From our family to yours, we want to wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. May we always remember where our blessings come from…
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”
James 1:17 CSB
We are going to begin a new series today called Waiting on God. Waiting is something that not many people like to do. How many times have you found yourself complaining about having to wait on something? The checkout line in the grocery store? The drive-thru at your favorite eating place? A spouse or parent/child? The doctor’s office?
We are a people that have been conditioned by our culture not to wait well. It has been said that we live in a microwave society, but we are called to a crockpot faith.
Sometimes, God reveals or promises us something, but we have to wait on His timing. In this series, we will look at four instances in the Old Testament where people decided to take matters into their own hands rather than waiting on God. Spoiler alert: the decision not to wait had a great fallout in every situation.
Abraham and Sarah are two important characters in the book of Genesis. Abraham was a man who was called to leave everything he had ever known and follow God. God made a covenant with Abraham. One key part of this covenant between God and Abraham is that God would make him a great nation.
1 The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Genesis 12:1–3 CSB
God had promised to bring forth a great nation from Himself. This great nation would come through the descendants God would give to Abraham and Sarah. Up to this point, Abraham and Sarah were unable to have children. When we come to Genesis 16, about eleven years have passed since that promise, and no child has come yet.
Can you imagine waiting for a decade for a promise to be made good on? Many of us get bent out of shape having to wait ten minutes on something.
Something that comes to the mind of Sarah is that she may not be part of the plan. She has not been able to have a child. She begins to take matters into her own hands.
1 Abram’s wife, Sarai, had not borne any children for him, but she owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar. 2 Sarai said to Abram, “Since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.” And Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So Abram’s wife, Sarai, took Hagar, her Egyptian slave, and gave her to her husband, Abram, as a wife for him. This happened after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan ten years. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for my suffering! I put my slave in your arms, and when she saw that she was pregnant, I became contemptible to her. May the Lord judge between me and you.”
Genesis 16:1–5 CSB
Rather than fully trusting in the promises of God, Abraham and Sarah take matters into their own hands. They begin to think they have to take care of all the details. What results is a long list of trials and tribulations.
As we read this account of Abraham and Sarah not waiting on God, we are given some important lessons that we would do well to understand.
One of the characteristics of God is He is a God of order. We can look around at creation and see the precision and order put into everything.
Even when we look at the human body, we can see ten significant systems that must work together perfectly for health to be possible.
When we think about this lesson, we come to the point of realizing that God doesn’t just have a plan; it is a perfect plan that will bring Him the most glory and us the most good.
God had the plan to make Abraham a blessing to the entire world, but that plan would come about at the proper time. Even as Abraham and Sarah tried to speed the process up, they could not rush God’s plan. They only created more problems.
One of the realities we must acknowledge is we also have a plan for our lives. God has created us with desires and passions. Those are not bad things as long as they are kept within the boundaries God desires them to be used.
When we think about our plans for ourselves, we can typically see those plans centering around what is best for us.
Abraham and Sarah were excited about the fact that God was going to give them a child. They wanted to experience that blessing now. They couldn’t see the hurdles that lay before them in the coming days and that particular moment was not the right time.
While we may have a plan for our lives, we are finite beings limited in our understanding of things. We cannot see all the necessary elements in play.
While we cannot know everything, our gracious God does. That is why the third lesson from this passage is so important.
As we walk with Jesus, we must remember He has the understanding that we lack. He sees the future as if it has already happened. He knows about the coming move that we have no clue about right now. He knows about the coming diagnosis even though we haven’t scheduled the doctor’s appointment yet. He knows what the stock market will do before any of us could spell NASDAQ.
With that perfect knowledge, the Lord has the ability that no one else has: the ability to create a perfect plan that brings Him the most glory and His followers the most good.
As important as the “what” details of that plan are, the timing of His plan is just as important. The Lord is never late on anything. We need to trust His timing as much (if not more) than what He wants to do in our lives.
We can easily be tempted as Abraham and Sarah were to take matters into our own hands. We believe that the Lord’s plan is good and perfect, but do we recognize that His timing is also good and perfect?
We see that Abraham and Sarah decided not to wait on the Lord and trust His timing. This single decision brought a host of troubles that did not have to be. Do we really think we are any better?
Waiting is not an easy task in the world we live in. As I said earlier, we live in a microwave society but have been called to a crockpot faith. Remember, He is the Good Shepherd, and we are the sheep of His pasture. He leads the way, and we are called to follow.
What is there in your life at this time that you are being tempted to take into your own hands and run ahead of God with?
This is part 3 of a series that I preached at the church where I serve as pastor.
As we look at Luke 15 and see how Jesus shared three parables that speak to how God pursues those who are far from Him because of sin, we come to the final parable that He shared. It is possibly the most popular of all the parables that Jesus shared. It has been commonly referred to as the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).
I think that this is not a good title for this parable myself. While a good deal of the parable talks about this young man who squandered his inheritance on foolish living, the focus is on the father. While Jesus didn’t necessarily give titles to His parables, I believe the best title for this one might be the Parable of the Loving Father. In this parable, Jesus shares three distinct characteristics of the loving Father.
As Jesus begins this parable, He introduces the main characters: a father and his two sons. The father is clearly seen as a representation of God. The two sons would represent people who were in the crowd that day and even today.
Jesus tells that the younger son demanded his inheritance and wanted to go and live his life as he wanted to. The attitude with which the request is made is one that would cause anyone to cringe. There is a great deal of disrespect present in the request. What would the father do?
Surprisingly to many, the father grants the request and allows his son to go. I will be honest, this has made me scratch my head many times. Why in the world would the father allow his son to go – with his inheritance – knowing that it was not going to end up well?
We have seen this picture played out before. A young person who thinks that they know best is going to get out from the rules of their parents and conquer the world. The immaturity is overflowing. You can easily see how this is going to end up.
Jesus shares this characteristic of the loving father because God will allow us enough of our desires at times to show us that they are not what we need.
God could have easily created human beings much like robots. He could have said, “Thou shalt obey all of my commands,” and we would have done it… no problem. Honestly, there are times when I wish that He would have done it that way. But God didn’t do it that way.
In His sovereignty, God created mankind with the ability to choose. One reason for this is because love is choice. It is not a feeling. Love is not a mud puddle that we fall in to or crawl out of; Love is a choice. If God had created us without an ability to choose, there would be no such thing as love. God desires us to choose Him and experience the fullness of His love.
Sometimes that choice doesn’t always happen. Jesus shows that the young man chose not to love his father but rather to go his own way. It doesn’t take long for reality to set in as we see in Luke 15:14-16. While everything was fun and all, when the money ran out, so did the friends. If that weren’t enough, a famine hit the land. The only job that this young man could get was feeding pigs. We get a sense of just how bad things were in Luke 15:16:
He longed to eat his fill from the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one would give him anything. (Luke 15:16 CSB
You know things are bad when you get to craving what you are feeding the pigs… and you can’t even get that! It is like the old saying that goes something like this: “Sin will always take you further than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay!”
In Luke 15:17, Jesus shares that this young man finally hits his head on the bottom of the barrel and comes to his senses. He begins to think about how good things were back at home. Everyone had all that they needed or wanted. Even the workers were well taken care of. The young man begins to prepare and rehearse a speech to get back into his father’s good graces. Maybe just maybe, this young man could be taken in as a worker. He knows that he had forfeited his sonship, but maybe he could just be a slave.
As the young man sets off for home with speech in hand and heart, Jesus introduces us to the second characteristic of the loving father.
In Luke 15:20, Jesus shares that this young man sets off for home. As the young man hits the driveway, you can almost see him stop and take a deep breath. He walks towards the house with head hung low. He is going over the speech he had prepared in his head. As the young man looks up, what does he see? His father is running towards him.
The father wraps his arms around his son and kisses him. The father wastes no time in embracing and restoring the son to his place. There was no “I told you so”… there were no pointing fingers… there was just the never-ending, never-fading love of the father. This is a beautiful picture of God as He longs for creation to return to Him by the avenue that He made for them.
The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 CSB)
As a party begins at the return of the lost son, Jesus reminds us that there was another character in the parable – the older son. In Luke 15:25-28, we see that the older son hears of his brother’s return and gets angry at how the father has welcomed him. This older son was “the good one.” He had never gone off the deep end. He had always obeyed the rules. No doubt, Jesus looked right at the Pharisees and scribes that day as he told this part of the story. They were so angry that Jesus would welcome “sinners” like He did.
While the older son was seen by many as good and moral, he still had sin that he needed to be delivered from. The wonderful thing is that God’s pursuing heart goes out to those who are in blatant rebellion of Him and to those who are “rule-keepers.”
Jesus shares that the father goes out to the older son (Luke 15:28). The father was not content with just having one of his sons where they needed to be. He went to the older son and confronted him about his sin and invited him to come and join the party.
I truly believe that Jesus shared this parable with the intention that all who hear – in that day and today – might know that God is a loving God who pursues all who are lost.
Do we hear what Jesus is saying? Sin has affected us all (Romans 3:23). We all are in need of redemption. God has made that redemption possible through Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
“Patience is a virtue.”
This is a true statement in many ways. Patience is something that many have little of these days. We live in a “Burger King society”: have it your way, right away. While that may be a reasonable expectation of a food establishment, it is not the best expectation from God. There is a tendency to let this mentality seep into our walk with God… to expect Him to get on our timetable and agenda.
When God does not get in our timetable and agenda (which is perfectly fine because He alone is God), it rattles us and makes us wonder what is going on. We may ask questions like: “Did I miss something?” “Why isn’t God doing anything?”
There is a reason that God waits. We may not see it at the moment, but there is a reason. We may not like the reason, but there is a reason. Will we wait and see the reason, or will we throw aside the opportunity to see something greater?
In John 11, there is a desperate situation. A dear friend of Jesus, Lazarus, had fallen sick. This was not a casual sickness. Lazarus is on his deathbed. As Jesus heard about the news of his friend and his sickness, He talks about God receiving glory for this event (John 11:4).
As John continues sharing about the events, he is careful to mention how Jesus loved this family (John 11:5). Martha. Mary, and Lazarus were very close to Jesus. They were near and dear to His heart. This would make the very next verse sound so strange:
So when [Jesus] heard that [Lazarus] was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. (John 11:6 CSB)
Why in the world would Jesus stay where He was instead of going to the rescue of His dear friend? From how the Bible continues this story, I can imagine that Martha and Mary were asking the same thing. While the waiting that Jesus does here in John 11:6 seems strange and out of place, it is exactly what Jesus should have done.
The very first word in John 11:6 is the word that is commonly translated in English texts as “so.” This is a reference word. It lets us know what is coming next is tied to what has just been said. John 11:5 tells us that Jesus loves this family dearly. It is for that reason that Jesus waits holds His ground for two whole days. I imagine that those days felt like an eternity.
Jesus looked past the opportunity to do just another healing… He looked for the way to demonstrate the fullness of His love. Jesus looked to defeat death. Healing from a bad sickness is one thing, but bringing someone back from the grave is a whole other thing.
The why behind Jesus’ wait in John 11 was love. God’s heart reaching out to show this love in the clearest and strongest manner possible. What is more powerful and definite than death? The love that God has towards those who follow Him is greater. Jesus had to wait in order to make this statement loud and clear: Jesus is Lord over all (even death) and He loves you greatly.
If Jesus had run to the rescue and healed Lazarus from this dreaded sickness, it would have been great. But to have Jesus say, “Ain’t no grave keeping you from me!” Now that is something worth waiting for.
You may find yourself in a position where you are wondering what n the world is God up to. You may be thinking that He has forgotten you or worse, He is just ignoring you. Know this: He has not forgotten you… He’s not ignoring you… He may just be working something out that you have no clue about. Trust Him and see what He does. The wait is always worth it.
Happy Father’s Day wishes to all the men out there who have one of the toughest yet most rewarding tasks out in the world: being a Dad. May God richly bless you as you follow His lead & lead your family well!
From our family to yours, may you have the merriest of Christmas ever. Thank God for giving the greatest gift ever by giving us His Son, Jesus.
May the Lord bless you and your family this Thanksgiving as you remember the many blessings He has showered upon you.
~ The Stephens Family
Those are words that I’m sure have come across all of our lips at some point in time. There are just some things out there that we cannot ever see ourselves doing. When those little moments do talk place in our lives, we hear these words come from our mouths.
This scene took place in my life this past week. I had gone to what I thought was an information meeting for something in our little town. What I walked away with was much more. I found myself as one of the new members of our local fire department.
Those who know me well might just be picking your jaw off the floor. I have never thought of being a firefighter or serving on the volunteer department. It has just not been something on my radar. So what changed?
When God led my family to our current place of service, I wondered how different it would be. We have mostly been in larger cities, but for the past couple of years we have been living in a very small town. In a small town, there is not the ability many times to have a regular fire department. These small communities rely on volunteers from the community to help out.
Another big reason that I decided to join our local fire department is to serve our community. As a pastor in the area, it is important to show the community that I am not just concerned with people coming to our church, but I am concerned about the community. I want to make a difference in our community. I want the people of our community to know that I (and our church) want to serve and make our community great. There are few things in a small town like a volunteer fire department to show this.
What are you doing in the place God has placed you to show the community that you are FOR them?
At our church, I am preaching through a series called “The X Files” that takes a look at the 10 Commandments. Last week, we talked about keeping the Sabbath. It was an interesting Sunday for sure.
I like to have already wrestled through a topic before preaching on it, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. Keeping the Sabbath is one thing that I have not been the best at in the past. As I prepared for this sermon, I was encouraged and convicted greatly.
I believe that this is one commandment that the Lord’s children get caught up on because either (1) they do not know what the Sabbath is, (2) they are not sure how to do, or (3) they just do not want to submit to the lordship of Christ.
While I do not want to tackle all of these things in a blog post, I do want to share about what we should so on the Sabbath.
While it may seem a little crazy to set aside a day to rest, remember, and refuel, it is even crazier to think that we can do all that God desires without that time!
But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except under compulsion. (Exodus 3:19)
I love the story of Moses at the burning bush. I don’t know if it’s the reminder of the first major Bible study I went through as a disciple of Jesus – Experiencing God. This account is one that is so rich.
The verse that is shared above is one that has made me scratch my head a few times. Moses is being called to lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egpyt to the Promised Land.
In the middle of Moses’ excuses comes the brutally honest nugget from the Lord: Pharaoh won’t listen to you.
As a preacher of God’s word, I can tell you that one thing that has Ruffles my feathers more than once is to be called to share a message with a people, and they do not respond. Truthfully, they want nothing of it. That is so frustrating.
If this account wasn’t bad enough, we see it again in Isaiah. In Isaiah 6:9-10, we see that after this amazing worship experience and willingness to go where God wants, Isaiah is told to go tell the people God’s word, but they will not receive not understand it.
It is hard to accept an invitation to something when you know that it will not be received. I would begin to think, “What’s the point?” “Why should I waste my time, efforts, abilities, and heart if all they are going to do is reject/mock/ignore the message I bring to them?”
I truly believe that the answer to those questions is that one has to remember the big picture. In remembering the big picture, one realizes that this is God’s show. We do not have to be used by Him, but He chooses to use us.
Sometimes God is up to so much more than just what we see on the surface. In the case of Moses going before a hard-hearted Pharaoh, we see that with the plagues that came that God was showing Himself greater than the false gods of Egpyt. God was wanting to deliver not just the Israelites from physical slavery, but He also wanted to deliver the Egyptians from their false gods.
The road before us that God has called us to may not be the easiest. It may not be as bright and productive as we may like. We must remember that our God is the sovereign Ruler over all things. This is His show… We’ve just been asked to be faithful.
Now that we have gotten good into 2016, it’s about time that we reveal a little project they our family has been working on behind the scenes.
If you have been following my wife and I for very long, one thing that is that we enjoy sharing our thoughts with other people. Over the past few years, each of us has had a blog that we have posted on here and there.
Today is a new day. Introducing the Faith Path.
We came to the conclusion, “Why should we just carry on separate blogs in separate places?” We decided to create one singular website that would host both of our blogs and be a place for us to share together. Out of those thoughts have come The Faith Path.
From this point forward, my blog thoughts will be posted here at anthony.thefaithpath.com. You can find Naomi’s blog at naomi.thefaithpath.com.
What is the Faith Path?
Since 2011, the Lord has really been teaching our family about what Hebrews 11:6 is about.
And without faith it is impossible to please [God], for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarded of those who seek Him.
Hebrews 11:6 NASB
As followers of Jesus Christ, we want to please Him with our lives. It is the least that we could do for all that He has done for us. This verse reminds us that for that “pleasing” to happen faith has to be present. This means that the path we are walking in this life is “the faith path.”
For now, the blogs are all that we have up. We hope to have other things up before too long – things pertaining to our family, things we think are important, etc. for the time being, we hope that was is shared here will help you to choose the faith path.
The difference was that I was not thinking of it as a pastor but as a parent. When John first penned these words back in the first century, it seems as though he was writing about those he had seen come to faith in Christ. He viewed his relationship with them as that of a parent. It is good to think about it that way.
But this verse spoke to me and I thought about the three boys that God has so richly blessed my wife and I with. I was immediately drawn to pray this for my boys. I want them to know the Truth (Jesus Christ) in a powerful way. I truly believe that there would be few things in life that would make me truly happy than to know and to hear from others about how my boys are walking/following Christ.
If you know someone who has children and they are walking in the truth of Jesus Christ, let their parents know. You will bring them a joy like nothing else can.
Merry Christmas wishes to you and yours. May the Lord bless you richly as you remember the greatest gift that was ever given: Jesus Christ.
This past Monday, our family loaded up in our van and took off on another adventure. This was a first for me. We had been invited by a friend in the area to a “book reading” at a local library. We decided that it would be good to get out of the house and to go support our friend as she shares a children’s book that she’s written.
I wanted to just get the word out about this author of children’s books to those I have contact with. Her name is Whitney White. She lives in Big Creek, MS. Matt, her husband, is a bi-vocational pastor in our area. They have 3 crazy boys (much like us – she had even shared at the book reading about how her boys and ours both like to dress up like superheroes). She got a degree in education from Mississippi State University. In 2011, she received the Teacher of the Year award. Currently, she has one of the best “jobs” in the world – stay-at-home mom.
Whitney has written three children’s books that have a Christmas flare to them. She is a very gifted writer who has put together some great stories that keep the true meaning of Christmas (the birth of Jesus) at the center. She uses her family as the main characters in the stories and shares some of the funny things that this family has gone through around Christmas time.
If you are looking for a great children’s Christmas book, I would encourage you get one (or all three like we did) of her books. You will not be disappointed. You can get a copy of any of her books by sending her a message on Facebook by clicking here.
There is one “problem” that the American church has to deal with that not many others have to deal with in our world. The “problem” is what translation of the Bible to use. There are plenty of translations in the English language to choose from. A list of some of these translations can be found here.
I have used many different translations in reading and studying the Bible. While there are many translations, I have typically stayed with the “popular” ones: New International Version (NIV 1984 edition), New King James Version (NKJV), English Standard Version (ESV), New Living Translation (NLT), and Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB).
I will say that the majority of my Christian life has been spent reading the NIV (1984). I still believe that the 1984 edition of the NIV is one of the best English translations that has ever been produced. It was a good mix of “word-for-word” and “thought-for-thought,” and it had great readability. I was very displeased with the revisions that were made in the latest edition of the NIV. Plus the fact that they jerked all the 1984 editions off the shelves really turned me off.
For the time that I spent in the world of student ministry, I found the New Living Translation (NLT) to be the best for me. We were seeing many teens from unchurched families. This translation was very easy to read in today’s English. It also had a good translation team from a wide variety of denominations.
In 2011, as I felt the Lord leading me out of student ministry and into the pastorate, I knew that I would probably need to look towards a different translation. There are not many churches that look highly on using the NLT from the pulpit. I am not saying that I agree with that stance. I think that it is a good translation, but I knew it needed to be something else. I began looking at the ESV and the HCSB.
Being a part of the Southern Baptist Convention, I was torn between using the ESV and the HCSB. I thought that I would get more use out of the HCSB since a great deal of the literature that we used also used the HCSB primarily. I thought that the HCSB was a good new translation. It did some good stuff in that it was easier to read for people just coming to the Bible in these recent times. There was a question that I just never could get away from… why do we need another English translation?
Here recently, I have been evaluating certain things in my life. One of those things has been my choice of Bible translations. I have been asking questions such as: “Why do I preach from the translation that I do?” or “Why do I find myself drawn to other translations?” As I asked myself these questions, I examined certain things about myself to answer those questions.
I have been finding myself going to one particular translation here lately in my devotional time. It is not a translation that I have preached or taught from much. As I examined myself and ways in which God has gifted me (teacher), it makes sense that I would be drawn to the New American Standard Bible translation (NASB). This translation is one of the most literal translations from the original languages. Being a believer that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God… pair that with my spiritual gift of teaching (wanting to make sure I understand it clearly), this makes the most sense.
I know that people have many different reasons for choosing the translation that they use. Some are looking for easy readability. Some are looking for what their pastor (or denomination, heroes, etc) use. I would just encourage you to not use a particular translation because it is the “cool” or “popular” translation. Find one that best helps you understand what the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors to write because your spiritual welfare could hang in the balance.
I was reading some in the Bible this morning. I came across a familiar account: Jesus at Mary and Martha’s house (Luke 10:38-42). This is an account that many sermons and lessons have come from. In this account, we see two people who go about things very differently.
This week has been a pretty good week. It has been a full week but a good one. It was great to see four congregations join together this week for a series of services as we were seeking God’s revival in our hearts and community. With all the “competition” that happens between churches, it was refreshing to see some come together as one.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
