Oak Hill Baptist Church

This is how you do it

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “This is how you do it.”

I wonder if that noise I’m hearing is a loud collective groan from all of you who have been reading my devotionals or listening to my sermons for any length of time. If you have, then you know that the passage from Matthew 11:28-30, and the explanation of it that I am about to give, is one that I return to frequently. Some of you have heard this from me a couple of dozen times (or more) over the years, to the point that you can now recite it backwards in your sleep.

You’re welcome.

The reason I bring us back to this lesson from Jesus so often is because it’s so critical to living the Christian life well. In yesterday’s devotional we thought about how God can and will renew and restore us, even if we’ve made terrible mistakes and are suffering the consequences. The fact is that there is nothing we cannot overcome with the help of the Lord, and Matthew 11:28-30 explains how that’s accomplished.

In that parable Jesus pictured a team of oxen yoked together plowing a field. In every team of oxen there’s a lead ox and a follower ox. The lead ox is bigger, stronger, and more experienced, and he carries most of the load and provides all of the direction. The follower ox just has to stay yoked to the lead ox, walking closely with him, sharing in the load, and following directions. In this parable Jesus was essentially saying, “Let me be your lead ox. Yoke yourself to me; stay close to me; I will carry most of the load and I will provide all of the direction; you just stay close to me and we will walk through life together.”

This is how you do it. This is how you rely on Jesus to help you through whatever it is you are facing. This is the key to living the Christian life well. Day-by-day, moment-by-moment, stay close to Jesus.

With respect to our theme of “How to inhabit time”, this is how we move beyond our past, live in the present, and move forward into the future. We stay close to Jesus. He will hold you up when you are weary, and He will keep you moving forward into the glorious future He has planned for you.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

God can restore and renew what was lost

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “I will restore to you the years the swarming locust has eaten.” Joel 2:25 (NKJV)

Our thought for today: “God can restore and renew what was lost”

This morning I want to take us back to our illustration from yesterday about learning to view things from God’s perspective. Remember the example of the car traveling on the highway. From the elevated perspective in an airplane at thirty-thousand feet, we can see where the car has been, where it is at now, and where it is going, much better than the driver in the car can see it. That’s the view from thirty-thousand feet and it is how God sees our lives.

Our problem is that we see and understand life based mostly on our past and on the present, but we’re not so good at seeing where we’re heading. This is especially problematic if we’ve lived poorly and made some bad mistakes, and now we’re struggling to get back on our feet and to get a fresh start. We’re well aware of the past, and we’re experiencing the present, but the future can look confusing, and getting back our feet can seem like a high hill to climb. I encounter this a lot in my ministry to men in jail, prison, and rehab.

The good news is that God sees what’s ahead and He knows the way for us to go. He has also filled the Bible with lots of great promises that if we will walk closely with Him, He will go with us, guide us, and restore us. Joel 2:25 (above) is just one of many such promises.

In that passage Joel reminds us that the Lord of creation, the One who is sovereign over all the affairs of the entire universe, the One who is all-powerful, the One who loves us deeply and who is grieved by our suffering, is also the One who is aware of every detail of our lives – including everything that brought us to the point we’re at in life now. Since God knows your history, He also knows what you have lost, and He knows what is missing in your life at this moment as a result of all that has been lost, or wasted, or never acquired because of that history.

But Joel 2:25 teaches that God is able and ready to restore now what was lost then. If we return to Him and live for Him, He will begin to rebuild the life that was, or build anew the life that could have been but never was. The key is living a life that is faithful to Biblical principles and which therefore honors Him. “Return to me and I will return to you”, says the Lord Almighty.” Zechariah 1:3

That’s how God sees the past, present, and future of our lives. Things may not have turned out exactly as you planned or desired, but your life isn’t over yet, there’s still more to come. God can restore the years the locusts have eaten.

We’ll think more about this tomorrow.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

The view from thirty-thousand feet

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.” John 15:19 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The view from thirty-thousand feet”

In Matthew 5:13, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us that as His followers we are “the salt of the earth”. Salt is both a preservative and a seasoning. First, it permeates a substance and helps to retard decay and corruption. Second, it makes food taste better. In His illustration Jesus meant that as His followers we are to be like salt. We are to work our way into society, bless people, and spread the gospel. By doing that we stand against the spread of evil. Also, our presence in any situation should make things more pleasant and better for everyone. In that way we are to be “in” the world. Deeply penetrating it and influencing things for the cause of Christ.

But at the same time, many New Testament verses teach that we are not to be “of” the world. In other words, as Jesus said in John 15:19, He has lifted us out of it and placed us above it in a spiritual sense. He wants us to learn how to be immersed in the activities of life while at the same time viewing it all from a Biblical and eternal perspective.

This is what it means to be “in” the world without being “of” the world. Physically we live in the world, but spiritually we live above it. We experience the circumstances of life, but at the same time live above the circumstances of life. We can think of this as viewing life from thirty-thousand feet. Imagine yourself on an airplane looking down on the earth below. Because of your elevated perspective you can see the grand sweep of the terrain from a much different perspective than if you were standing on the ground. Picture a car driving on a highway below. From your perspective you can see where it has been, where it is now, and where it is heading, much better than the driver can. This is how God views all of life, and this is the perspective He wants to share with us.

Unfortunately, most of us claim to have a spiritual and eternal perspective about things but in actual practice we live with a very worldly perspective. We view things from ground level rather than from God-level. We are both “in” the world and “of” the world.

But what if we were better at viewing it all from thirty-thousand feet? What if we trained ourselves to step back, rise above the circumstances, and view it all from more of a Biblical and eternal perspective? That is what spiritual growth and maturity achieves for us and that’s why it’s so important for Christians to develop and maintain a Biblical worldview.

Things look different from God’s perspective, and He is willing to help us to see things His way rather than our way. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you learn to see things more from thirty-thousand feet. It will make a difference in how you live.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Don’t miss your sacramental moments

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings; with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.” Isaiah 6:1-3 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Don’t miss your sacramental moments”

Frederick Buechner once wrote that a sacramental moment is “when something holy happens. It is transparent time, time which you can see through to something deep inside time.”

Sacramental moments happen most often in church during a good worship service. That’s when most of us have our deepest encounters with God. Music is especially effective at lifting us up out of ourselves to an encounter with God. The music also softens our hearts and prepares us to hear the Word of God preached and explained.

But corporate worship services are by no means the only time we experience such sacramental moments. As Buechner says, “Church isn’t the only place where the holy happens. Sacramental moments can occur at any moment, any place, and to anyone.”

Yes, that’s true, but only if we aren’t, as Buechner cautions, blind as bats. Sacramental moments can happen at any time if we have the spiritual sight and the sensitivity to experience and appreciate them. And this is where most of us struggle.

The truth is that many of us do go through life blind as bats. We’re spiritually dull as well. We rush through life unaware of the holy all around us because we spend so much of our life hurried, harried, harassed, and hurting. Therefore, our attention is everywhere except on the holy.

This is why it’s so important that we don’t skip church. The Bible instructs us (God commands us), to be faithful in our attendance at the weekly gatherings of our church family. There are many good reasons for this but one is so that we can refocus, encounter God in worship, have those sacramental moments, and become re-sensitized to the spiritual so maybe we will at least be a little less “blind as bats and spiritually dull” the rest of the week.

There are sacramental moments waiting for you this Sunday. It will be a holy encounter with the Living God. Will you be there to experience it? I hope you will. Your spiritual eyes will be opened, your soul will be awakened, and you will be much more prepared to face and deal with the coming week. Don’t miss your sacramental moments.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Well, how did I get here?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “He comforts us in our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Well, how did I get here?”

In 1980 the rock group Talking Heads had a hit song with the title “Once in a Lifetime”. The underlying theme of the song is that we should think carefully about the long-term impacts of our choices, because our life is the sum total of the choices we have made. The song is reflective in nature, as the person wonders how he ended up in life where he now finds himself. It’s not a Christian song, and yet there’s a message in it that’s helpful. Here’s the first verse:

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

It’s a good question, really. How did you get where you are in life? The answer is that everything you have experienced in life up to this point has brought you to where you are today. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Every choice you have made, every experience you have had, it has all combined to make you who you are and it brought you to where you are in life now.

The truth is that we carry our past with us. It never really goes away. The question is what we do with it. Will your past haunt you or help you? You get to decide. The first step is to acknowledge the reality of it. The second step is to decide what you’re going to do with it. This is what the Apostle Paul was referring to in 2 Corinthians 1:4 (above). In that case he was writing about pain and suffering from the past which God then uses to be a source of growth and strength for you, and then as a vehicle for blessing others.

In yesterday’s devotional I encouraged all of us to remember the past and learn from it, but to then live life going forward. Today’s message makes essentially the same point. The past happened. You can’t change that. And, you carry the past with you. You can’t change that either. You cannot magically make it go away as if it never happened, it’s all a part of you. So now, what are you going to do with it?

Go ahead and ask yourself “How did I get here?” That’s important to know. But then ask yourself, “Where am I going?” because that’s even more important.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Were the “good old days” really better?

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” since it is not wise of you to ask this.” Ecclesiastes 7:10 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Were the “good old days” really better?”

You may remember the scene found in chapter eleven of the Old Testament book of Numbers. The Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, being fed by the manna from heaven (a sweet bread that tasted like honey and was provided for them daily by God). But they quickly tired of it and actually began complaining about it. Soon they were reminiscing about “the good old days” in Egypt. You know, when they were slaves and working under forced labor. Only now, in their memories, those were the days when they were safe and secure, well fed and fully employed. To hear them tell it now, in the good old days in Egypt they had meat, fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now all they had was this lousy bread from God.

Was the past really better than the present? For those ancient Israelites the answer was obviously “No!” They had grossly romanticized in their memories what had actually been a horrible situation in reality. But don’t we all do that? Don’t we tend to remember the past better than it really was, especially compared to the unpleasantries and challenges that we might be contending with in the present?

Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, and Christian author. He was also a student of human nature. He once observed that, “It is perfectly true, as philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”

In other words, we do need to remember the past (accurately), so we can learn from it. But life needs to be lived going forward. We shouldn’t dwell in the past, and we must also be careful not to overly romanticize it. There were good times in the past, to be sure, but there were bad times too. There were trials and tribulations and pain and sorrow back then too, just as there is today.

Was the past really that much better than the present? If we have the habit of always romanticizing the past at the expense of the present then yesterday, last year, last decade, will always have been better than today. But this pattern of thinking means that when we get to the future we will always look back and conclude that the past was better. Where then is hope? Evidently (in this pattern of thinking) the romanticized past was always better that the present, and that means that everything just gets worse as time goes by.

Life is life, regardless. There’s always both good and bad. Please, don’t dwell in an overly romanticized past that almost certainly wasn’t as good as you’re remembering it now. Instead, learn from the bad, celebrate the good, live fully today, and move forward into the future.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Live life large

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “Here I am today, eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out. My strength for battle and for daily tasks is now as it was then.” Joshua 14:10-11 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “Live life large”

The words recorded in Joshua 14:10-11 were spoken by one of my personal Biblical heroes, Caleb. Caleb lived in the next generation after Moses and was a contemporary of Joshua. Along with Joshua, Caleb was one of the spies sent out by Moses to reconnoiter the Promised Land and to bring back a report. And along with Joshua, Caleb insisted that the people go forward and take possession of the land as God commanded.

But of course, they didn’t do it. They wandered in the wilderness for forty years instead. Now, in Joshua 14:10-11, we find the eighty-five-year-old Caleb finally in the Promised Land and taking possession of his inheritance. He was still feisty, healthy, strong, bold – and still kicking butt and taking names.

I want to be Caleb!

He reminds me of my Aunt Pat. She’s eighty-seven and still a firecracker. Aunt Pat is one of those people who has always lived life full-steam-ahead. She embraces every moment, grabs it by the shoulders, shakes it up real good, straightens its tie, and then moves on to the next moment. She’s always been like that.

She now lives in an assisted living center in New Jersey. She’s in a wheelchair and needs assistance with many basic daily tasks. But she’s still everywhere, all the time, involved in everything, dispensing advice, giving instructions, and living life large. (I think she may be the mayor of her hallway. And if she wasn’t actually elected to that position, she probably just went ahead and appointed herself to it.)

Yesterday we thought about life in terms of seasons. We considered the truth that every season of life holds the potential for blessings and joys that are unique to that season of life. But it’s up to us to recognize and appreciate the potential and the opportunities that come with each season, and then choose to take advantage of them.

I urge you not to miss the moments of your life. Be Caleb (or Aunt Pat). Grab each moment by the shoulders, shake it up real good, straighten its tie, and then move on to the next one. Experience it all. Take advantage of every opportunity. Live life large.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Your life is a work of art

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)

Our thought for today: “Your life is a work of art.”

Douglas Beyer wrote multiple Christian books about how to live the Christian life well. One of them was “Parables for Christian Living”. In it he taught a fascinating lesson about the nature and quality of our lives, which should cause us to seriously reflect on how we think about our lives. His observation is also directly relevant to our topic of slowing down a bit so we can savor and enjoy the individual moments of life. It’s a lengthy passage but I want to quote it in full:

“One of the differences between great art and mediocre art is that with great art you can never get all that is there. A comic strip can be enjoyed and discarded with the Sunday newspaper, but the Mona Lisa can be hung on the wall and enjoyed for a lifetime. You can never get all that is there. A television soap opera can be quickly comprehended and soon forgotten, but a Shakespearean drama can be seen again and again, with each new viewing communicating fresh ideas and perspectives. You can never get all that is there. The parables of Jesus are like great art. They express a profound simplicity. The familiar stories yield new vistas of thought each time they are explored. But you can never get all that is there. The parable of the prodigal son is one of the best-known stores of all time. Read it again, and see what you missed the last time.

Beyer’s point illustrates the difference in the richness and depth between a great work of art and a comic strip, or between a silly and superficial story like a soap opera and something profound like a parable of Jesus. His point can also be applied to the Christian life.

Is your life like a comic strip, or a great work of art? Do you think of it as an insignificant drama or is it a rich and meaningful story? In Ephesians 2:10 Paul describes you and your life as a masterpiece created by God. It’s a deep and rich and beautiful and mysterious and intricate story with many threads which develops over a lifetime. I hope you do see yourself and your life in those terms, because that is what God has created you to be – His masterpiece!

I encourage you to view your life as a great work of art. Gaze at it long and thoughtfully. Appreciate the richness of it. Don’t rush past each moment barely giving it a glance. Treat it like the masterpiece it is. Appreciate it. Enjoy it. Savor it.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

You need your Sabbath day

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord spoke to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: These are my appointed times, the times of the Lord that you will proclaim as sacred assemblies.” Leviticus 23:1-2 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “You need your Sabbath day”

Not long ago I was reading through the Old Testament book of Leviticus in the Experiencing God Study Bible, and I came to chapter twenty-three, where God established the annual liturgical calendar for His people. In that chapter He gave the people a long list of holy days, or sacred assemblies that they would be required to observe. But interestingly, God started that list of annual events with a weekly sacred assembly that He wants His people to observe – the Sabbath day.

In the “Did you notice?” sidebar feature that is included with each chapter in the Experiencing God Study Bible, Henry Blackaby made the observation and asked the question, “The Sabbath is God’s weekly festival. How is this a special day for you?” Now that’s a good question for us to consider, “How is the Sabbath a special day for you?” Do you treat it as special and do you observe it on a weekly basis, as the fourth of the Ten Commandments instructs us to do?

By the way, the Ten Commandments are still in effect. All of them. Including the fourth. Observing the Sabbath isn’t an optional event, not even for us New Testament people. That’s why the writer of the letter to the Hebrews told us in Hebrews 10:24-25 that we are not to skip the regular assemblies of the family of believers. And yet, as we learned in a previous devotional in this series, regular and consistent church attendance by professing believers is at an all-time low in the USA today. We’re talking about professing Christians who are in the habit of skipping church. However, doing so is unbiblical. It’s a violation of the fourth of the Ten Commandments and it’s diametrically opposite of what Hebrews 10:24-25 teaches us.

In yesterday’s devotional message we thought about slowing down so our souls can catch up with our bodies. That’s precisely why God gave us a Sabbath day once a week, and it’s why He made it “not optional” for His people (both Old and New Testament people). The dual purpose of the Sabbath day is to slow us down and make us rest, but also to draw us together into those sacred assemblies for a weekly time of worship, learning, spiritual nurture, and the encouraging of one another.

My friends, you need your Sabbath day. It is both a gift from God and a commandment. I urge you to stop making excuses, stop putting other events and activities up higher on your priority list, and instead, be where you’re supposed to be on Sunday morning (in church). The old saying is very true, “Other things should not be the reason we miss church. Church should be the reason we miss other things.”

God bless,
Pastor Jim

Slow down and let your soul catch up

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “How to inhabit time”

Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.” Lamentations 3:25 (NKJV)

Our thought for today: “Slow-down and let your soul catch up”

The story is told of the missionary doctor who arrived in Africa eager to get to the interior of the continent to begin his work. When he got off the ship at the coast, he hired a group of native men to transport his large amount of luggage and supplies for him. Then, very early the next morning he set off at a fast pace to begin the long trek inland. All day he pushed and pushed at a fast pace, not letting up, not wanting to stop. Finally, when the workers were exhausted and couldn’t go any further, they stopped for the night.

Early the next morning the missionary was up again and eager to get going, but the native men refused to budge. In exasperation the missionary demanded to know why. Finally, one of the men explained, “We’re waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies”. And he meant it. The men sincerely thought that they had traveled so far and so fast the previous day that their souls had been unable to keep up, so now they needed to wait for their souls to catch up with them. That sounds like us. We rush and rush, push and push, go faster and further so we can do more, and our souls can’t keep up.

Kosuke Koyama was a Japanese Christian theologian and philosopher who once wrote a wonderful little book with the title “Three Mile an Hour God”. It was based on the premise that the average human being walks at approximately three miles an hour. That’s a steady but relaxed and reasonable pace for most of us. It gets us where we need to go without exhausting us in the process.

Koyama argues that this an apt metaphor for the pace at which we should live our lives, and it’s the pace at which God attempts to regulate us. Many scriptures support the understanding that God doesn’t want us rushing through life (Jesus was never in a hurry). When we do rush, we’re getting ahead of God Himself. Instead, God walks through life with us at a pace that makes sense and at which we can truly savor and enjoy the moments of life.

This is one of the reasons that at this season in life I have switched from jogging and running to walking and hiking. Walking and hiking are not only good forms of exercise (and they easier on these sixty-eight-year-old knee joints), but walking enables me to better appreciate my surroundings, and it’s also a good reminder to slow down the rest of my life too.

Are you rushing through life so fast that you need to slow down and let your soul catch up? God is a three-mile-an-hour God (not because He can’t go faster, but because we shouldn’t). I encourage you to slow down and let your soul catch up!

God bless,
Pastor Jim