Author: Allan (Page 425 of 492)

A Time To Give

March 27, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“The Church has nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore, spend and be spent in this work.” ~John Wesley

God saves people. That’s his work. It’s what he does.

God rescues from slavery. He delivers from exile. He provides food and water in the desert. He opposes the oppressor. He champions the weak and defenseless. He stills the storms. He gives sight to the blind and causes the lame to walk again. He protects and defends. He’s our Shield and our very great Reward. He’s the Rock. He’s the Refuge. He provides shelter. He turns turmoil into peace. He transfers sickness into health. He shines light into the darkness and brings life out of death.

That’s God’s work. It’s what he does. And it never stops. God is out there in his world right now today doing these works with his children. He’s out there loving and blessing people, redeeming and reconciling people, and defeating the enemies of his people.

And we join him in that work.

Every time the Gospel is preached, every time a sick person is cured, every time a church is planted, every time a hungry child is fed, every time a woman is baptized, every time a homeless man is given a bed, we are joining God in his work.

Sunday is Missions Sunday at Legacy.

The goal is $200,000 to fund the entire local and foreign missions budget for 2009.

As a church family we’ve studied and preached and prayed and sung about it. We’ve done the math. We’ve read the brochures and pamphlets, hung banners and worn buttons, studied pledge cards and learned a new song. We’ve heard from MITS, LST, BandS, and Fortress. We’ve seen David Nelson’s new haircut and Corey and Emily Mullins’ pajamas. We’ve seen pictures of neglected children, lost souls, and pregnant goats. We’ve been inspired by our missionaries and challenged by our shepherds.

And now it’s time to give.

Legacy to the World!

Allan

Surrounded

March 26, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

I love Missions Month here at Legacy. For 31 days we zero in and focus on God’s call to seek and to save the lost, in our own neighborhoods and in Ukraine and the Philippines, in our own subdivisions and on the streets of downtown Fort Worth and Nairobi. We get to meet and hear our missionaries who are doing Kingdom work all over the globe. We get to see pictures and hear stories about the salvation work of God through Christ. We get to witness the ongoing reconciliation of the world back to its gracious Creator.

And it energizes me. It’s strong. It fills me with a renewed sense of purpose and mission. (It also fills me, in some ways, with envy. These missionaries are on the front lines of the Lord’s battle with Satan. They’re making a real difference in people’s lives, having a genuine eternal impact on the Kingdom. Meanwhile, I sometimes feel like a “religious shopkeeper,” to borrow a Eugene Peterson term. Sometimes I feel like I’m just a chaplain for a local congregation. But that’s a different post for another day. Stay on task! Stay on task!)

This past week, through the miracle of the internet skype, our wonderful young missionaries in Kharkov, Ukraine, David & Olivia Nelson, were able to join us live from their bedroom for our Sunday morning worship assembly. There they were, up on the big screens in the worship center, talking to us about life in Eastern Europe. And David kind of poured his heart out to us.

It was unexpected. It was unscripted. It was open and honest and real.

David looked right into the camera, right into our eyes, and thanked us for the prayers and the money and the cards and the calls and the letters. He praised God for our partnership in spreading the great news. And then he told us, point-blank, that the honeymoon’s over. Life as a missionary in Ukraine isn’t nearly as glamorous now as it was when they got there six months ago. It’s hard. Nobody speaks English. It’s dark and cold. It hasn’t stopped snowing. Different language. Different culture. Different habits. Lonliness. Rejection. It’s tough. And David told us. It’s difficult.

And our hearts broke.

David read the passage I had selected from 1 Timothy about being rich in good deeds. And he led us in a beautiful prayer from nearly six-thousand miles away. But I think we were still processing the things David had said earlier.

We were all deeply touched by their honest confession. And divinely inspired and encouraged by their Christ-like resolve. All of us. I know that because apparently most of our church family bombarded the Nelsons with phone calls and emails as soon as our service was over.

Olivia sent out their weekly prayer list on Tuesday and started with this:

“Surrounded. That’s how I feel today as I’m sitting here writing you all. I feel surrounded by so many of you, and most of you are really far away right now! How God can use his Body to give us hugs that seem to reach across oceans is beyond me, but he does and I’m grateful. Yesterday David and I were able to worship with Legacy from our bedroom. David briefly shared with the congregation about how things were going here, then read a scripture and prayed for us all. We spent the next hour sitting on our bed, singing, praying, and glorifying our Lord with our family in Fort Worth. Since then, emails have been popping into our inbox, encouraging us and spurring us on, each one of them touching us in different ways. He is using you all — your prayers, your notes, your emails, your phone calls — to remind us of his love. Thank you! In Him Always, David and Olivia.”

How does God work on both sides of the world at the same time to inspire a thousand people in North Texas and to encourage a lonely missionary couple in Ukraine? I have no idea. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Peace,

Allan

Tulsa Time

March 25, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

Jim McDoniel is leaving the building here at Legacy and heading north for the annual Tulsa International Soul Winning Workshop. And I’m envious. I’m jealous.

For the first time in seven years, Carrie-Anne and I won’t be there.

The Tulsa Workshop is a sacred time and place for my wife and me. It’s in Tulsa where, probably for the first time in our adult lives, we experienced corporate worship of God and mutual encouragement of one another with a couple thousand people who all wanted to be there. You know what I mean? A person has to sacrifice to be in Tulsa. Work and school schedules have to be rearranged. Hotels must be booked. Gas and meals must be funded. Nobody goes to Tulsa for four days because they have to. Everybody there is there because they are overflowing with gratitude and praise for the mercy and grace of our Father. They love to be with and around God’s children. They love to worship. They love to sing and pray. They love to be challenged by powerful speakers. They love to learn new things, to gain new insights, to expand their vision of God’s eternal Kingdom.

And that makes for powerful worship.

100% of the people are singing, not just 60%. 100% of the people are smiling, not just 50%. 100% of the brothers and sisters there are actively participating in the prayers and the sermons and the songs and the readings from Scripture. Fully participatory. Completely interactive.

Not one person attends a worship assembly in Tulsa to fulfill some kind of spiritual checklist, to make an appearance and then leave, to put in his or her time. That’s what makes it so different from the worship assemblies in most of our churches. That’s why worship in a place like Tulsa is so encouraging, so uplifting, so meaningful. Everybody’s in! Nobody judges the person next to him because she may worship a little differently. Nobody complains that a prayer went too long. Nobody criticizes the speaker. Nobody sings just the songs he grew up with and folds his arms and shuts his lips during the others. Not one person there expects to be catered to. Nobody’s there expecting everything to be exactly to their tastes. Everybody gathers in Tulsa expecting God to be glorified, themselves to be edified, and for it all to be diverse and different, chaotic and full of surprises, times of both quiet reflection and meditation and joyful shouting to the Lord. That’s why we come back from Tulsa so energized for our Lord and his Kingdom, so on fire for the gospel of salvation in Christ, so excited about God’s people and the partnership we share with the Creator of heaven and earth.

And we’re missing it this year.

With Carrie-Anne back in school full-time, with our three daughters at three different campuses here, with Missions Sunday coming up this week and our second cycle of Small Groups Church beginning in eleven days, we just can’t make it.

I’m going to miss the kick-off dinner at Memorial Drive tonight when we get to share a meal and get caught up with dozens of great friends from Mesquite and Oklahoma Christian. I’m going to miss the hour-and-a-half I normally spend with about 10 other preachers in Terry Rush’s study on Thursday morning. What an encourager! What a great man of God! What an inspiration to a still-new, still-insecure, still-overwhelmed preacher like me. I’m going to miss the singing. Man, the singing! The glimpse of heaven it is to praise our God in song with brothers and sisters from all over the world! I’m going to miss the great speakers. I’m going to miss it all.

But not next year. Next year we’re going to Tulsa. Next year we’re going to plan a huge caravan from Legacy. We’ll all go together. I’ll book the rooms. Go ahead and put it on your calendar. In bright red, non-eraseable, permanent ink!

I’m envious of Jim and everybody else who’s heading to Tulsa today. And I pray God’s richest blessings on this wonderful gathering of his people.

Peace,

Allan

The King Is Coming

March 24, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

In 2 Samuel 19, the king is coming back to Jerusalem to re-establish his sovereign rule over God’s people. He had voluntarily left his throne in order to save his people. He had been mocked and ridiculed, cursed and humiliated on his way out of town. But now he’s coming back. And he’s coming back to set things right.

And Ziba and Shemei are scared.

They’ve spent their lives cursing the king, using the king’s blessings to fatten their own purses, taking advantage of the king’s kindness, deceiving the king. Coming to the king and the king’s people with false motives, impure hearts, seeking personal gain at the expense of the kingdom. Hypocrites. Shemei openly curses the king. Ziba claims allegiance to the king, but lies to him. That’s even worse. The apostle John says we do the exact same thing when we say we love God but we don’t love our brother. When we confess Christ as Lord but live lives that deny him. Those sins are deserving of death. Eternal death.

But look at the mercy of the king. Be amazed at the grace and the love and the compassion of the king. Shemei and Ziba bow down to the ground, they confess their sins before the king — sins that deserve under the law to be punished by death — and the king forgives them. He promises on oath they will not die. And he stops his men from even discussing the possibility.

Is it any wonder that the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth calls David a man after his own heart?

You know the King is coming. And if you have sin in your life, you should be greatly concerned. But if you bow down to the King, if you confess to the King, if you submit fully to the King…the King forgives. And when the King returns, you meet him with joy and gladness, not fear.

The great news for us is that the King WANTS to forgive. He wants full reconciliation. He’s not willing that any should die. He wants desperately to welcome every man and woman he’s ever created into his eternal Kingdom. God sent his Son to “reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Through Jesus, God is “reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.”

God wants you. And he’ll go to whatever lengths necessary to get you.

He died to save you.

And he’s coming back.

He promises us in John 14 he’s coming back. The angels told the apostles in Acts 1 he’s coming back. The closing words of our holy Scriptures assure us the King’s coming: “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

Are you ready?

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March Madness — The Legacy basketball team (“Team Dyniewski” or, my favorite, “TohuBohu”) made its debut last night in the North Richland Hills recreation center with an impressive 52-49 win over a bunch of guys with real uniforms. Josh Dyniewski and Aaron Green provided the muscle, combining to score at least 40 of our points inside the paint, while the rest of us just tried to stay out of the way.

Several keys to the impressive victory:

1) the decision to play a 2-3 zone defense. The decision was made as the teams were facing off on the court for the opening tip. Nice. Nevermind the fact we had never played anything but a man-to-man defense in our twice-weekly pickup games here at Legacy. Nevermind the fact that we had never even discussed the possibility of playing a zone before. It worked. Mostly.

2) Josh’s six-straight made free throws in the final 90-seconds. Sealed the deal. Clutch.

3) Aaron’s sending two of our opponents to the hospital with leg injuries. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit. But Green was a monster down there.

4) Trey Thornton using all five of his fouls. Coker will be proud.

5) Going with the Carolina blue Champion dri-soft jerseys. Did I mention they were numberless? That’s a problem in this league. So we had to don the city’s junior-high pinis over our shirts. Elastic down. Not flattering. They actually serve to accentuate middle-age girth. I wanted to wear mine upside down. They wouldn’t let me. We looked like a bunch of rejects who’d been bussed in from somewhere far, far away. But apparently they worked like a charm. We didn’t turn in Josh’s pini after the game. We’re going to have it framed and hung up on the wall at the Rufe Snow Chick-Fil-A. Nobody can ever wear #9 again.

1-0, baby! We might have to discuss the construction of a huge Legacy trophy case at Thursday’s elders meeting.

Peace,

Allan

Reversing Fortunes

March 20, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

“Remember that in your lifetime you received good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.” ~Luke 16:25

Jesus tells his story about the rich man and Lazarus to illustrate several points, among them that the things God considers of value are not recorded with numbers and dollar signs. But I’m particularly interested in the reversal of fortunes theme that appears to be synonymous with the coming of the Kingdom of God.

“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” ~Matthew 11:5

The roles of the rich man and Lazarus are reversed.

The rich man is very wealthy. He lives in a home with a gate and wears purple, an outward sign of great luxury. He dresses in fine linen, a description of his fancy underwear. Lazarus, by contrast, has nothing. He lies at the gate, begging, full of sores, unclean, and starving. His situation is as tragic as the rich man’s is sumptuous.

But now their fortunes are reversed. And it’s a permanent situation.

Isn’t this exactly what God through Christ has done for us? He has turned our lives completely around. He has totally reversed our fortunes. Permanently.

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression — it is by grace you have been saved.” ~Ephesians 2:1-5

Peace,

Allan

Missionaries At The Table

March 19, 2009 / Allan / 0 Comments

March is Missions Month here at Legacy. One hundred percent of our foreign and local missions budget for 2009 is funded by a special offering on March 29. And we’re spending the entire month gearing up for that. Talking about it. Preaching about it. Praying about it. Studying it. The mission of our God and the call of his Church: to take up the mission to seek and save the lost. We’re bringing up our own missionaries to speak to us on Sunday morninings. We’re hooking up via the miracle of the internet skype with David and Olivia Nelson in Ukraine and Corey and Emily Mullins in Australia to be with us in our assemblies. This past week 22 individuals and families from Legacy have signed up to take short-term missions trips with the Let’s Start Talking program.

While considering the proclamation aspect of what we do together at the Lord’s Supper each Sunday (see yesterday’s post, “Proclaim the Lord’s Death”), it seems that communion time is also a missionary event.

The death of Christ concerns many more than just a few chosen and believing people. Jesus died for all. He died for all those who are weak, all those who are sinners, all those who are right now enemies of God. Christ does not delay his death for us and for all until the moment when we and others are converted and added to his flock. The Lamb of God carries all the sins of the whole world.

This is another thing we proclaim together at the table. In sharing the communion meal that celebrates the Christ, we testify to the promises of God that he loves all creatures, not just those now present at the table. We declare that Jesus died for all and that all are invited to answer his call to repentance and salvation and a restored relationship with the Creator through him. So the Lord’s table is a missionary event. A missionary action.

Markus Barth, again, from Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper:

“Proclaiming the death of Christ forbids an individual and egotistic, antisocial and particularistic celebration of the eucharist. The Lord’s table is an occasion for and a center of evangelism rather than a selfish search for peace of the soul or joyful private satisfaction.”

Communion time is not primarily a time for God to speak to us or for the clergy — preachers, elders, presiders, etc., — to speak to us. At Christ’s table it is the congregation of believers that is authorized and enabled to speak. We are all together heralds of the Good News. During communion we’re all gospel preachers. At the table we declare to all the world that God’s work embraces all of humanity and that the number of God’s people is not yet complete.

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Carrie-Anne’s picks are in. She’s taking Duke. Aggies and Horns are one-and-done. If you want to watch them play, you have to watch today.

Peace,

Allan

Author: Allan (Page 425 of 492)

A Time To Give

Surrounded

Tulsa Time

The King Is Coming

Reversing Fortunes

Missionaries At The Table

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