THE TRENTON BULLETIN

THE TRENTON BULLETIN

Trenton Church of Christ, Trenton, Florida

By now, you must have noticed the news magazines end of year publications with special pictorial sections that recall people and events that made news in 2008. Many also include articles by experts predicting what they expect to see in the years ahead. Back in 1967, experts predicted that by the turn of the century technology would have taken over so much of the work we do that the average American work week would be only 22 hours long and that we would work only 27 weeks a year. Well, we all know that was wrong!

But here we are in the last week of 2008 and where will we be in 2009? What should we choose as our mission statement for the year? In Ephesians 5:15-17, Paul writes, "Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Here are some salient points worth pondering as the year begins.

REMEMBER THAT OUR TIME ON THIS EARTH IS LIMITED. First of all, we must be very careful how we live because our time on this earth is limited. The Psalmist wrote, "Show me, O Lord, my life's end & the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life" [Psalm 39:4]. And then again, "The length of our days is 70 years - or 80, if we have the strength...they quickly pass, and we fly away" [Psalm 90:10]. I can remember when I thought anyone over 40 was ancient - but not any more. It is all rather relative, isn't it? If I number my days and live to be 65 years old, I have about 7855 days left to live. That's all, just 7855 days left to live which is just 1/3 of the time I have already lived. And really, I don't have a guarantee of even one day more to live.

REMEMBER THAT WE NEED TO WALK LIKE A WISE MAN. Wise people spend their lives walking carefully. The word Paul used indicates we are to use great care in our walk [Ephesians 5:15]. In the KJV and NKJV, the word is translated "circumspectly" and means "exactly, accurately, and diligently" unlike the fool who cares little about where they are going or what is happening.

REMEMBER TO REDEEM THE TIME. We need to take advantage of the time available to us [Ephesians 5:16]. We should "make wise and sacred use of every opportunity for doing good, so that zeal and well doing are as it were the purchase by which we make the time our own" (from the "Online Bible"). This is necessary, Paul says, because the days are "evil." Whether it is the evil of trials, sins, or even death, Christians will not count on tomorrow but count on the Lord. All we have is right now. And are we right now, right with Him and working for Him?

REMEMBER TO MAKE THE MOST OF EVERY OPPORTUNITY. Sometimes we just need to choose the better path. The lesser path may not be sin - just not as good. Remember when Jesus went to the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. He sat down to teach and Mary sat at His feet soaking in every word. Meanwhile, Martha was out in the kitchen preparing dinner. Now, you know the story. Martha gets upset because Mary is not in the kitchen to help her. So she complains to Jesus, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" [Luke 10:40] "Martha, Martha," Jesus answered, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her" [Luke 10:41-42]. Martha was committing a sin by being hospitable and fixing a meal in the kitchen! The problem was that she was so preoccupied with what she was doing that she didn't realize that God was in her living room. She could not see the things that mattered most. We all know we do this more often than we ever want to admit. We get so caught up in today that we lose sight of the eternal.

REMEMBER WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE LORD'S WILL IS. Well, Paul said it. The answer to this foolishness is to "understand what the Lord's will is." Do we think God wants our mind so saturated with worries and anxieties about jobs, careers, and the economy that we can't think spiritual thoughts? Do we think He wants our calendar so crowded that we don't have time for the more important things like worshipping with the church, personal Bible study and growing our family spiritually? To understand that will of God, we need to prioritize the spiritual things. "Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:1-2; also, Matthew 6:33; Colossians 1:18). So, when Sunday rolls around, will neither rain nor shine, football kickoffs or special sales interfere with being in church, because He comes first in our life? If we do indeed set our mind on things above, we will worship the Lord when we are called to worship and let nothing interfere with that. We will resolve to become closer to our brothers in Christ. Whether it is simply learning their name (3John 14) or having them over for a meal (1Peter 4:9), they will be part of the spiritually important matters we need to prioritize.

To understand that will of God we also need to prioritize the family things. We need to make time for our spouse. "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband" (Eph 5:33). Every husband ought to have a date night with his wife. You heard it here first. The Hootons are going to make time for each other in 2009. We need to make time for our children. How else will our children learn to "obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right? HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER (which is the first commandment with a promise), SO THAT IT MAY BE WELL WITH YOU, AND THAT YOU MAY LIVE LONG ON THE EARTH." (Ephesians 6:1). They're growing up ever so fast and they need parents - every day, both "quantity" and "quality", of that process.

Someone said, "Life is what happens to you while you're making plans to do something else." And God says, says, "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light" (Romans 13:11-12). Remember these five things and 2009 will be a year you can remember with delight and no regrets.

And He was saying to them, “Take care what you listen to” (Mark 4:24). At the very least, the title of this article is intriguing. But I don’t want us to think that the only point ever to be made about music and the disciple of Christ is that it is done within the context of a worship service, and that it is to be a cappella — i.e., without accompanying instruments.

Unequivocally, I affirm that when Christians gather together to worship God, we must do so as His word reveals it to be done: “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Colossians 3:16–17). This involves our “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) by not applying Old Testament allowances where the New Testament does not also apply these same allowances.

We do not worship on the Sabbath day because Christ “canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ” (Colossians 2:14–17).

And so we don’t apply tithing from the Old Testament into the New Testament because the New Testament does not apply tithing to our reasonable service of worship (Romans 12:2). Neither should we apply musical instruments — with trumpet sound; with harp and lyre; with tambourine and dancing; with stringed instruments and flute; with loud cymbals; with resounding cymbals (cf. Psalm 150:3–5) — to our New Testament form of worship.

This all being said — and necessity compels me to say it because of so many who mishandle the word of truth and want musical instruments in worship not because God says so, but because they themselves say so — I want to make it clear that the music we listen to throughout the week affects us. If we choose to listen to music that does not lift us up spiritually, then we’re harming ourselves.

Some will insist on a cappella music in congregational worship, but then hypocritically go away from it blaring their radios, CD players, or iPods with trash that celebrates divorce, adultery, and fornication! I’m not saying that we should only listen to a cappella music throughout the week — although there’d be nothing but a benefit from doing so; of course, some might think us square if we did, and who wants to be thought of as square? I am, however, insisting that we be careful what we listen to. Is God glorified when we know the words of songs that honor sexual immorality? Would Jesus sit next to us and sing those songs, too? We know He wouldn’t, so why do we? I’ll tell you why — because we want to. And that’s what needs to change: our wants, our desires.

“Do nothing from selfishness” (Philippians 2:3). “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15–17).

In his excellently written and challenging book “Slouching Towards Gomorrah” © 1996, Robert H. Bork wrote the following: “The obscenity of thought and word is staggering, but also notable is the deliberate rejection of any attempt to achieve artistic distinction or even mediocrity. The music is generally little more than noise with a beat, the singing is an unmelodic chant, the lyrics often range from the perverse to the mercifully unintelligible. . . . In keeping with the progress of liberalism, popular entertainment generally — and the worst of it in particular — celebrates the unconstrained self, and savages those who would constrain” (pp. 124, 125).

Does the music we listen to bring us closer to God? Or does it take us further away from Him? “He who is not with Me is against Me” (Matthew 12:30). “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded” (James 4:7–8).

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:8-11).

The point of life in Christ is that we may "know Him and the power of His resurrection." The value of knowing Christ so far excels the value of anything in this world that we are willing to suffer the loss of all else, if need be, in order to "gain Christ and be found in Him." Life in Christ is not primarily about relief right now from the trauma of living in a broken world. Indeed, to be in fellowship with Christ means to know "the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death" in order that we may "attain to the resurrection from the dead."

To the ears of the Christian, these truths should sound self-evident. Unfortunately, the concept of Christianity that has come to be dominant in our day is one that runs in a different direction. According to this concept, emotional pain relief is the basic, overall concern of life in Christ. Offering health, wealth, and complete emotional bliss, it promises to take away the deep ache of our needy, broken souls and to do so rather quickly. The new gospel is fundamentally about "feeling better." It is about us.

But the historic gospel is not first and foremost about feeling better; it is about glorifying God through Christ and coming to be like Him. Christ did not die for the mere betterment of our feelings, and seeking God through Him is not mostly about pain relief. It is about character transformation. And even more than character transformation, it is about the glorification of God. Far from eliminating the possibility of pain, the glorification of God may require the suffering of pain, even to the point of death. Our expectation should be no less than that of Paul, whose only hope was that "with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:20,21).

“Modern Christianity, in dramatic reversal of its biblical form, promises to relieve the pain of living in a fallen world” (Larry Crabb)

§ A businessman once overtook a man trudging through the snow, humming to himself. He talked with him and found that he was very poor. Finally, he asked him if he did not think he would be happier if he were rich. “No sir, all the rich men I work for never laugh.”

§ The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” (Vince Lombardi)