We are all encouraged by a leader who stirs us to move ahead, someone who believes we can do the task he has given and who will be with us all the way. God is that kind of leader. He knows the future, and His plans for us are for good and are full of hope.

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”

Jeremiah was called by God to be a prophet to Judah, and he lived and prophesied during the reigns of the last five kings of Judah. This was a chaotic time politically, morally, and spiritually for God’s people. Jeremiah faithfully confronted the leaders and the people with their sin, and he prophesied both their captivity into Babylon and their eventual return from exile.

As a congregation, as long as God provides our agenda and goes with us as we fulfill His mission, we can have unlimited hope and boundless assurance in Him. This does not mean that we will be spared from disappointment, failure, and/or suffering, but we can be confident that God will see us through to His conclusion.

Jeremiah prophesied for 40 years, but he never saw his people heed his words and turn from their sin. Yet Jeremiah remained faithful, and years of obedience had made him strong and courageous. May we be able to stand through difficult times with the faith and obedience as Jeremiah did.

July 4th celebrates the USA’s freedom from Britain. The Declaration of Independence was principally authored by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. He wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

On September 20th, 2006, Douwene and I were admitted to USA Citizenship. We proudly drove home to find that the congregation had placed a huge patriotic welcome banner on our garage door. Our entire front law was outlined with little USA Flags.

A few days later we were presented with an American Flag. A friend, Suellen Cross had gifted it to us, with a note: “This is to certify that the accompanying flag was flown over the United States Capital on September 20, 2006, at the request of the Honorable Mac Thornberry, Member of Congress… in honor of the Buchanan family’s Citizenship Swearing-In.

On a spiritual level, I had already changed my citizenship – when on June 28th, 1982, I became a citizen of God’s Kingdom via water and the Spirit (John 3:3-5). Now I was free to live three commandments:

· 1st, So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

· 2nd Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

· 3rd Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness (Romans 6:11-13).

Friend, are you a permanent citizen of God’s eternal Kingdom?

Jesus’ paradoxical nature as both fully human and fully divine confounds many Christians. Additionally, it has also led to heretical beliefs about Jesus’ divinity and humanity that have caused extreme division in the church. One of the greatest heresies in church history was Arianism, which denied Jesus’ full divinity, believing that the Son was a lower being than the Father. Though often not called by that name, this belief persists today.

Passages that call Jesus the “firstborn” seem to confirm Arianism. Jesus is called the “firstborn among many brethren” (Rom 8:29), the “firstborn of all creation” (Col 1:15), “the firstborn of/from the dead” (Col 1:18; Rev 1:5), or simply “the firstborn” (Heb 1:6). Arrians argue that these passages show that Jesus is a created being (not God) since he was “born”.

However, this position misunderstands what it means for Christ to be the “firstborn”. The word “firstborn” is prōtotoko (πρωτότοκος). The translation “firstborn” is taken from the word’s component parts prōtos (first) and tokos (offspring). However, breaking down words into their component parts can often mislead us, such as with the English word “butterfly” or Easter (from Germanic Ēostre, not the goddess Ishtar). Instead, we must look at how it is used.

The term “firstborn” describes the preeminent status of Jesus. Once the father died, the first-born male would be the one who inherited his father’s property and status as pater familias, which meant he was head of the household over his brothers. This term can describe someone’s status metaphorically in the case that they are not the first male born into the family. Israel is called the firstborn (Exod. 4:22), though it is by no means the first nation to exist nor is the nation literally “born”.

In conclusion, Christ’s status as the firstborn does not mean that he literally was born, but rather that he held the position of the firstborn, the preeminent one.

What a friend we have in Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer

Oh, what peace we often forfeit

Oh, what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer

Who is your “person”; your close friend you can call on at any time?  The first one you want to share good news with, the one you go to when you’re sad, the one you can just be yourself with?

Jesus wants to have that same relationship with you and me.John 15:15-No longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends.Jesus is always there for us in good times and in bad.  He always has time for us.

Do you make time for Him?Rev 3:20-Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

While our friends are a source of joy and peace in our lives, Jesus can be that same source if we put Him first in our lives.  He changed the lives of all those he met.  Remember that Jesus changed the lives of 12 men with common jobs into 12 men that changed the world!

Brothers and sisters, we do have a friend in Jesus!  What a reassuring thought.  The same Jesus who calmed the sea, who washed the feet of his friends is the one who came to give us life more abundantly and gave his life as a ransom for our sins.

When choosing your friends there truly is no better friend than Jesus!

Last week’s bulletin article introduced the importance of discernment. Without it, others will truck us into believing lies and manipulate us to act foolishly. This article discusses three ways we can discern the truth in what we hear and read.

Discern with the word of God. We must always make sure that what we are hearing can be harmonized with God’s word. If people are telling us that we need to rise up and revolt against our corrupt government, we must see first what God’s word says about that course of action. We will find that open, violent revolt against the government is not something scripture condones (Rom 13:1–7). We should practice this with everything we read and hear.

Discern with logic and reason. It is worthwhile to learn to identify logical fallacies, that is, showing how and why arguments are weak or invalid. For instance, I saw a meme that said, “This house was priced at $75,000 in 1990 and now it is priced at $250,000. Still don’t think we need to raise minimum wage?” This argument may be listing completely true facts, but these facts are misleading. There could be several factors not listed for why this house increased so much in value over 30 years, such as improvements and additions to the house or neighborhood, the location of the house, and changes in the housing market. In sum, always check to see if they are missing any data and whether it changes the argument.

Discern by fact-checking. When Paul proclaimed the gospel in Berea, the Christians there were not passive listeners (Acts 17:10-15). Instead, they wanted to make sure that what Paul said was true. They did this by
fact-checking what Paul said. We need to do the same with the resources we have available. We need to do this when we read religious literature, even by those who are members of the church of Christ. Instead of blindly trusting everything you read, we should verify what these people say to the best of our ability. There are occasions where we cannot verify people’s work, such as whether they are using Greek or Hebrew correctly. In those instances, you should investigate further until you have found out whether that person is a reliable source or not by checking other sources and seeing who has the clearest explanation.

Next week, I will discuss the need to understand our own biases that can blind us from discerning the truth.

And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” Luke 18:29-30

“If holes were drilled in the walls and floors of the house, all the neighbors could reach out and touch one another, that was how close their lives were, and yet in the end they knew almost nothing about the others.  And so the years just went by.” These words were written by Fredrik Backman in his novel My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.  The characters in Backman’s story lived in the same building, shared similar experiences and one common friend, the Grandmother, but had little interaction with one another. 

I think this is not too different from many of our lives: we live close to each other, share some common experiences and, perhaps, some mutual friendships but we know little about one another.  Too often, I think this happens in the church as well.  We worship together, maybe attend Bible classes together, share some common experiences and some common friendships but we know little about each other.  I don’t think this is what Jesus had in mind when he established His church.  He repeatedly uses a family analogy for his disciples and that is the example we see of the 1^st century church in Acts.

So how do we get to know each other better?  The answer starts with each of us.

Be the one who goes first.

Introduce yourself first.

Help a stranger first.

Say hello first.

Invite someone first.

Life rewards those who initiate, not those who wait for others to do so. And you will “receive many times more in this time”.

The always friendly and sociable Jack gave me a drawing this Sunday with the following words: “Love binds all together in perfect unity” (Col.3:14).

Prior to this verse, Paul reminds us that we are separate (holy) from the world via SURRENDER (:1-3) and SANCTIFICATION (:5-11). He then explains that a holy (separate) people will SHOW the following daily habits (:12-14).

1. Compassionate hearts

2. Kindness

3. Humility

4. Meekness

5. Patience

6. Bearing with one another

7. Forgiving complaints

8. Love

When these character traits are part of our daily habits our lives are fulfilling. I often ask non-Christians if they were to die tomorrow, would they feel PLEASED with the life they had lived. They mostly say “no”. However, Christians, when asked the same question mostly answer “yes”.

These daily habits will result in a life of PEACE (:15). Such a person will be content with what they have. And, therefore, will always show a heart of appreciation.

And so, the natural response is acapella PRAISE (:16) as we live out our PURPOSE (:17). Colossians 3:17 (ESV) — 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Friend, be assured of this one thing, your Summit Family is a love bound Body that highly values unity.

___________________

P.S. Thanks Jack! You are a ray of sunshine that lights up every room you walk into.

When I was growing up, many church leaders advised me not to read or interact with certain books, blogs, or sermons of particular people. My church leaders believed that these people taught error and thus their writings should be avoided. Additionally, there were many times when they knew that the author was not a member of the Churches of Christ, and they automatically raised a red flag for them and it was reason enough to click on the blog article or open the cover.

In hindsight, I would have missed out on many enriching resources if I had limited myself like my leaders had advised me. In fact, 99% of what I read was not written by a member of the Church of Christ, but that does not mean that what I read is not good, beneficial or true. The church does not have a monopoly on the truth. Caiaphas, the high priest who put Jesus to death, prophesied the truth in John 11:50-51. Paul quotes pagan authors because what they say is true (Acts 16:28; Rom 7:24;1 Cor 15:33; Titus 1:12-see me if you want to talk more about these pagan sources). Therefore, we can and should look to other sources that can help us understand God’s word and the world.

The Rabbis themselves understood that we should have a healthy skepticism of everything we hear and read. In Pierke Avoth, a tractate written around 200 A.D. the Rabbis say, “There are four types of people who sit before the sages: a sponge, a funnel, a strainer, and a sieve” (Avoth 5.15, my own translation). We may think that we should be sponges. After all, the sponge absorbs everything that it touches. However, the rabbis had a different answer, “The sponge: that which absorbs everything. The funnel: that which brings into itself and then lets it out. The strainer: that which discharges the wine and retains the dregs. The sieve: that which discharges the coarse flour and retains the fine flower.” Thus, we do not need to be like a sponge and take in everything, but rather we should be a sieve and approach everything with a healthy skepticism. Whenever we read any book, we should follow the old maxim, “eat the meat and spit out the bones.”

Next week, I will give advice on how to practice discernment. Until then, try to read everything with skepticism before you accept it as true, especially if it is on social media.