Links we recommend 11/7/14

4 Ways to Lovingly Discipline Your Children

In light of last week's sermon on Wisdom and Family, this post touches on some practical advice for loving discipline. It's written by Sarah Eggerichs, whose husband, Emerson, wrote the book Love and Respect.

3 Low Cost/High Impact Family Traditions

Kimberly Thornbury suggests a few practical traditions for this time of year.

5 Common Small Group Myths (And the Truth to Help Transform Your Group)

This post gives us some good things to think about related to small groups.

9 Things Everyone Should Do When Reading the Bible
In this post Bronwyn Lea offers good advice for reading the Bible carefully and purposefully.

Why We Need the Church

Here are some great points about our need to be involved in the local church.

God’s Strange Method of Pursuit

Written by: Dan Stump

I remember back to my dating days. I am not what you would call a romantic. Poetry doesn’t naturally flow out of me. But when it came time to win the heart of a girl, I would do whatever it took. When I desired a deep relationship, love letters and chick flicks were no problem.

Often we think of God wooing us in this same way. There is definitely some biblical imagery of a God who pours out His love in this way. That is why I was so surprised as I read Amos 4:6-11. It expanded my view of how God deals with us. His love is so much more complex than we think.

Israel had wandered. She was like a girl playing the field. If you were a girl with many suitors you would expect each of them to pile on the gifts and compliments. God does the exact opposite here. He starts by depriving them of food. Next he withholds water. Soon he is destroying their crops, vineyards, fig and olive trees. Are we surprised that Israel isn’t returning to Him? Don’t try this in your next relationship!

After that he kills off their horses, sends disease, and has their young men killed. Finally he overthrows them like He did Sodom and Gomorrah. Not exactly the way I would expect to be pursued.

The repeated refrain from God is, “Yet you did not return to me.” I took your food, yet you did not return to me. I took your water yet you did not return to me. I destroyed your crops, killed your livestock, had your young men killed, and overthrew you completely, yet you did not return to me.

“I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.
“I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.
 “I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.

“I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD.
“I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. (Amos 4:6-11 ESV)

God was sending them harmful things in order that they might recognize their waywardness and repent. As things got tough, they were supposed to cry out to God for help. Instead they continued in their stubborn wandering ways.

Do we view times of trial as sent from God? Do we see suffering as an opportunity to turn to Him? Or is our view of God so small that we think He would never do something like this; never treat us this way? Does our theology have room for God to love us by sending disease?

11/2/14 Sermon

Typically, each Monday we will be posting the previous Sunday's sermon. Here is the sermon from yesterday.

Sunday, November 2, 2014
Preaching: Vergil Brown
Sermon Series: Wisdom for Navigating Life
Title: "Wisdom and Family"
Proverbs

You can also access the sermon HERE.

Links we recommend 10/31/14

Lord, Help Me to Pray
Here is a powerful prayer on prayer, from the book Prone to Wander, which is a collection of prayers inspired by the classic prayer book The Valley of Vision. 

Glory Reorientation

This post continues a series by Paul Tripp in which he examines Revelation 19:6-8 and what he calls the "best worship service ever."

We Are Not Our Own: On God, Brittany Maynard, and Physician-Assisted Suicide

John Piper addresses the terminally ill woman who plans to take her own life here in Oregon. 


Today being October 31st, here are three posts that give helpful perspective on Halloween and Reformation Day.

What is Reformation Day All about?

Luther's Ninety-Five Theses: What You May Not Know and Why They Matter Today

The Connection between Halloween and Reformation Day

GBC Core Values: Part One

Written by: Josh Mathews

The five Core Values of Gresham Bible Church are:

• Knowing God deeply in his word

• Praying fervently for God’s purposes in the world

• Making God known by spreading the gospel locally and globally

• Fostering unity and building up the body through genuine community

• Expressing a growing love for Jesus in a life of worship

This blog post is the first in a series of posts outlining these values.

 There are distinctive traits that characterize our church more specifically—things like simplicity (mere church, not a lot of programs or large financial commitments) and a heart for justice (diversity, care for the unborn, adoption and foster care). You can take a look at more of these distinctive marks HERE. 

And you've probably also heard us talk about Growing, Giving, and Going, which are the three expectations in which all members of GBC agree to participate.

Those distinctives and membership expectations matter, but the Core Values are more fundamental. They identify the principles we consider to be most important in the life of our church. What we do flows from what we value most highly. That’s what these Core Values are. These are the five things we believe are essential to what God calls us to do and to be as his church.

And we want to think about these and be reminded of them often. That’s why they are on the church website, on the front of the bulletin, and up on the screen on Sunday mornings. That’s why they;ll be addressed in upcoming sermons, and why we’re dedicating a series of blog posts to talking about them.

As we go over them one by one, we’re going to think a little more about what they mean for us as a church. The hope is that this will help us think more also about how we can apply them—how we can work at valuing these things more highly, in our homes, in our communities, and in our church.

Core Value #1: Knowing God deeply in his word 

While all five values are at the core of our church, this one is first for a reason. Generally speaking, our deepest desire is that all we do would flow from who God is. We believe strongly that, in order to know how we ought to conduct ourselves as God’s people, we must grow in our knowledge of who God is. This is a value we work hard to uphold, and we do so in several ways. Here are a few of them:

• Our preaching is expository: We strive to have the main point of our sermons, preached on Sunday mornings, derive from the main point of the biblical passage.

• We encourage involvement in regular Bible reading: This happens through the GBC Bible read through and other avenues.

• We make every effort to allow Scripture to guide our decisions: Though the Bible doesn’t speak to every issue specifically, we seek the Lord’s revelation of himself and his wisdom as it relates to finances, staff, leadership, and all aspects of ministry.

• Our Children’s Ministry curriculum has a strong biblical emphasis: We want our kids, and our youth once we begin a Student Ministry, to develop biblical literacy, and to learn the importance of knowing God through his word from a young age. 

We are called "Gresham BIBLE Church" for a reason. We believe that in Jesus we have the ultimate revelation of who God is. He is the incarnate Living Word of God. And we believe the Scriptures, the Old and New Testament, are the primary means by which we know Jesus. The Bible is the written word of God, graciously given for our benefit.

There is much more we could say about Core Value number one, but I’ll just add one point of clarification. 

To be clear, when we talk about knowing God, we’re not just referring to an intellectual or academic knowledge. While theology and biblical understanding are important, the kind of knowledge we value highly is much more than that. We don't value simply knowing about God. It is a relational knowledge we desire - an intimate knowledge of God, characterized by life filled with and guided by the Holy Spirit, bearing the fruit of righteousness, and continuing in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. It's not just head knowledge, it's heart knowledge, and it leads to holiness and worship. It's a knowledge that grows out of love and manifests itself in a godly wisdom that applies to all aspects of life.

We want our church to be a church that knows God deeply through his word.


Please feel free to comment below, on this post and the others in this series. We would love to hear from you. How have you seen this Core Value demonstrated in our church? How have you personally contributed to this value, or how could you make it more of a priority in your life?

10/26/14 Sermon

Typically, each Monday we will be posting the previous Sunday's sermon. Here is the sermon from yesterday.

Sunday, October 26, 2014
Preaching: Vergil Brown
Sermon Series: Wisdom for Navigating Life
Title: "Two Paths"
Passage: Proverbs 8–9

You can also access the sermon HERE.

Links we recommend - 10/24/14

Plan for Prayer
John Piper exhorts Christians to be deliberate in our approach to prayer. 

Is Your Church Worship More Pagan than Christian?

The author of this insightful post challenges our thinking on music and worship.

4 Things That Happen When You Study Leviticus More Than 10 Years
This article give some benefits of reading and studying often overlooked Old Testament books like Leviticus.

Here are two articles on male and female value and roles. The authors of both articles represent the same basic understanding on these issues as we do at Gresham Bible Church.

It's a Genesis-to-Revelation Issue
In this post a husband and wife (both seminary professors) talk about the Bible's overarching view of gender roles.

Jesus, Women, and Ministry
Coming from the same general perspective on the roles of women and men, this author highlights the value Jesus placed on women and how counter-cultural that was in his time.


As with all posts on our blog, feel free to share comments below.