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Old Testament prophet Jonah has always been a strange one to me.

First of all, if I were called to preach to the capital of a wicked kingdom like Assyria, I might be a little nervous about the reception I would receive, but I think I would be fired up. You know, the chance to be used by God, to see him move mightily, etc. Yet Jonah receives a call to preach in Nineveh, and famously turns the other way. Strange.

We find out why as we read the short book. Jonah is ticked off that God would even consider forgiving this wicked, war-faring people. Even at the end of the book, Jonah is still mad at God for being merciful. And Yahweh is still reasoning with him…

“Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left…?” Jonah 4:11 (ESV)

Jonah’s behavior seems strange to us in the west, but I imagine many of his fellow Israelites would have patted him on the back for at least trying to get away from such a “horrible” mission.

You see, Jonah’s problem is our problem: culture. We imagine we know how God should be, but our picture of him is too easily derived from our culture. Jonah was middle-eastern, and in the culture of the Ancient Near East, forgiving your enemies was a particularly hard pill to swallow.

Rob Bell, modern day Jonah…in reverse

Which brings us to Rob Bell, a modern day Jonah…in reverse. In rejecting Hell, Mr. Bell has discerned exactly how God should be, yet his picture of God is not derived from the Scriptures, though he captures some unwitting folks by talking a lot about being a disciple of Jesus and throwing a Bible verse in here and there. But in fact, nobody spoke more about Hell in the Bible than Jesus, and Rob Bell’s picture of God is direct from modern-day western culture.

So where Jonah speaks to God of a wicked people, “I can’t believe you would forgive them,” Rob Bell says, “I can’t believe you wouldn’t.” Either way, it’s the same basic error – a refusal to accept God as he is in his word.

The Lesson

The application for us is simple: don’t trust your gut. When Scripture speaks, trust it instead. Otherwise you will end up with a god of your own making, and the relationship you think you have with the true God will be a mirage. For the Scriptures tell us that Yahweh is indeed a forgiving God; his forgiveness, however, comes at a price, which he paid for Old and New Testament saints…at Calvary.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5 (ESV)

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42 (ESV)

Busy. Distracted….with a cluttered life full of activities that are not of ultimate importance. It’s easy to find ourselves in this situation, especially at Christmas, but the cluttered life happens all year round. Just ask Martha.

Jesus taught that there was one thing necessary in life, because if this one thing happens, everything else falls into place. Mary chose “the good portion”, undistracted time sitting at Jesus’ feet. Martha chose…something else.

We’re always choosing in life. It’s one decision after another, and sadly, C.S. Lewis said that many people will come to the end of life and say, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”

Sitting at Jesus’ feet day after day guarantees that these mournful words will not be our last.

So, a New Year approaches to sit at his feet and hear his voice. I hope you won’t wait for January 1; enjoy him in his word today, but New Year’s Day is a fine time to begin a new Bible reading program. To that end, here are some options…

This is the classic Navigator through-the-Bible reading plan – only 25 days of each month have a reading, giving you plenty of mulligans all year long…

The Navigator’s Discipleship Journal Bible Reading Plan

The next is very popular; it’s also for the ambitious who want to do the Old Testament once and the Psalms and New Testament twice. My old seminary professor D.A. Carson has written a couple of devotionals to go along with it…

Robert Murray M‘Cheyne’s Bible Reading Plan

Finally, if you’re just getting started, consider a plan that will simply take you through the New Testament next year. The Navigators come through for us again with this one…

Read the New Testament Plan

Lastly, a tried and true method is to open your Bible and work through a book at a time, marking off chapters you have read. It’s simple…but not time sensitive and it gives you the freedom to go at your own pace and study what you like.

Whatever plan you choose, you will be, like Mary, walking in the words of our Heavenly Father: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Matthew 17:5 (ESV)

“What I am coming to understand is that this impulse to pull the lever of a random slot machine of viral content is the age-old tactic of Satan. C.S. Lewis called it the ‘Nothing’ strategy in his Screwtape Letters. It is the strategy that eventually leaves a man at the end of his life looking back in lament: ‘I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.’”

“This ‘Nothing’ strategy is ‘very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years, not in sweet sins, but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them . .  .’ Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 191). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

This past weekend at Edgewood we offered the third in our series, Uncluttered: Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room…and we talked about what it means to be uncluttered in our use of phones and computers, etc. As a follow-up, I thought it would be good to offer some tools to think through your smart phone/computer/social media habits. Tony Reinke compiles a few different lists of questions to ask yourself or others for just this purpose.

So…if you like, using these lists, take an hour or so before God to think about this area of your life. How are you doing? What, if anything, should change? You might pray the prayer of David in Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! Psalm 139:23-24 (ESV)

If you have students in your home with smart phones, consider scheduling an hour together to talk about computer and phone usage.

May God protect us from Satan’s “nothing” strategy, from saying at the end of our lives: “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”

12 Smartphone boundaries to consider…

1.   Turn off all nonessential push notifications.

2.   Delete expired, nonessential, and time-wasting apps.

3.   At night, keep your phone out of the bedroom.

4.   Use a real alarm clock, not your phone alarm, to keep the phone out of your hands in the morning.

5.   Guard your morning disciplines and evening sleep patterns by using phone settings to mute notifications between one hour before bedtime to a time when you can reasonably expect to be finished with personal disciplines in the morning (9 p.m. to 7 a.m. for me).

6.   Use self-restricting apps to help limit your smartphone functions and the amount of time you invest in various platforms.

7.   Recognize that much of what you respond to quickly can wait. Respond at a later, more convenient time.

8.   Even if you need to read emails on your smartphone, use strategic points during the day to respond to emails at a computer (thirty minutes each at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. for me).

9.   Invite your spouse, your friends, and your family members to offer feedback on your phone habits (more than 70 percent of Christians in my survey said nobody else knew how much time they spent online).

10.   When eating with your family members or friends, leave your phone out of sight.

11.   When spending time with family members or friends, or when you are at church, leave your phone in a drawer or in your car, or simply power it off.

12.   At strategic moments in life, digitally detox your life and recalibrate your ultimate priorities. Step away from social media for frequent strategic stoppages (each morning), digital Sabbaths (one day offline each week), and digital sabbaticals (two two-week stoppages each year).

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 200). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

10 diagnostic questions to ask in the digital age…

1.   Do my smartphone habits expose an underlying addiction to untimely amusements?

2.   Do my smartphone habits reveal a compulsive desire to be seen and affirmed?

3.   Do my smartphone habits distract me from genuine communion with God?

4.   Do my smartphone habits provide an easy escape from sobered thinking about my death, the return of Christ, and eternal realities?

5.   Do my smartphone habits preoccupy me with the pursuit of worldly success?

6.   Do my smartphone habits mute the sporadic leading of God’s Spirit in my life?

7.   Do my smartphone habits preoccupy me with dating and romance?

8.   Do my smartphone habits build up Christians and my local church?

9.   Do my smartphone habits center on what is necessary to me and beneficial to others?

10.   Do my smartphone habits disengage me from the needs of the neighbors God has placed right in front of me?

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 52). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

Questions to ask before you post…

• Will this ultimately glorify me or God?
• Will this stir or muffle healthy affections for Christ?
• Will this merely document that I know something that others don’t?
• Will this misrepresent me or is it authentic?
• Will this potentially breed jealousy in others?
• Will this fortify unity or stir up unnecessary division?
• Will this build up or tear down? Will this heap guilt or relieve it?
• Will this fuel lust for sin or warn against it?
• Will this overpromise and instill false hopes in others?

Reinke, Tony. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (p. 107). Crossway. Kindle Edition.

After writing The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the late great life management guru Stephen Covey also wrote a book entitled, First Things First. Covey was an expert at helping others put first things first, managing their time by dividing the activities of life into four quadrants:

• Quadrant I: Important and Urgent (Your house is on fire)
• Quadrant II: Important and Not Urgent (Praying, Reading Scripture, Exercise, Eating well)
• Quadrant III: Urgent and Not Important (Interruptions, some email, some phone calls)
• Quadrant IV: Not Urgent and Not Important (Television)

Not surprisingly, Covey urged people to give themselves to “Quadrant II living”, that is focusing most of life on activities that are extremely important, and yet, not urgent. For instance, when you wake up each day, you don’t need to exercise, and in a sense, you certainly don’t need to read the Word of God, but if you live day by day like that, you will be in great trouble. Quadrant II is a great model for living when you ponder it. Of course, we all have to do things that are in Quadrant I, important and urgent, but giving ourselves to items in quadrant II slowly reduces what is in Quadrant I, and limits what is in III and IV too.

So I was thinking about the ultimate item in Quadrant II, centering your life around the Cross of Christ. Paul mentioned the importance of this…

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures. 1 Corinthians 15:3 (ESV)

First importance – that’s what Paul said about the cross. And yet it’s not urgent. You will get by fine tomorrow if you don’t think much about the cross, but you will need to deal with that email from your boss or your newborn’s diaper. So many urgent and important things in life that you just might miss what is important and yet not urgent – the gospel.

There are two kinds of people in churches. On the outside, it’s very hard, almost impossible, to tell the difference between the two. On the inside, however, the first person believes that going to church makes him a Christian. The second goes to church because he already is a Christian. Therefore, one lives life out of fear; the other, out of joy…

Rankin Wilbourne illustrates this in his excellent book, Union With Christ:

“American Idol was one of the most popular television shows of all time, and for the contestant, one of the most nerve jangling. A single missed note could cost you the competition, but winning could change the course of your life. At the end of each season, when the competition was over and the winner had been crowned, she took up the microphone and sang one more time. But she was no longer singing to win; she was singing because she had won. It was no longer a contest. She had nothing more to prove or earn. Instead, the chosen and honored performer could sing with all her heart, delighting in her gifts for the benefit of others. That’s the freedom from anxiety the gospel gives. You have already been chosen and crowned in Christ, so now you can do what you do with all your energy, delighting in whatever gifts God has given you for the benefit of serving others.”

It’s that time of year again when students take off for the first time from home and head to the university. It’s also that time in a person’s life when he or she can “slip away” from the local church.

With no mom or dad to shake them to wake them on a Sunday morning, and with no apparent bolt of lightning hitting their dorm room, new college students hit snooze after a late Saturday night, entering the world of the unchurched.

It’s not only 18-year-olds. Many people today in North American culture are leaving the church while continuing to call themselves Christians. The reasons driving this are many, but chief among them is the individualism of our culture exacerbated by the idea that being part of a local church is unnecessary. More than that, many “church refugees” would say they are tired of what they see as the politics and the brokenness of the institution itself. As one person put it: “I guess the church just churched the church out of me.” *

These folks say they still follow Christ; they just do it without the church.

But is it possible to follow Christ without the church? Church refugees would say the question is a no-brainer – of course you can. But the Bible they usually claim to follow would not support their thinking. It is certainly possible to have salvation, to be a true Christian and live apart from the church. We are saved by grace through faith, not by going to church. It’s just impossible to be an obedient Christian, that is truly following Christ…without the church. And because of that, it’s a path of great spiritual danger, and like any continued unrepentant disobedience, a possible sign that there was never salvation present in the first place. (1 John 3:6, 7)

Who is Watching Over Your Soul?

There are numerous scriptural reasons indicating that being a part of a church is part of Christian obedience, but one stood out to me recently – as the writer to the Hebrews closes his letter, he commands his readers to…

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.  Hebrews 13:17 (ESV)

Apparently, it’s not enough for the “church refugee” to say, “I read my Bible and pray and have Christian friends who encourage me in the Lord.” The author of Hebrews assumed that all Christians would have spiritual leaders who would care for their souls.

Admittedly, this is not a beloved verse in our independent, individualistic culture, but it certainly makes the point. The emphasis falls on our eternal souls. As broken as the local church can be, the truth is that we are not safe outside of it. Therefore, here’s the question to ask your friend or the new university student who indicates they believe the Scriptures…but has left the church: “Who are the leaders you submit to?” And if that feels too domineering, which it probably will, ask with a heart of love, “Who is watching over your soul?”

“No One Has Ever Watched Over My Soul Before!”

They might respond that they never felt anyone was watching over them when they were a part of the local church. I get that; it’s something most of us pastors and elders know we need to do better at. I certainly feel it. But that said, it’s incumbent on church members to do three things: 1) Let their needs be known (contrary to popular belief, the hospital doesn’t call the church if a member breaks his leg), 2) Find a place of service, and 3) Get involved in a small group. These three things enable people to be known and loved. If you’ve tried all three of these, and you still don’t feel connected or cared for, my encouragement would be to find a Gospel-proclaiming body of believers where you are known and loved.

The writer of Hebrews would have scratched his head at “followers of Christ” who had no earthly leaders to follow and therefore no one to watch over them. Moreover, neither he nor any of the other apostles had a category for Christians who were not actively part of a local body of believers.

*Church Refugees by Josh Packard, PhD., and Ashleigh Hope

If God is so gracious and forgiving, why don’t we just sin all we want?

Paul spoke to this idea in Romans:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Romans 6:1 (ESV)

Makes sense, right? The more I sin, the more grace I will enjoy. To paraphrase the old thought: “I love to sin. God loves to forgive. It’s a perfect partnership.”

But then…Paul’s writes to Titus:

For the grace of God has appeared…training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. Titus 2:11-12 (ESV)

Why would the grace of God train us to obey? The answer has to do with His goodness toward us…and his instructions for living. If God is good and kind and gracious toward us, then wouldn’t we want to do what he says? After all, the reason you and I sin is because we feel that the sin will bring us more joy/happiness/fulfillment than the obedience.

But when I, having been utterly convinced of His love and grace, realize that he has provided me with guidance on how to live, I WANT TO OBEY HIS WORD. It’s not that I obey to keep his love – because I am in Christ, I can’t lose it. Instead, I seek to obey him because He has proven his goodness and grace.

Of Speeding and Guilt…

This changes everything. Consider Bob and the slightly innocuous example of the speed limit. Bob is recently convicted of God’s commands to submit to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13, 14). Now, when he goes too fast occasionally (it’s impossible to be perfect in obeying the speed limit ALL the time, right?) he feels vague guilt and has a sense that though he is a Christian, God is going to “get him” with a car accident or a blow out. So he obeys…with little or no joy. Whenever he does go the speed limit, he can’t help but feel the Heavenly Cop is spoiling his potential fun.

But what if Bob obeyed the speed limit not out of fear of divine retribution, but out of an understanding that a good God has given him this command out of his love…and therefore means to bless him in his obedience. If he goes slightly over the limit here and there, he needn’t be awash in guilt; God’s love for him is perfect, and Christ has paid the penalty for all his misdeeds, miniscule and otherwise. But now he sets the cruise control at 65 reasoning that God wants what is best for him, and someway, somehow therefore, 65 mph trumps 72.

How to Grow in Obedience

So, how do we change through grace? Consider the lessons of the Garden of Eden from Genesis 3…

1. Believe that God has provided you with solid and unerring guidance in his Word. If you doubt the truth of His Word, why would you obey? Satan’s first lie, therefore, to Adam and Eve was designed to make them doubt God’s word (“Did God actually say…?” verse 1) Only those who believe the Bible is true know that they have solid guidance in living. So it is wise to consider the area you struggle to obey, and find a verse to meditate on (even memorize) that articulates God’s will for your life.
2. Believe that God is good! Satan’s second lie was to make Adam and Eve doubt God’s goodness. (“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” verse 5) In other words, “God doesn’t have your best in mind. It would be better for you to eat the forbidden fruit.” Satan’s lie regarding God’s goodness is a main reason people fail to obey the Lord. So, when struggling to obey, before you grit your teeth, meditate on his love for you first, thus remembering that his plan for living (not yours) will be best. And be patient, walking in holiness by meditating on God’s love is a lifetime process, not a quick fix solution.

As Paul wrote in Romans 2:4, “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (ESV). So the Scriptures say that repentance and faith go hand in hand in salvation. You see, when the Spirit of God enables someone to see God’s love and goodness at the cross, he also enables them to see God’s love and goodness in His commands.

This weekend we start a new series at Edgewood called, Summer with the Early Church, a study through the Acts of the Apostles.

The series corresponds with a book I recently started by David Mathis called Habits of Grace. As the Executive Editor at desiringGod.org, Mathis advocates three habits which correspond with what I would consider a KEY verse in the book of Acts. It comes near the beginning of the book, after Peter has preached his Pentecost sermon and the church has begun with 3,000 new lives in Christ…

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2:42 (ESV)

Do you see the three habits? In his book Holiness, J.C. Ryle calls them the indispensable “means of grace”…

“The ‘means of grace’ are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the Word taught and participates in the Lord’s Supper. I lay it down as a simple matter of fact that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make much progress in sanctification. I can find no record of any eminent saint who ever neglected them.”

How are you doing in the top three? The key word here is devoted. Are you…

…devoted to Bible reading? The early church was committed to hearing from God, and they did so through the Apostles’ teaching. Of course, these brothers and sisters didn’t yet have Bibles the way we do. But they did have the Apostles, and so they showed up daily (Acts 2:46) at the temple where they could hear God through their teaching and thus grow in godliness.

…devoted to Prayer? The early church was dependent. They knew what we so easily forget – that we need God. So Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We need him daily…for our daily needs. So we must seek Him daily in prayer.

I’m reminded of the story of a family who stopped to help a man stranded on the side of the road. He was frantic, apparently because he had an extremely important meeting to attend. But he was out of gas. So they drove him to a local station where he could get a few gallons. When they dropped him back at his car, he hurriedly put three gallons in the tank and barely said a word of thanks before he sped off. Imagine their surprise when they saw the same man stranded a short while later. Being in such a hurry, he had never stopped to fully fill his tank. Out of gas…again. This time the family sped by.

And so many Christians live just as foolishly, believing that there is so much to do that they do not stop to seek God in prayer. The broken and empty feeling they live with daily is being prayerlessly stranded on the side of the road of life.

…devoted to Fellowship? Today it’s a matter of simple observation that many professing Christians are seeking to do without regular church attendance (and I imagine that with few exceptions, the vast majority of those who skip regular worship are definitely not in the Word and Prayer). Not so the early church: these new saints were devoted to attending temple together and practicing regular communion. They practiced the “one-anothers” of Scripture the only way possible…by being with one another.

When the whole church lived out these three habits, among other things, “awe came upon every soul”, and “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:43, 47)

What would happen if we all did the same?