James MacDonald's Blog, page 5

The Darker the Darkness . . .

Great victories are often followed by seasons of testing, and this trip has been no exception. Kirk VanMaanen and the film crew left Israel first, then lost their luggage and missed their connection to Kuala Lumpur while in Istanbul. They arrived a day later from Amsterdam and waited an additional two days for their luggage. They suffered patiently, and we are truly blessed by their reliable enthusiasm for this mission.

We left a day later, after a very good meeting with Samuel Smadja, a local church pastor in Jerusalem who also runs the tour groups we bring to Israel. He is a wonderful man and has become a dear friend to me and an enthusiastic advocate for Walk in the Word TV.

Our flight out of Jerusalem was also delayed, and though we ran at top speed through the Istanbul airport at 1:30 a.m., we too missed the connection to Kuala Lumpur.

The airline was gracious after Jacob worked with them, and in the end they put us up at no cost in an Istanbul hotel. We finally got to bed at 5:00 a.m. By noon, Jeff, Jacob, and I were exploring the new city and visited the Grand Bazaar, a series of 5000 shops. Actually, it was five shops: jewelry shops, women’s accessory shops, shoe shops, carpet shops and small decorative china shops—1000 of each kind. We felt only a little successful to walk by them all and not spend a single cent.

Across from where we ate dinner we saw one of the largest mosques in the world.

Originally it was a Christian church, taken by force during an Ottoman invasion of the 1500s. The oppressive nature of Islam is readily apparent in the listless eyes of the women behind their head coverings and the perplexed look on manly faces when you ask them if they love God. The music blaring multiple times daily through speakers across the dark landscape, demanding people stop on the clock and pray according to their ritual, is tangibly oppressive.

The darker the darkness, the brighter His light shines. #risen4nations

We saw a sweet-hearted people who do not know that mercy and forgiveness is theirs for the asking from Jesus Christ the Lord. A brief conversation with a young man who used broken English revealed this reality, as he confessed to following Allah out of duty and fear but not from his heart. The loving, merciful, ever-present, saving Christ towers above this “under the earth” man-made religion. The darker the darkness, the brighter His light shines.

Twenty-four hours later we were on the next flight to Kuala Lumpur, arriving safely, not late, and believing God’s sovereign hand was guiding this timing. I have been getting quite sick with bronchitis and know your faithful prayers have provoked His most tender watch care over all of us.

Don’t miss church this weekend. I believe you will be incredibly blessed to join us in seeing God at work in powerful ways here. We are truly excited for you to be on this journey with us, at the work of Christ through Harvest Bible Chapel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Truly, Christ is Risen for the Nations.

For the whole team, much love to you and yours,

Pastor James

Risen for the Nations

Greetings from the ‘uttermost parts of the earth':

What an awesome Easter celebration. Between our Good Friday and weekend services, it was one of our highest attendances ever, which means Christ is being exalted in more and more lives—which I know thrills your hearts as it does mine. Our team shared tears of joy and longing to be with you in person as we watched the services online. The video of Mary at the tomb that closed our celebration is one of the most moving things I have seen in all my years of following Jesus. He is alive!

Yes, Jesus Christ is Risen for the Nations, and we are on the road for three more Sundays. Things in Jerusalem wrapped up in an awesome way. After we finished recording the message for back home, Pastor Jeff and I took Jacob Ross, an Israel rookie, to a number of locations in Jerusalem. As a final stop, we went to the historic location of Bethsaida.

This is the place in the story from John 5:1-11, where Jesus healed a man who had been an invalid lying by one of those five pools for 38 years. Do you remember Jesus asking him, “Do you want to be healed?” We learned together that Jesus only does for us what we are willing to believe him for.

Well, before we left the hotel we had prayed together for a chance to witness about Jesus to our driver who, though Jewish, had been very tenderhearted in our previous attempts to share Christ with him. His name is Tal, and we asked the Lord to bring Tal to true repentance and faith in Jesus as Savior.

When we finished touring the pools at Bethsaida, we sat in the shade of a tall tree to escape the heat and read the passage in John 5 together. When I finished explaining the story, I asked Tal, “Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins so that you could be forgiven?” To our shock, he answered emphatically, “Yes, I do believe that.” Obviously it was recent, but we’re not sure when, so we explained that faith is a gift from God and how heaven rejoiced at the news of his faith. I went on to explain that he needed to “confess” Jesus Christ with his mouth, according to Romans 10:9. I asked him if he wanted to pray and confess Christ right then, and he said he did not. But he then proceeded to tell us, “I believe that Jesus is God. I believe that He actually is God who came to earth to reach us.” We were so shocked and startled that all three of us fell silent as we headed back to the car for lunch. It is so rare for a Jewish person to find personal faith in Jesus, we could hardly comprehend his bold confession.

After this we went to lunch and told Tal that based upon his faith and confession, we believed he was truly saved. His eyes filled with tears as a smile crossed his face, and he bowed thanking us for that assurance. At the airport we were unloading our bags and Tal gave me a strong hug around the shoulders, declaring, “You have inspired me greatly.” Tal promised to keep reading the New Testament, and a large box of Walk in the Word biblical resources are already in the mail to Jerusalem. We look forward to seeing Tal again on our next trip. And he gave us the promise that he would attend a Messianic Congregation in Jerusalem, pastored by a dear friend of ours named Samuel Smadja. Please pray for Tal as he begins to walk with Christ.

As we head to Kuala Lumpur, it’s wonderful to know that the Lord is using our travels not just to bless our church family with God’s heart for the world, but to connect us to specific people so they too can know Jesus Christ personally, who is risen for the nations.

—Pastor James

Calling and Longevity in Ministry

The threat of burnout is very real for many ministry leaders, and I know it firsthand. Just as the apostle Paul kept his eyes on the prize and his focus on ‘the Day’ when he would stand before Christ, we all need to have “he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13) ringing in our ears. Last week I had the opportunity to talk about some of the challenges that come with leading an enduring ministry in an interview with a good friend and fellow pastor, Ryan Huguley.

We covered a lot of ground in 40 minutes, including the clips below on being ‘called’ and the significance of longevity. You can watch the entire interview on Ryan’s blog, In the Room. I hope these help fuel your pursuit of the Lord and your endurance in leading His church this Passion Week.

CALLING IN MINISTRY

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LONGEVITY

5 Essentials for High Impact Preaching (things most preachers don’t do)

What do you want from your sermon at the end of the day? Vertical Church preaching is all about the expectation that God blesses the unapologetic, Spirit-dependent heralding of His Word—but is there more a preacher can do to be effective? Beyond the requisite faithfulness to Christ and His Word, can a preacher do more to amplify the sermon’s impact? If you want to see your message make a difference, reach the lost, heal the wounded, lift the discouraged, instruct the weak, etc., give attention to these additional elements of a high-impact sermon.

1) Ready is Only Half Ready

Last week I was ‘ready’ for the weekend on Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. My first message in a new, three-week series called The Father’s Song: Healing the Wound that Hinders Everything, was ready to go. My study was completed, and my exposition of the passage told a clear, compelling story. My textual comments proved the points, while my illustrations illumined the content and seemed likely to connect meaningfully with the hearers. My applications were written down in front of me as a logical flow of thought from each point. I had checked and rechecked that individual points all drove home the main theme and advanced the thesis of the series title. My sermon outline was even submitted for the bulletin printing of the message notes. For all intents and purposes, I was ‘ready,’ ‘ready as I’ll ever be’—and early in my ministry, I would have gotten up to preach at that point with an adequate sermon. So often sermons are adequate that are not impactful, and I have preached too many. This time, however, I spent the time from 10:00 a.m. until my wife picked me up at 6:30 p.m. locked away at my desk attempting to take the sermon to the ‘next level.’ Including a bit of work on Saturday, I spent almost 10 more hours working on the sermon after I was ‘ready.’ If you are wondering what I did, keep reading, but start here: Consider the possibility you are not ‘ready’ when you think you are. Not ready for a big impact, not ready for life-changing moments for your congregation, not ready to see God move in a powerful way—not yet.

Preaching needs to be impactful or people will find a place to hear sermons that are.

2) Choose Your Words and Craft Your Sentences

In “The Kinds of Laborers Wanted” Spurgeon said: “He must not weary the people by telling them the truth in a stale, unprofitable manner, with nothing fresh from his own soul to give force to it.” Not everything we preach needs to be proprietary and perfect, but it needs to be impactful or people will find a place to hear sermons that are. Take the time to choose words and craft sentences that make your message significantly impactful, or don’t take people’s time with it at all. Effective word choice is always worth the time, and preachers should learn to love choosing the best words to express their message. Big words can appear eloquent or educated, but they are just a smoke screen for pride that substitutes poorly for lack of preparation. Occasionally, as I preach, I hear a quality sentence I didn’t plan, but not very often. Well-worded sentences may seem extemporaneous to the hearer but most often have to be prepared in advance. Recent examples include: “When we take care of the mission on God’s heart, God takes care of the burdens on our hearts.” “If I am wrong in the way I am right, I am wrong even if I am right.” “A true friend holds you up when you stumble and holds you down when you stray.” “We never regret the ground we cover with our grace shoes on.”

3) Let the Sermon into Your Soul

Passionless sermons happen because the preparation stops when the preacher knows what the passage means. You are not ready to preach when you know what it means; you must press through to ‘What does it mean to me?’ And because all Scripture is inspired and profitable (2 Timothy 3:16), the passage your sermon comes from can mean something very significant to you. Passion that is manufactured is obvious and wearisome to the hearer, but passion that is genuine as an overflow of the preacher’s own experience with the text is compelling and penetrating to the hearer. Again from Spurgeon, “[The preacher] must put heart work into his preaching. He must feel what he preaches and it must never be with him an easy thing to deliver a sermon.” You don’t get to that place without careful reflection upon the Scriptures. I find these questions helpful: 1) What is altered if this Scripture is believed? 2) What is gained if this Scripture is taken to heart and acted upon? 3) What is lost if this Scripture is not taken to heart? 4) What is understood that warns against calamity or welcomes my soul to greater joy in the Lord? 5) What is treasured about Christ and the gospel more deeply because of this passage? When you have these questions answered and embraced and prayed over, you are much closer to being ready to preach an impactful sermon.

4) Self-disclosure

In our culture, where so many fail to live privately what they proclaim publicly, it behooves the preacher to offer himself by opening up a bit. When Paul said, “We do not preach ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:5), he was condemning clever, Scripture-less, gospel-less sermons. He was not suggesting that the experience of the man preaching had no place in the sermon. In fact, he went on in that very passage to self-disclose the experience of holding gospel treasure in “jars of clay,” sharing further: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). In all sermons that teach, the preacher should tell what he has learned. In all sermons that exhort, the preacher should disclose where that exhortation intersects his own walk with Christ. The sermon is not about the preacher—we are just messengers. But as the first hearer of every sermon, the preacher should go first in stating how the sermon straightened him out. After you exegete the text and before you exegete the audience, exegete your own soul and share some of the results with your hearers. Share enough to be an example of needed application, but not so much as to be unqualified to give the message (at which point someone else should be up there).

5) Relief for the Hearer

A passionate sermon from start to finish, that flows from your lips like water from a fire hydrant, is wonderful once in a while. But to listen to you intently every week, your hearers need a little break every few minutes. A change of posture or position; a change of tone, pace, or volume; a point of humor carefully crafted and timed in the delivery; an opportunity to repeat a key sentence out loud; a prop that makes a point; a direct interaction with a single hearer, all of these are not nearly as spontaneous as good preparation will make them appear. Help your hearer by planning points of relief into your message. A moment to catch their breath, to hear a brief review of ‘ground covered so far’—these and many more, if you are watching your hearers well, will regather attention to the sermon and keep your hearers with you to the final, impactful conclusion.

Not all sermons are equally impactful, but all can improve if we keep working on these five things after we feel we are ready. Follow them carefully, and devote yourself to an extended time of kneeling, out-loud prayer before you preach this week, and I predict a greater impact upon your own soul and those who hear you.

“Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.”

1 Timothy 4:15

Be on Guard Yourself

“Be on guard against him yourself, for he vigorously opposed our teaching.”

2 Timothy 4:15

Listen up, Pastors:

It felt so right to get it right that I won’t ever forget the good feeling in my soul or the shocked look on her face. She had been in the church several weeks, was already in a small group, and I met her by the coffee pot in a member’s home many, many years ago. I guess she saw it as her ‘chance,’ because the floodgates opened and the tirade rushed out. Not sure whether that described her fairly, I checked the dictionary. Tirade: a prolonged outburst of bitter, outspoken denunciation. Yep, that’s what she attempted.

You may be tempted to warm your ears by the fire of denunciation, but don’t do it.

The problem wasn’t just the content, it was the tone . . . and the force. The reason I cut her prolonged pronouncement short is because it was against her former pastor. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just don’t have ears to hear him, or any minister of the gospel, criticized.” She stopped. It was awkward, but I was right to halt her fleshly outburst, for the sake of all involved—me, her, and her former pastor. It’s a lesson I learned early on, because less than two years into our church plant, I had experienced being both the pastor listening and the pastor being described, too many times.

Pastors are imperfect and flawed with an infinite variety of Adam’s finger prints. James said, “We all fall in many ways,” (James 3:2). The longer you stay in one church, the greater the people’s awareness of your faults. Old school is to pack up when it gets hot and start a new honeymoon elsewhere, with your drawer of sermons and your faults back in hiding for a while. But the ministries I had studied out of seminary seemed to bear more fruit with longer-tenured senior leadership. So when we started out 25 years ago, we made a vow to stay. What I didn’t plan on was that others would not want the same pastor for their whole life, even if we prayed to stay in one church. Rick Warren has said, ‘We preach to a parade,’ and that is certainly true when I think of the many who have come and gone for mostly good reasons through the years.

In the multitude who move through a church over decades, many footnotes explain the foot traffic. New job out of state, new pastor at our old church, new home closer to First Baptist where our daughter’s swimming coach attends. We don’t like the longer service, or your longer sermons or your ______. The more personal it gets, the more hurt it causes. But over time, you come to accept that people will benefit from a change, and you grow in your ability to let go with grace. This is not a post about any of that; not the good people who, for what seemed to them good reasons, left to worship the same Christ from the same Bible at another worthy ‘body of Christ’ outpost. Not the people who thank you (or forget to, but feel it in their hearts) and choose to worship elsewhere. Not the many, many good people who come and go for what they believe to be good reasons, and no doubt often are. This is just about the occasional, less-than-one-in-a-hundred person who, if you stay in one place long enough, you will live to see a second time. They are on the run and with a limited number of churches to breeze through, they will bring their bitterness back to see if you have warmed to their hatred. Nope! Keep moving.

Esteeming the preacher across town as better than yourself is an obedience to Philippians 2:3

Paul warned Timothy to expect the same harm from Alexander the Coppersmith that he had experienced. I want to warn you, Pastor, only about the person who tirades about their former gospel-preaching pastor. You may be tempted to warm your ears by the fire of denunciation, but don’t do it. Not even when they say you preach better, or love better, or listen better, or lead better. No doubt you are better than your brother in some areas, but not in every area. Esteeming the preacher across town as better than yourself is an obedience to Philippians 2:3 and a safeguard against attracting attackers. What goes around comes around, or as Paul put it, “You reap what you sow” (Galatians 6:7).

Handle your differences with fellow ministers privately, not publicly, and insist on the same from believers who choose to check out your church. Getting to know the pastors in your area will help a ton, if you’re struggling to believe the best from a distance. It’s a lot easier to defend the ministry of a man you can call ‘friend.’ If his methods are greatly different, celebrate his message or at very least his motive—love demands that. Discipline yourself to take care of the guy across town, so when Tom and Tammy Tirade launch into their careless words, you can cut them short and let them know you “don’t have ears for it.” They probably won’t stay, but if they do they’ll know what’s expected—and you will have your integrity, when they do the same to you.

No Better Legacy

There is no way, humanly speaking, I would be preaching today if my mom had not instilled in me a love for God’s Word. From my earliest memories, she gathered her own kids with the neighborhood kids, and through flannel graph and passionate storytelling deposited in our little souls a love for God’s Word.

What better legacy can we leave to the next generation than a love for God and His Word?

Yesterday, I was reminded of her powerful legacy when I saw our son Luke’s video of his four-year-old son Reid. Apparently just the repetition of hearing the new release from Vertical Church Band, Church Songs, has written the Word of God on his heart. No concentrated memorization, no demands to get those Awana verses down word perfect—just the Word of God wrapped in meaningful worship, played over and over. They were surprised to hear him recite it all, and we were incredibly blessed. In fact, upon seeing this I said to Luke, “From now on all our recordings must have an extended portion of Scripture like this.”  Watch both videos and see the impact of keeping the Word of God central in our worship. Well done, Andi and Reid!

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

Revive Your Soul through Self-Examination

I confess to a little ‘blogger’s block’ the past few weeks, at least in part due to my own grieving over the fall, failure, fallout, and firestorm about men formerly in ministry who are very dear to me personally. In the past two years, I count 6 or 7 . . . wow, wow, wow. Knowing their backstories provokes my heart to greater mercy than those who only think they know. But I don’t have a single word of critique about others on any side of any battle, not in public at least. I can say this for sure: Men, for the most part, are far more stricken with self doubt and awareness of their own sinful flaws than ever seems to reach the public awareness. Further, those who have failed in significant ways often come to a new and deeper awareness of their need for daily grace and the importance, above all, of extending that grace to others. Oswald Chambers has rightly said, “I will never despair of any man, when I rightly discern what lies in me apart from the grace of God.”

But that is an incredible hardship, “rightly discerning what lies in me.” If we were better at the discipline of personal reflection and confession, we would be better men for Christ and His church. Where this discipline is neglected, we grow in pride and presumption. Worst of all we grow in self-righteous oblivion about our own condition. As ministers of the gospel, we need frequent personal detox. We need time to cultivate our own souls and revive the authenticity of our own relationship with Christ. From Isaiah’s “unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5), to Peter’s “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8), to John’s “When I saw the Lord, I fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17), all genuine contact with our Creator Christ initially produces an immense sense of personal sin.

As ministers of the gospel, we need frequent personal detox.

How long has it been since you had tears of conviction about yourself, instead of the sorry substitute of self-righteous superiority over others? How long since you were truly grieved by an accurate assessment of the actual condition of your soul in God’s eyes? When rejoicing in our positional standing of ‘declared and treated as righteous’ through faith in Christ impairs our comprehension of here-and-now stalled sanctification, we can be sure that hyper grace has found a home in our hearts. As Tozer said, “A man can believe in total depravity and never have any sense of it for himself at all. Lots of us believe in total depravity who have never been wounded with the knowledge that we’ve sinned.” What an incredible insight. To get there, to get to accurate self-examination that dismantles self-righteousness and elevates afresh our reveling in grace for self and others, we need three things: 1) attention to the voice of conscience; 2) listening for Holy Spirit conviction through the Scriptures; and 3) insight from a trusted friend who knows us well and observes us frequently.

1) Attention to the voice of conscience.

To harness the directives of a biblically-informed conscience, defined by Hobbes as the soul gazing upon itself, we must search our own hearts and confess our own sins. But what exactly am I gazing upon? What can I do so I don’t just sit still in feigned spirituality and let my mind wander? I find it helpful to pray in four areas, with my Bible and journal open and a pen in hand.

a) Look up. I turn to God in His Word, which is a mirror, and get down on my knees in prayer, centering my life back on the Lord. b) Look back. Where have I been this week? And this month? What failures should I confess as sin and forsake? What priorities have been lost that must be regathered with focus and emphasis? c) Look around. Who am I neglecting? Who have I hurt? Who has needs I should be meeting? I’m not alone in this world. Other people matter to God and they should matter to me, too. d) Look ahead.  What’s up ahead? How should I be different? How can I make it so? What is important that has been neglected? What’s unimportant that has had my attention?

2) Listening for Holy Spirit conviction through the Scriptures.

Recognizing the deceitful nature of my own heart, I would never allow the foolishness of thinking, I don’t see anything wrong in my actions or attitudes. To get beyond our lack of self-awareness, we invite the Holy Spirit to engage with us about matters our conscience is blind to. “Search me oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:23-24). “The Spirit bears witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16), and “As many as are led by the Spirit of God these are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). It is interesting to me that those who decry the personal ministry of the Holy Spirit in speaking to us are often those most apparently in need of that work. Oh, Holy Spirit come now and convict me of sin (the things I have done and the attitudes I have allowed which grieve your heart), of righteousness (Your holy standard revealed in Your Word), and the judgement to come (the reality of my pending accountability) (John 16:8).

3) Insight from a trusted friend who knows us well and observes us frequently.

All ministry of the Holy Spirit to us as individuals remains in the category of the subjective. To truly examine ourselves, we must seek a final quality check of our self-examination through the counsel of a trusted friend. Even the apostle Paul said, “I know nothing against myself, but I am not justified by this” (1 Corinthians 4:4). Paul was aware, as we must be, that claiming to be without fault simply because we are not aware of any is akin to “I see, said the blind man.”  “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future” (Proverbs 19:20). “Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel” (Proverbs 27:9). When a friend who knows us well is assured of our intention to listen without rebuttal and embrace their counsel without hesitation, we are in a position to learn what we are blind to and score big gains in progressive sanctification. When that happens, everyone wins—our spouses, our kids, our ministry partners, our congregants. Most of all, the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

“But let a man examine himself” (1 Corinthians 11:28). Someone has said “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I was going to look up the source of that quote, but I thought it better just to get busy doing it again. I know from experience that many will read this; few will actually do it. Will you?

5 Ways to Create a Culture of Generosity

“There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more.” Proverbs 11:24

Have you experienced this principle firsthand? How about your church? Kathy and I have. And as our church family has scattered what the Lord has entrusted to us, over time we have experienced the kind of unexpected provision that only He could bring. You can’t out-give God—and I would rather have 90% in partnership with the Lord than 100% on my own. But many people struggle in this area. How can you help those you lead to live and experience the blessing of a generous life? That’s what today’s Fast 5 is all about.

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

5 Impactful Things for Better Preaching

“Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.” Martin Lloyd Jones once said that, and it’s a favorite quote of mine. If a man can speak dispassionately about the Word of God, he has no right to be in a pulpit. But you can have right theology and authentic passion, yet not be growing consistently in the impact and effectiveness of your preaching.

I know what it feels like to reach Monday and wish I’d done some things differently on Sunday—no doubt, you know the feeling too. By this weekend, we’ll be into a new year. So for today’s Fast 5, here are five impactful things you can do to preach a better sermon, starting with your first message of 2015.

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

Christmas in the Word

If you’re like most believers, you want to connect with your family on Christmas Eve and Christmas day to have fun, play games, share a meal together. But if you leave that time and haven’t connected meaningfully about your faith in the Lord, it just seems kind of hollow in the end.

I’d encourage you to take some time to come together with your family and gather around God’s Word. You don’t have to have something powerful or profound to say—the power is in the Christmas story itself. My kids remember our family living this out together at Christmas every year, but I don’t think they recall a single thing I’ve said. What does stick with them is that we cared enough to help them see that our time together is about so much more than giving gifts, eating turkey, having time off—it’s about the real meaning of Christmas, Jesus Christ Himself.

Merry Christmas to your family from ours! May you be refreshed anew in your spirit and your relationships as you celebrate our Savior and the significance of His coming.