apt to grow in His grace and His likeness than we would by trying to be perfect in one particular situation. 

For some reason, I’ve been thinking about legacy a lot lately.  I think it’s because my son recently saw me react to a situation in an unbecoming manner.  I remember thinking at the time, “Lord, don’t let him remember this about his daddy”.  So that got me thinking.  What do I want him to remember about me?  When I’m gone, what do I want him to say about his father?

These questions lead me to 1 Kings 2:1-4.  In this passage, King David is about to die.  He has had a fruitful ministry for over 40 years, and now, he is “about to go the way of all the earth”.  He is handing the kingdom over to his son Solomon, who has to this point lived a rather sheltered life.  David is about to give him a charge, or an order, on how to live a life that is worth living.  Now this is an interesting passage for many reasons.  For one, we rarely focus on this passage in our churches.  We certainly talk a lot about David.  We talk about him being a shepherd boy.  We talk about his battle with Goliath.  We talk about his friendship with Jonathan.  We even talk about his sin with Bathsheba.  But we rarely talk about the end of his life.  That is unfortunate, because I think there is a lot that we can take away from his charge to Solomon. 

You see, David didn’t model perfection in his life, but he did model consistency.  David sinned, but he always returned to the Lord.  We see in verse two that David tells his son to be strong and to show himself a man.  What does that mean?  When David says to Solomon “be strong”, this is certainly meant in a spiritual context, and it seems to me that one is strong spiritually only through total reliance and dependence on the Lord.  In other words, we are made strong through our weakness.  The weaker we are in relation to our dependence on Christ, the stronger we are.  To “show yourself a man” would involve much more than simply being a mighty warrior.  It would involve courage.  It would involve taking a stand for things even when you stand alone, for if you are strong in Christ, you are not truly alone.  Remember that Christ went to the cross alone, but He stood tall. 

David also tells Solomon to observe what the Lord requires by keeping His law.  For the Jewish person, keeping the law was and still is of the utmost importance.  They ponder on it daily and even memorize it.  Memorizing Scripture is an admirable task, and one I wholeheartedly support, but let’s make sure that we do it for the right reasons.  Let’s not memorize Scripture simply to say that we marked it off of a spiritual checklist.  Let’s memorize it and then apply it to our lives so that we might grow as a model of consistency.  It’s all about application.  David closes his final talk with his son by reminding him that if he does all of these things, he will prosper and all of his descendants after him will have a legacy of consistent faithfulness to the Lord.

That’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?  Leaving those that come behind me a model of consistent, if not perfect, service to our Lord.  Going back to my original question about what I want my son to say about me after I’m gone, I think I want him to say that I loved Jesus more than anything else on earth, and because I did, I was able to love him, his mother, and his sisters more completely.  I want him to say that I was consistent in my faith.  When I messed up, I repented and tried again.  But what will others say about me?  I had a friend that recently reminded me of this.  She said, “What about the gas station attendant?  What will they say about us?”  So true!  I want to leave a legacy of consistency for all that I come in contact with, not just my family.  Life is such a series of short interactions with people, and for some, I’m the only glimpse of Jesus that they will ever see.  That tells me that I need to make my short moments count with all people.

So when others remember you, what will they remember?  What will they say?  Will it be what you want them to remember?  Just as David did with Solomon, let’s focus not so much on perfection, but on consistency.  Let’s focus on leaving a legacy that truly lasts.

Until next week,

Pastor JP  

Another week almost in the books, and another whirlwind!  Lots of meetings, lots of phone calls, lots of late nights.  Lots of fun, honestly.  I love what I do, and it is a privilege to do it with all of you.  By now, most of you know that last night, we rolled out a strategic vision for moving us forward.  Casting and implementing a strategy is a lot of hard work, but it is necessary to move forward together and do what the Lord has called us all to do.  For the benefit of those who didn’t hear it, allow me to share it again.

As of today, we have a new mission statement.  What is it, you ask?  Well, I’m glad you did.  Our new mission statement comes from Matthew 28:19 and is simply “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.  What was wrong with our former mission statement, and why is this our new one?  Again, good questions.  The answer is that nothing was wrong with our former mission statement.  It was Biblically based and theologically sound, but the challenge as I see it is that if we have a mission statement, we should memorize it word for word and be prepared to live it out as a church family.  This new mission statement allows us all to memorize it and encompasses all of the principles of the previous one, plus it seems to me that this should be our mission statement simply because Jesus Himself said that was our mission.  We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.  We just have to make sure it rolls.

Notice the imperatives in the statement.  “Go and make”.  This is not optional; it is a command.  This naturally begs the questions: Well, how do we do this? How do we “go and make”?  We’ve identified four key areas in which to focus on that will allow us to make disciples.

The first is worship.  When we meet for corporate worship, it is going to be dynamic, interactive, exciting, and fun!  After all, is there anything better than ascribing worth to the One that is so worthy of it?  Is there anything better than doing that with your church family?  I doubt it.  From now on, our morning services are mirror services, incorporating a variety of musical styles designed to prompt people to worship the risen King.  We will include lots of different elements in our services, from Scripture reading to dialoguing about ministry opportunities, all designed to prompt people to worship Christ both in word and deed.

The second area is education.  Part of being a disciple of Christ is looking more like Him and growing in His character.  .  In order to do this, we are going to greatly expand our educational opportunities.  We are rolling out new small group Bible study curriculum in June.  This will challenge us to dig deeper into Scriptures as a unified church family. We are also revamping our Wednesday night programs into something called Mid-Week Momentum.  This is what that basically looks like.  We will meet on Wednesday evenings for a fellowship dinner at a minimal cost, offered free to Nicholls State students.  Afterwards, we will break out into 3-4 classes that will be offered on a wide range of topics.  You pick the study that you want to attend!  This program will roll out in September.  Work is already underway on transforming our courtyard area to a prayer garden at the front of the property that will be a wonderful place for our church family to commune with the Lord! 

I will also be leading us in some corporate teachings on a variety of topics, from comparative religions to what we as Baptists believe to Jewish life to a virtual tour of the Holy Land.  All of these things will help us to grow in the knowledge and character of Jesus Christ.

The third area is fellowship.  One of the ways to make disciples is to grow in our love for one another as well as others in our community.  To that end, we will be having lots of opportunities for fellowship, from a family cookout on July 4^th to community summer movie nights to a picnic with our church family and Mother’s Day Out families to something that we’re calling “just because” dinners.  That is exactly what that sounds like.  Dinners for no other reason than to hang out and fellowship.  That’s reason enough!  We will also have community outreach events, like our booth at Thibodauxville, expanding our Thanksgiving harvest meal, our Super Bowl extravaganza, our Mardi Gras outreach, and others.  Remember that people don’t know how much you know until they know how much you care, so we are going to show folks how much we care.

The fourth and final area is missions.  We are going to be intentional in engaging our community, state, country, and world with the Gospel.  To that end, I am proposing the formation of a team called the Acts 1:8 team.  It will be composed of five people whose function will be to research missions opportunities and engage the church in said opportunities on the local, state, national, and international levels. 

As you can see, this is a pretty ambitious strategy.  It will take time.  Some of this is being rolled out now, some months from now.  It will also take willingness and commitment from all of us.  Gone are the days where 20% of the people do 80% of the work.  If we are going to make a true difference in the world around us, then it starts now, and is starts with every one of us.  It’s a new day, and we need all hands on deck.

Are you in?  If so, let’s rock and roll!!!

Pastor JP