Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of cars around town with the stickers that plead, “Be patient. Student driver.” And they’ve got me thinking about all the timidity, missteps, halts, false starts, and distractedness that are common with new drivers. It’s to be expected in the process of learning the new skill, but it would be a big problem if someone continued to act like a rookie driver, even years into the process.

I think there’s a good comparison in that to the Christian walk. Because it’s to be expected that new Christians won’t navigate The Way like their more experienced faith siblings. There will usually be timidity—a persistent fear of messing up. There will be mistakes—a sin of omission or of commission that is committed unknowingly (Lev. and Num. speak often of sins unintentionally committed).

There will be halts and false starts and hiccups as each new level of working in the Kingdom begins. And there are likely to be strong distractions—things that try hard to draw our attention away from the things of God when we are just getting started (cf. Mt. 13:22). Those of us who are mature should expect these things of new believers, and we should help them work through it all. “Be patient. Growing Christian.”

But when we have been in the faith long enough to grow beyond those spiritual upstart struggles, if we’re still experiencing them, we have a serious problem on our hands. That is a lack of spiritual maturity, and it ought to wake us up, call us to prayer, and compel us to repent. A certain level of spirituality is expected of us after a certain time (cf. Hb. 5:11-6:3), and we’d better be diligently seeking it every day. “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity” (Hb. 6:1).

- Dan Lankford, minister

So, now we come right down to it. With the preponderance of evidence in favor of the Gospels, and with the undeniable fact that Jesus existed, we have to face the question that everyone who dealt with him in person had to face: “Who is this man?” (Mt. 8:27, Mk. 6:1-3, Lk. 7:49, Lk. 9:9, Jn. 4:28-29ff, etc.). Especially in light of his claims to be God incarnate—the Lord of Heaven and Earth—every person in all of time must answer the question for ourselves: “Who do I believe that Jesus is?”

Josh McDowell has spent his career writing evidences materials, and he’s been saying for fifty years that, “Jesus claimed to be God. He did not leave any other options. His claim to be God must be either true or false.” Others have insisted that it is foolish to say Jesus was just a great teacher nothing more. Because with the claims that he made about being God, Messiah, and master of other’s lives; he must have been either a blatant liar, a delusional lunatic, or truly the Lord of Creation.

If he was a liar, he was one of the most dastardly liars of all time, because he claimed that others could trust him with their eternal destiny while knowing that he could do nothing for them. Does that fit the Bible and all the evidence?

If he was a lunatic, then was paradoxically the most grounded, rational, and sane lunatic to ever exist. We would need some way to explain how his teachings can be so deep and so perfectly suited to reality if his mind was so broken that he would believe a delusion. Such a paradox is too great to even be considered plausible.

If he is the Lord—God come in the flesh—then he not only demands, but deserves the devotion of our hearts and souls. Obviously, this kind of belief may be long in coming for many people, but it is the only reasonable conclusion about him. And more than that, it’s the only option for a soul-saving conclusion. Peter said that he believed Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt. 16:16). What do YOU believe about him?

- Dan Lankford

Recently, while visiting a church like ours, I heard a brother speak the following prayer: “Lord, we pray that you would not hold our sins against us. Please ignore our failings of the past.”

While I’m sure that most of you immediately realize the problem with that request, I feel compelled to point it out so that we can all learn from it. The problem is this, and it’s a serious one: God forgiving a sin is not nearly the same thing as his simply ignoring it. Ignoring means just pretending that a thing never happened, while forgiveness is fully conscious of the sin that has been committed and is willing to pay the necessary cost of atoning for it. To think that God simply ignores our sins is to cheapen the high cost that Christ paid for our forgiveness—the cost of his own life.

Brothers and sisters, let’s be impressed with two important takeaways from this: First, that our choices of words in worship to God matter a great deal, and we’d better speak truth when we speak on behalf of God. And second, that we owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to God, our Father—not for simply ignoring our sins, but for paying the price to completely, truly, graciously forgive them.

- Dan Lankford, minister

This past week, a sister from another state asked me, “How do you stop someone that you’re discipling from thinking that they are just a project to you? I feel like when I work with someone to help them understand God and live as a Christian, I’m making them feel like they’re just a charity project—like a statistic that I need to earn.”

How would you answer that? At the time, I said, “I think it’s ultimately about an authentic relationship. You have to really be building that relationship so that they don’t fear that you’re breaking away from them once they are ‘completed.’” Having thought about it for a few more days, I think one word would capture that truth best: LOVE.

As Jesus’s people, we must love others the way that he did. That means that our evangelism and the whole discipling process will be naturally motivated by genuine love for the people we help. It won’t be about successfully using a certain system, adding them to our “stats” as a Christian, making them “just like us,” or even about getting them strong enough to let you ‘move on’ to someone else. Evangelism will always be about loving others and helping them believe in Jesus to be saved and transformed by him. Loving them enough to do that will lead to quality, loving relationships based in all that we share in Christ.

Paul told the brothers and sisters in Ephesus to go about life, “speaking the truth in love, [so that all may] grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…” (Eph. 4:15) An attitude like that won’t think of anyone as a statistic or a project, but always as a person in need of genuine, selfless, wholesome love—both from Christ and from us.

- Dan Lankford, minister

“Leaders must be aware of who they’re working with. If you have a team of people whose ability level is a 4 or 5 out of 10, you can’t just throw all the policies and doctrines at them and expect them to turn into 9’s and 10’s. But if you’re leading a group of 9’s and 10’s, you can’t treat them like 4’s and 5’s because they’ll easily become discouraged.”

So goes the wisdom from leadership teachers everywhere: that our leadership must be tailored to our followers in order to best help them. The leader must not see his followers as his servants; he must be their servant and lead in a way that is attentive, dignifying, and respectful of whatever level they are at… while still seeing the potential for what level they could be at.

This mindset is eminently Biblical, and it’s easiest to see in the shepherd model. In contrast to cowboys, who drive cattle from the rear of the herd, shepherds lead sheep from the front. But in that we have an even finer lesson: A shepherd cannot take off running at his full speed and expect the sheep to keep up. He does best to go just a touch faster than sheep-speed, so that they will move in the right direction but not be left behind.

It’s no wonder that Solomon’s wisdom was, “Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds” (Prv. 27:23). This wisdom will help us whether we are leaders at work, in our homes, or in our families. In order to lead well (which is really to serve and be a blessing to others), we must know who we’re leading and use wisdom to help them in the way that is most helpful for them.

- Dan Lankford, minister

A friend of mine from Florida made an interesting statement in his sermon this past Sunday as he was discussing 1 Kings 19:19-21 — the passage where Elijah literally gives his mantle (a cloak or jacket) to Elisha as a sign of the one’s ministry passing to the other. This was the quote from my friend that caught my attention: “We need to note that Elisha wasn’t a bad guy being called out a life of sin. He was a good man being called out of a life of comfort.”

My friend’s point in the sermon was that Elisha was doing good and honest work in God’s world, but he was needed for something more meaningful. In order to do what God called him to, he had to accept something beyond his well-worn groove of a comfortable life. Elisha had to leave some of the life he knew to follow a better path outlined for him by God. And you a similar thing in the callings of other prophets: Moses made excuses to God (cf. Ex. 3-4). Gideon did too (cf. Jdg. 6). Isaiah presents us with a positive example, but could have just as easily said to God, “Here I am! Send someone else?” (cf. Isa. 6:8). And then Paul presents yet another example of someone who, at one point in his life, was doing right things, and yet was called by God for something more needed (cf. Acts 16:6-10).

That’s the same call for all of us—not always to leave a life of sin, but often to leave a life of comfort—especially in matters of church family, church life, teaching, and relationships. How many of us are uncomfortable with any number of church involvements, and yet we don’t seek the teaching or guidance or practice to improve our skill and actually accept the responsibility we’re being called to? How many of us could take on more responsibility for everything from basic organizational tasks to visiting orphans and widows to showing hospitality, and yet because we’re uncomfortable with some aspect of it, we continue to hope that ‘someone else’ will do it?

Let’s just commit to picking up the mantle of the things that matter most and giving what God asks of his people in his kingdom. That doesn’t always mean that we need to be doing more, but it does mean that we need to be giving him our best… even when that requires a step out of our comfort zones.

- Dan Lankford, minister

Let’s talk about the Gospels, those four wonderful books that we cherish so deeply. Without them, we’d know precious little about the life of Jesus. Without them, the foundation of the entire Christian system would crumble. In terms of the Christian faith, there have never been four books more valuable than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 

For that reason, it’s not surprising that those who oppose the faith vigorously challenge the validity of these four books. If they can manage to undermine the credibility of the Gospels, then they’ve won the war. Game. Set. Match. So, it’s important for us to think about why these Gospel are so worthy of our trust. For the next few weeks, we’ll dig into what makes the Gospels so reliable. That starts with a phrase you’ve heard before… 

Innocent until proven guilty. That’s the standard we use in a court of law, and it’s a reasonable and rational standard. If you are going to convict someone of a crime, then you should first be able to prove that they committed that crime, and, until you do, we must take them at their word when they profess their innocence. Innocent until proven guilty. It makes sense. 

Too often the Gospels don’t get the same treatment. Too often these historical documents which chronicle the life and teaching of a Man named Jesus of Nazareth are cast aside as unreliable, untrustworthy fairy tales before they are even examined. Too often the Bible writers are labelled as fraudsters spinning a lie, gullible simpletons falling for a trick, even pitiable souls suffering from a shared hallucination. These accusations are tossed around, repeated, believed, and accepted without a shred of evidence. Let that sink in… 

Over the next few weeks, we’ll examine some of the evidence that supports the reliability of the Gospels, but we should begin by appreciating that there simply is no basis for the charges brought against them. In criminal court, charges without evidence are thrown out before the trial begins, and that’s exactly what should happen in this case. Innocent until proven guilty. 

- Jonathan Banning

“The reason that no one should believe in miracles—especially the miracle of resurrection—is because it can’t be tested by the scientific method.”

The Scientific Method is the technical term for the type of empirical measurement and testing of certain behaviors based in the natural world. Its key to success is its dependence on repeatable scenarios—testing, observing, and documenting the behaviors of substances, animals, weather patterns, etc. in the natural world. And we would do well to be magnanimous: We owe much of the modern world’s convenience and safety to the scientific method and the findings that have been wrought through it. But its dependence upon repeatable scenarios is a double-edged sword: it leads to greater reliability but is also a limitation that we must acknowledge.

The trouble for Christian apologetics is not with the Method itself, but with those who see it as a universal template for determining all knowledge and reality. When we believe that “science” is what will make humanity whole and essentially *save* us, we have put far too much faith in it. This is the problem of those who make the claim from this article’s first sentence: It is that when we approach the Bible’s events, we are dealing with historical people (which, by definition, are not repeatable) and supernatural scenarios (which, by definition, cannot be measured empirically).

As a general rule, Christians would do well to temper our faith in “science,” so far as that is defined by a naturalistic worldview. It’s certainly not always a bad thing, but we must realize its limitations. Believers ought to read with a discerning eye when anything claims that “science” has discovered the key to something which the Method cannot sufficiently explain. For some examples, consider some magazine and online article headlines: “Science discovers why we’re unhappy,” or “Science discovers why some people are good parents and others aren’t,” or any such thing. Likewise, we ought to temper our faith in its promises for the future, especially when we are told that it will make humanity whole. For some examples, consider promises like these: “Someday, science will help us stop every disease and injury from happening,” or “With enough scientific advances, we’ll be able to stop all wars, because all the resource and commerce problems will be solved.” Only when Christ is fully accepted by faith in every believing heart can we expect to see the world saved in such ways. It won’t be “science” that saves us; it will be God, through his Son Jesus of Nazareth.

At the end of the day, our acceptance or rejection of the Bible’s history comes down to faith. Do we have faith in the Scientific Method to tell us all that is real in the world? Or do we have faith in the One who created the world which the Method can only measure? The Bible’s miracles, and especially the resurrection, must be accepted by faith (see Jn. 20:30-31’s emphasis on belief). But with the preponderance of other evidence for Christianity and the Bible, we have all the reasons necessary to put our faith in them.

- Dan Lankford, minister

When God called Moses into his service, he made several excuses for why he couldn’t (or didn’t think that he should have to) serve as he’d been called. Each time that Moses made an excuse, God answered it with a clear and simple statement that showed just how flimsy it actually was. Ultimately, God persisted in calling Moses and Moses did answer the call to be the chosen deliverer of God’s people.

We often make excuses (sometimes ongoing ones) for why we can’t (or don’t think that we should have to) serve God as we’ve been called. We sometimes believe that the qualities of true disciples won’t work in the modern world, that we don’t have enough ability to do what God’s asked of us, or that we shouldn’t have to do as we’re called to do because people will reject our efforts. But again and again, the Bible answers our excuses with clear and simple statements that show us just how flimsy they actually are.

Let’s just stop ourselves from making excuses for lackluster service to God. Let’s just decide that in whatever ways he calls us into his service, we will humbly and joyfully serve him. Always.

- Dan Lankford, minister

King Nebuchadnezzar was a truly powerful world leader. His kingdom was richer, bigger, and more feared than almost any other national power before it or contemporary to it. And he knew it too (see Dan. 4). But God reminded him that even as great as he was, there was a kingdom that would far exceed his in influence, area, and power. In Daniel 2, God showed him a vision of a future kingdom that was built by divine hands—not human ones—and that would expand to fill the entire earth. That kingdom is the church of Jesus Christ—his people, living his way, sharing his grace with the world, shining with the light of his glory, and exercising a more powerful influence in the world than any kingdom of mankind ever can.

So how does that picture of the world accord with what we see today? When tensions between powerful nations threaten world peace and safety, and when we, the church, seem to just be carried along in the tide of victims to world leaders’ decisions, how can we believe the promises of the church’s power found in Daniel’s prophecies?

The reality is that the power of God’s kingdom doesn’t come from national laws and policies, or from military might, or from economic prosperity, or from the size of its territory. The power of God’s kingdom is his personal influence over hearts. That’s a power that no kingdom of mankind can ever have—the power to change the very heart of each citizen. And that’s a power that can work subversively in the regime of any man-made kingdom, even one that is actively trying to stamp out Christianity. No matter how much a government may try to police its people’s thoughts and control their decisions the best it can hope for is to control the behaviors of its people; not to create goodness from their hearts as God’s Spirit does in us. That’s what Christ was talking about when he said, “my kingdom is not from the world.” It’s not a kingdom that’s built by top-down control and coercion, but rather with inside-to-outside conversion, changing hearts that lead to changes in entire cultures.

So, if we look around at the world and wonder when God’s kingdom will expand into the grand influence that Nebuchadnezzar’s vision predicted, let’s be reminded that it’s up to us and our relationship with Christ and our influence in others’ lives. The power of Christ’s kingdom is not in politics, but in people. It’s not in our laws but in our lives. It’s not in elections but in the elect—his saved ones. Brothers and sisters, “we are” that kingdom that is expanding to fill and change the entire world as we teach the Good News to each new generation, to our friends & neighbors, and to everyone who will be saved and live by faith in the Son of God.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven.”

- Dan Lankford, minister