Can Satan and the forces of evil stop the unfolding mission of God for world redemption? Absolutely not! The cross and resurrection of Jesus are proof positive that no power in heaven or on earth can stop or defeat the will and purposes of God.

Can God’s own people thwart or hinder the unfolding of his vision for them, which encompasses both his promises and purposes for world redemption? Again, the answer is Absolutely Not! God, in his sovereign will and infinite power will accomplish what he desires to accomplish. Satan cannot defeat him and people cannot stop him in the fulfillment of his will and purposes.

However, God’s people can miss out on what God is doing, miss out on the opportunity to enjoy the privilege of working with him, and miss out on the joys of being a part of God’s reward for faithfulness to his vision.

I can’t help but think again about Moses and the Children of Israel and what happened to the older generation whom he so graciously led out of bondage in Egypt with the promise of a better life in a better place. We learn from their example that lack of faith, overt disobedience, and open rebellion to God’s vision cost them forty years in the wilderness, time enough for all of them to die without entering the Promised Land.

The lesson here is that a whole generation can miss the Promised Land because of its stubborn unbelief and hard hearts. What a tragedy! But that did not erase or circumvent God’s vision for his people. The children of Israel did eventually enter the Promised Land, absent the generation that rebelled. That’s the triumph and tragedy of God’s vision for his people. God’s will and purposes cannot be denied, but even a whole generation can be denied the joys and pleasures of faith and obedience.

In speaking of this, the writer of Hebrews exhorts his readers to learn from the example of the Children of Israel. He says, “So the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where you fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared on oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest.’” (Hebrews 3:7-11)

In this Season for Seeking God, I want to urge all of us to seek God with our whole heart so that we can hear his voice. I want to also caution us as the Holy Spirit cautioned the people in times past, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

God’s will and purposes will prevail. The question in this generation is, will we be a part of the joys and pleasures he has in store for us through obedience and faith? Or, will we harden our hearts in disobedience and miss out as a generation on the reward of faithfulness?

We can learn so much about how God works among his people by studying the special relationship he had with the Children of Israel, and specifically how he chose Moses to lead them out of a bad place in Egypt to a good place in Canaan. One lesson we talked about last week is in the lesson of the journey. Vision is not realized overnight or in an instant, not even in this age of high-speed computers and fast jets. It’s not that kind of journey. There’s always a wilderness you have to journey through, that territory in between the place you are and the place God wants to take you that is fraught with dangers, difficulties, and hardships. But God’s presence went before his people in the form of a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. When the pillar stopped, they made camp. When the pillar moved, they broke camp and moved with God. That’s an important lesson in understanding vision. When God moves, we have to move with him.

Another lesson we can take from this journey is that God marks out the roadmap, and it’s not always a straight line. If you look at a map of the journey to the Promised Land, you see that God led them on a long, out-of-the-way route from Egypt, skirting the Sinai Peninsula, and all the way back up toward Canaan. There was a much quicker route to Canaan, but that’s not the route God chose to take. The Scripture says, “When Pharoah let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, ‘If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.’” (Exodus 13:17) God in his infinite wisdom knew that the challenges were going to be great enough without having to fight the Philistines. But I can hear some of them complaining to Moses, “This is stupid. Why are we taking the long way? Why aren’t we taking the Philistine Road? It’s quicker! At this rate, it’ll take us forty years to get to Canaan!” Little did they know!

It’s so human to question God’s route. We think we know a better, quicker, shorter route to the Promised Land. Everybody thinks he’s the trail boss. But in pursuing vision, we have to have faith that God knows the best route. There are enough necessary battles to fight in the wilderness without fighting the unnecessary battles with the Philistines. God knows best. He’s the only trustworthy trail boss.

Dear Church Family,

I am aware that many of you have been anxious about our church over the last several months. I understand your worry and sympathize with your fears. We have experienced some difficult changes that have come about with seemingly uncharacteristic speed. The truth is some of these changes have been a long time in the making. Trust me. It hasn’t been easy not being able to openly discuss everything, especially with regard to personnel. On top of all this, more change seems to be ahead.

Let me assure you of my complete confidence that each of these changes, although separate on their merits, is a part of a larger work of God to move our church onward as an evangelical enterprise in the New Testament model of evangelism and missions, guided by our vision of grounding people in God, growing them in Christ, so that they are giving themselves to God and others.

At the heart of this is a profoundly important question, and how we answer this question will determine both the extent of our struggle and the success of our mission and purpose as a church. This is the fundamental question: Is our mission, purpose, and obligation to our Lord to preserve the status quo at all cost, or is it to reach our community and our world with the Gospel? In other words, do we exist for ourselves, or do we exist for the sake of the Gospel?

I believe in our heart of hearts we know the right answer to that question. I believe we know deep down that we exist for the sake of the Gospel, to proclaim the Gospel and win as many people to faith in Christ as we possibly can. However, we struggle to live out that conviction because we know it means change. We know it means a fundamental shift in focus from what we on the “inside” have become accustomed to and comfortable with as a church to those on the “outside.” We struggle with truly embracing our mission and purpose because it means letting go of the familiar ways of our comfortable Christianity and surrender to the high calling of God in Christ. We know there’s a cost to being obedient to the Great Commission. We know the Scripture. We see the sacrifice the early Christians made to advance the Gospel, and we’re not sure just how willing we are to pay the price.

I know that many of you have been praying for a fresh work of God in our church for a long time. We have been praying for a powerful, new moving of the Spirit of God. I know I have been in earnest prayer for this, and I know I’m not alone. But here’s something I’ve come to realize: When we pray and ask God to do something, we don’t get to tell God how he’s going to answer those prayers. God answers the prayers of his people, but he answers prayer according to his own sovereign will and in a way that accomplishes his divine purposes. And as we all know, he often surprises us in the way he chooses to answer prayer. That has become amazingly clear to me in recent days, and I hope it becomes clear to you as well.

As I announced on Sunday, we will be having a special, joint worship service on Sunday, February 27, in which you will learn more specifically how God seems to be answering our prayers for renewal. A remarkable story has been developing and unfolding for months, which now needs to be told. It’s an exciting story of God’s faithfulness, answered prayer, and hope for our church. As I indicated, Shawn Wood will join me in sharing a message about how God is moving in our lives in an unusual and surprising way. We have come to call this “the story.” As we share this story, we will challenge you to see God’s hand at work, to see the possibilities and potential of renewal, and, most importantly, to seek his will through a season of prayer and fasting.

This story has been told to the Staff Study Committee and the Deacons. Both the Staff Study Committee and Deacons want the entire church to hear it. We believe that once you hear this story, it will bring clarity and understanding to your hearts and minds about all that has happened so that you can join with us in rejoicing that God is still at work at First Baptist Church, that God is still answering prayer, and that God has an exciting future for this church family.

Until the 27th, I urge you to put your fears to rest, have faith in our gracious God, and pray that Satan will have no opportunity to cloud our hearts and confuse our minds about what God is doing. Pray that we will be united together and resolved as never before to become that family of God, which seized the opportunity for renewal when it came.

To help us toward clarity and understanding about where God might be leading us, I want to invite you to our Wednesday night services. Beginning on March 2, following our prayer time, I will be hosting a “Dialog With the Pastor” session where we can talk together, ask questions, and share our hearts.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:4-7)

In His love,

Hal West,
Pastor

Most people are not leaders of people. They aren’t supposed to be. If everyone were a leader, whom would they lead? We see in Scripture that God calls leaders and works through those chosen leaders to lead his people. Moses is one of the great examples of this. God called Moses from obscurity in Midian to lead his people from a place of bondage and misery in Egypt to the Promised Land.

Leaders aren’t born with vision. They become visionary leaders when God gives them a vision for the people they are called to lead. Moses was a visionary leader, not because he was born with visionary talent, but because God unveiled his gracious plan to take his people to a promised place and to establish a better life for his people.

I certainly don’t compare myself to Moses. Nor do I compare the people of First Baptist to the Children of Israel, but there are some lessons we can all learn from the Exodus experience about the challenges of pursuing vision.

One lesson I see we can benefit from in understanding vision is the lesson that vision is about a journey from one place to a better place. It’s an ongoing process that challenges both the leader and the people because we discover that the journey to the preferred future of the vision takes us through the wilderness. It’s called a wilderness because it’s a hostile environment fraught with many dangers, uncertainties, and threats.

Have you ever gotten behind the steering wheel of your car or taken your seat on a jet and said, “I wish I could just snap my fingers and be there?” You just didn’t look forward to the journey. You just wanted to be there in a snap. I have, but we all know there’s no such thing as an instant arrival at a desired destination. Sometimes the journey is hard and long, a journey through the wilderness.

In the wilderness, the Children of Israel encountered some very real hardships. The Egyptian army pursued them. They ran out of food. They ran out of water. They were ambushed by the Amalekites. They became angry with Moses. They quarreled among themselves, and Moses almost went crazy trying to resolve their disputes. He was ready to resign. When he went up on Mount Sinai to receive the commandments, the people made a golden calf to worship. It was the lowest of many low points in the journey.

Nevertheless, with each and every low point, God was faithful to Moses as his chosen leader and faithful to his Chosen People. He defeated the Egyptians. He gave them water from a rock. He provided manna from heaven. He defeated the Amalekites. In the midst of it all, God was there. He went before them in a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. When the pillar stopped, the people made camp. When the pillar moved, the people moved. Remember, this was a journey.

In our journey toward a spiritual destination, it’s imperative to break camp and move when God moves.

The importance of vision cannot be overstated. There were times in Israel’s history when godly leadership was lacking or non-existent, and the people fell into chaos and confusion and suffered from their disobedience and rebellion against God. Without godly leaders hearing from God and holding out the Word of God to the people, people have the tendency to stray, get off course, and go their own way.

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (KJV) The NIV puts  it this way: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint.” A godly vision is the revelation of God. It is God revealing his will and way for his people. It is both a revelation of a present reality and a promised future.

When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush he called him to lead his people out of their misery in Egypt to the Promised Land. He commissioned him to go to the people and say to them, “I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt to … a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:16-17) This is a powerful example of God working through a chosen leader by giving him a revelation—a vision—of both a present reality and a promised future. The present reality was one of enslaved misery. The future promise was one of a bountiful homeland.

Church leaders today have a tendency to cast a vision for a great future without dealing with the present reality. The vast majority of over 300,000 traditional protestant churches are stagnated or declining. Every year that passes, they are losing members and losing ground to the world. They might have a vision for a bright future, but few are buying in to the future because they—leaders and members alike—are in denial about their present condition.

When leaders are honest with their people about the present reality, and members become miserable with the status quo and buy in to the vision, the church can move as one people toward a promised future.

I just finished a series called 3G Living based on our vision as a church—Grounded in God, Growing in Christ, and Giving ourselves to God and others. Leaders talk a lot about vision. If you listened to President Obama’s State of the Union Address last week, you heard his vision for America as he repeatedly talked about “winning the future for America.” That’s what leaders do. They cast a vision for where they are, leading the people they serve.

Spiritual leaders do the same thing, but spiritual leaders get their vision differently than political or business leaders. A business leader may be brought into a business because he has the background, experience, and understanding of the business climate and the challenges of the marketplace. He then casts a vision for growth in his company. For the business leader, it’s more about his personal abilities, skills, and expertise than anything else.

Spiritual leaders also must possess certain qualities. They must possess a calling, character, and competency. Chemistry is also vital. No matter how gifted a spiritual leader might be, he must never derive vision on his own. Spiritual leaders seek a vision from God for the people they serve. A God-given vision is on ethat comes through prayer, the application of God’s Word, an awareness and understanding of the context and culture of the church, and is confirmed by other spiritual leaders with whom he serves. All God-given visions should reflect the mission and purpose of the church.

Despite being from God, it is the leader’s challenge to cast this vision in a clear and compelling way. His people need to hear it, understand it, and embrace it whole-heartedly. A clear and compelling vision doesn’t mean that the way forward is easy or smooth, but it keeps God’s people focused on its priorities and moving in the right direction. Thankfully, I believe we are moving in the right direction.

More next week.

Hal

Dear Church family,

At the Open Forum this past Sunday evening, we enjoyed a great time as a church family. We had a large and diverse gathering of very interested members. I regret that it wasn’t possible for many of you to be there, so I wanted to share with you a little about the content and flavor of the discussion.

I spoke first and gave a little of the history, background, and process in reaching the decision to change our Sunday morning schedule. I spoke of our current status as a well-established church that is struggling to grow, reach people for Christ, and impact our community for the Kingdom. Like so many churches across America, we are facing an uncertain future without a plan to grow and reach people for Christ. The change in the Sunday morning schedule is just one solution. There is a lot more we need to do to become a church that is bearing fruit, much fruit for the glory of God.

Our death rate and our birth rate (conversions and baptisms) are about the same. We are losing members to death at about the same rate as we are making new believers. However, of our 71 baptisms over the last five years, 45 have been our own children under the age of 18. That’s good, but it means that only 25 were over the age of 18, and that’s over a five-year period. That’s not good.

The Staff and Deacons together have struggled with this issue for well over a year and believe that changing our morning worship schedule will open the door of our church to more young families and their children, which comprise about 66.6% of the households in our community, by far the largest segment of the Moncks Corner area. We certainly recognize that reaching them will take a more concerted outwardly focused strategy and effort. A schedule change alone will not get the job done.

Many people spoke from the heart and in a loving spirit at the forum. Of course, there were some who spoke favorably, and some who did not. The thing that encouraged me so much was the sense of unity that was in the room. We all know we need to do something differently. The Staff and Deacons have taken the initiative to put forth this plan, which, we believe, is one step in the right direction.

One thing that was communicated very strongly was that the 8:30 service should be a strictly traditional service. I can assure you that those of us responsible for designing the services intend to make that happen. I believe you’re going to love it and appreciate it. We are praying that all of you who prefer a traditional worship style will embrace this service and its new time.

Although the change will affect everyone, some are going to find it more difficult than others, especially our elderly. The Staff and Deacons understand this. Those at the forum understand this, and we want all of you to know that we desire more than anything to honor you and bless you as a church. You mean more to us than we can express, and we thank God for you.

I hope you know that when we talk about reaching younger people, and when we talk about the future, that doesn’t mean you are no longer needed or wanted. It doesn’t mean that you are no longer relevant or important to the church – to the contrary. You are a vital part of our church family. You are an inspiration to all of us, whether you realize that or not. Young people are watching you and learning from you all the time. And as new people come into our church family, you will be there as examples of enduring faith, sacrifice, and perseverance. Your value to our mission and ministry is immeasurable, and we need your presence and participation in a significant way.

While not everyone is enthusiastic about this change, there is a greater sense of unity within our midst perhaps because we have become more focused on our purpose as a church. We are unified in the knowledge that Christ has commanded us to go and make disciples. Even in the diversity of our ages, worship preferences, and whatever else makes us different, we are one in our common call and commitment to love the Lord and one another and obey his commands. Many have expressed this sense of unity of purpose. This gives me great hope and encouragement for the future.

As a sign of our commitment to this vision of outreach and growth, we have set a goal of seeing 500 in attendance on Sunday mornings and baptizing 100 new believers in the next 18 months – April 1, 2012. That’s not going to happen easily. It’s going to happen because we are willing to make tough decisions, make some needed changes, and give ourselves anew to the mission of making disciples.

Back in May, we celebrated our 90th Anniversary. That was a wonderful time together as a church family. I believe one day, those who follow us will look back at this period of time we are in right now and gratefully recognize that this was a turning point in our history, that this was when the church came together and decided that the status quo wasn’t good enough any more, and that this was when First Baptist Church became a real force for the Gospel in Moncks Corner and beyond.

I love you all!

Hal West

Honor is an important concept in the Scripture. First and foremost, we are to honor God. To honor God is to live in a way that humbly places him in our hearts as our first and highest object of our worship, love, devotion, and service, and to live in obedience to his will and commands.

This idea is encompassed in the first four of the Ten Commandments, which Jesus summarized in the Greatest Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”

When you come to the Fifth Commandment, we hear these words: “Honor your father and mother.” Honor is one of the most profound lessons to be learned in life, and it is best learned in the context of family relationships in childhood and maintained throughout our lives. We should never cease to honor our parents as long as they live and even after they are gone.

Moving beyond the individual family relationships, we live in community with one another as a family of God, where honor is still of supreme importance in relationships to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. In Romans 12, Paul says this: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” In Philippians 2, he exhorts us this way: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Does that mean that others are better? Not at all. He’s admonishing a Christ-like attitude in us. The attitude of humility allows us to honor others in the family of God because that is an attitude and practice that builds up and encourages others.

As we consider certain decisions that are before us as a church family, I just want to underscore the Scripture here. Let us be sure that we first and foremost honor the Lord by living out the Great Commission in the spirit of the Greatest Commandment. And let us honor one another, showing respect to each other. Let us respect and honor each other deeply without regard to age or any other factor. With regard to worship preferences, let us honor and respect each other by not demeaning or criticizing or putting one way of worshipping God over another as long as we honor God, exalt Christ, and worship Him in the Spirit. We want to honor our older members by keeping a traditional worship service and making it the best that it can be. We ought also to honor others who prefer a contemporary approach to worship. One style is no better than another. Hymns are no better than praise songs; and praise songs are no better than hymns. They encompass a wide variety of musical praise in the worship of God.

In another passage, Paul says, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your hearts to the  Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Then notice the very next verse. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” When we honor one another, we honor Christ.

I love you. See you Sunday!

Hal