The Essential Church

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Here in the state of Wisconsin, as in most other states in America, we are on the down side of government-mandated closing of what were deemed “non-essential” businesses, meetings and more. At the beginning of what appeared to be a potentially devastating global pandemic, (indeed, that’s what so many politicians, media and academia elitists were calling it) we suspended our normal services. Looking at what actually happened, I’m not fully convinced that I made the right decision as a pastor. Without scrutinizing the differences between “essential” and “non-essential” entities, the direction, not guidance for churches was that in-person gatherings of ten or more people were “prohibited.” For Bible Baptist Church this restriction means that only my wife, seven children and I would be able to gather for worship. Only ONE additional person from the congregation joining us would have been a violation.

In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” This is absolutely true in any case, but in most cases in our country and certainly for our church there are more than two or three people who gather for worship. It is clear from many places in Scripture that the church is not a building, but the people who have accepted the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Where these people gather for mutual learning, encouragement, spiritual growth, support and more, it makes up the local church. “Church,” as I will use the term is the building, the congregation and the activities, all-encompassing.

Wisconsin’s Governor Evers and the state and local governments almost everywhere in America designated “essential” and “non-essential” entities as I mentioned already. I will assert that churches and their primary activities are indeed essential, even if they mostly were designated otherwise. Genesis 1:27 declares that God “created man in his own image,” which includes man’s body, soul and spirit. The spirit of man is the part which communes with God, the Creator of the universe. We were created for fellowship with God.

Sadly, there are some “christians” who attend church at their convenience and at least give lip-service to the essential services provided by their church. For many of these, the ban on religious gatherings over nine people really didn’t affect them. On the other hand, there are Christians (not in name only) for whom church and their essential services are not only a regular, but a vital part of their life. In short, church is absolutely essential for them.

I believe that there are several scriptures which absolutely validates the point that churches and their primary activities are essential, especially to Bible-believing, Bible- living Christians. The Old Testament Patriarch, Job declared when speaking of God, “Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” ~ Job 23:12. Jesus Christ, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, declared, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” ~ Matthew 4:4. The writer of Hebrews also declares, “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” ~ Hebrews 10:23-25

It is clear, from the Bible, from personal experience, from the experience of others, and certainly from the necessity of fellowship with our Creator that churches and their essential services, the preaching, teaching and corporate practice of faith is essential. Because we have been created with a spirit, the part o f man that is designed to interact on a personal level with our Creator, to deny the ability to do this is detrimental to our health and well-being.

An entirely different discussion is the First Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees us the freedom of religion. All of a sudden, the supposed “separation of Church and State,” which is not to be found in the US Constitution, is important. Could this be because it restricts the Church and not the State, turning the intended purpose of the document on its head?

Of course, there is much more that has been or could be said, and I certainly welcome discussion, but let me leave you with this: this is my “bottom line,” as a Christian and as a pastor. As a Christian, I understand that meeting with other Christians is just as essential or even more essential than going to the grocery store. (Think Job 23:12 and Matthew 4:4.) I will also highly encourage and participate in gatherings to learn, encourage and fellowship with other believers as I know I should.

My role as a pastor, the societal figurehead and biblical leader of my local congregation may be a bit more tenuous in some eyes, but after much prayer, Bible study, contemplation and godly counsel, when the government tells us that I cannot continue with regular services, I MUST “obey God rather than men,” (Acts 5:29). As a pastor, I will absolutely, to the best of my ability, continue to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry,” (Ephesians 4:12).

Those saints, the members and attenders have the ability, and I believe the authority, granted by Almighty God and the US Constitution to make the decision to attend or not attend any service or function of our church. If, for some reason, there are negative consequences for those decisions, as a Christian and a pastor, I will echo the Apostles Peter and John, “rejoicing” to be “counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.”

People, not Buildings are the Church

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Unfortunately, it’s been quite a while since I’ve been able to get back here. This isn’t so much about theology, but more about some current things with the church. As most know, the “Corona virus” or Covid-19 dominates most news today. Here in the state of Wisconsin, we’re also under an order from the Governor to cease all unnecessary travel. In addition, any gatherings in buildings must be limited to 10 or less.

Many regular church-goers will struggle with not being able to attend and I have to admit that I would much rather be in personal attendance than teaching or watching through audio or video. As I recently chatted with a member during a call to affirm their welfare, I was gently reminded that teaching through video is still ministry. While it may not be “normal” for me (and certainly outside of my comfort zone), the possibility of video reaching even more people is a remarkable probability.

I am certainly not technologically savvy, so setting up and teaching through video last Sunday was certainly a challenge! Praise the Lord, it all seemed to go rather well for the first time. The comments I received or that were relayed to me were all positive, in my opinion. There was some constructive criticism thrown in there, but that should only serve to improve the next opportunity this coming Sunday and necessary subsequent Sundays.

If you missed the video/sermon last Sunday and would like to see it again, you can find it on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/bbcneillsville.org/videos/2581376482184374/. Please watch if you get a chance and offer your own constructive criticism. Hopefully we can make it better for you.

With the current order from Governor Evers in place, which forbids unnecessary travel, my plan is to conduct the Facebook Live Sermons at 1:00 PM, Central Daylight Time (CDT) every Sunday until we can once again meet in the building. Hopefully, beginning next week, I’ll be able to do a similar Wednesday Evening Bible Study, which will be planned for 7:00 PM, CDT.

There is a considerable collection of audio recordings available, if you’re interested. I’ll need an address and I can send them by CD or by e-mail.

Just because we can’t meet at the church building as we’re used to doesn’t mean that we can’t encourage each other, study together and mutually build each other up in the Lord. Please stay in contact with me and with each other. My e-mail address is: josephlmatthews@gmail.com. I can be reached by phone at 608-487-0186.

We are still the church. We know that God is in control and one day, hopefully soon, we’ll be back together, worshipping, learning, encouraging and fellowshipping together in the same building.

A Season of Thanksgiving

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Autumn has been my favorite time of the year for a long, long time for many reasons. As I grow older and hopefully wiser, I try to take some time to contemplate as often as I can. I like to think that mostly I’ve usually been a thankful person, but the longer I live, the more I realize I have so much to be thankful for. The obvious things that most of us think of when we count our blessings during this Thanksgiving Season and into the Christmas and New Year usually start with family, home, health and the like. I’m thankful for all of these too, but with every year and certainly with certain life events that pass, I find that I’m thankful for things that some may not even consider.

I’m thankful for the mistakes I’ve made over the years and especially the ones that taught me the hardest but best lessons. I’m thankful for injuries and illnesses that remind me of the frailty of life and the necessity to care for the body that the Lord has blessed me with. Additionally, some of these injuries and illnesses have forced me to slow down or even stop, consider, perhaps rest or redirect in the way the Lord desired that I go. On the other hand, I am thankful for the health and strength that the Lord has blessed me with to allow me to do what He’s called me to do.

I’m thankful for my wife of 23 years and our seven beautiful children. Many have wondered at our large family and even criticized us for various reasons, but I would answer that raising seven children to love Jesus Christ with all their heart, soul, mind and strength is one of the greatest legacies we can leave. I’m incredibly proud of each of them and love seeing them grow in stature and in grace and knowledge of the Lord.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to serve our nation in the armed forces, even though the church has to adapt sometimes when duty calls. I’m thankful that they so enthusiastically support me and my family in my military service. I’m thankful for the perspective that this service has shaped over my years of service in different locations and jobs.

I’m thankful to live in the greatest nation on earth where opportunity is generally available and the next step depends on what I believe is the balance of divine providence and personal responsibility. I’m thankful for the physical and mental strength and stamina the Lord has blessed me with over the years in order to provide for our family while my very capable wife gladly oversees the household in her noblest calling. I’m thankful for godly parents who are enjoying their heavenly reward awaiting the time when we’ll be reunited again.

I’m thankful for teachers, coaches, employers, mentors, supervisors and friends who have helped to shape me into who I have become today, whether those interactions were positive or negative from my perspective at that time. I’m thankful that I’ve mostly done my best to learn from my mistakes and the mistakes of others to improve my life and my walk with the Lord. I’m thankful for the opportunities I’ve had to maximize positive interactions when possible over the years.

I am especially thankful for the opportunity to personally own a copy of God’s word, the Bible without fear of imprisonment or worse. I’m thankful for the time I have each day to read a portion of it, personally and with my family in order to properly prioritize my life.

More than anything else, I am thankful for the gift of salvation only available though Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. I am thankful that even after attempting to live life on my terms, rejecting Him, he still saw fit to cover my sins with his precious blood. I’m thankful that He has provided a plan and a way for me to serve him with the gifts and abilities he has blessed me with.

America Has a Problem (Part 1: The Big Picture)

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It’s more than the recent news headlines, which have been sensationalized by many news outlets that these observations are shared. As a nation, we have more than slid into the ditch morally and in so many other ways. No, we haven’t simply “slid into the ditch” as I just mentioned, we’ve jumped off the cliff after flirting with the crumbling edge for so many years.

Before I go any further, every death, especially of those who do not know Jesus Christ as Savior is tragic. The recent “mass shootings” are absolutely tragic, but for too many people who have been watching the moral fabric of our nation shredded over the last 40 years and more could have and should have warned that this is coming. I read an article this morning, esssentially warning that, no matter what we do at this point, it’s not going to get any better anytime soon. https://www.wnd.com/2019/08/why-the-mass-shootings-will-continue/

Just to get a better idea of some of the things going on in our nation today, though the statistics are as recent as I could find, I did just a little bit of digging. I’m essentially a nobody on anyone’s radar and whether I have a small or large audience matters little to me. With that being said, I’m simply echoing what many have already said over and over, yet no one listens because for too many people, their minds are already made up and “confusing them with the truth,” simply isn’t helpful and certainly not desireable. America does not “have a gun problem.” America does, very much “have a sin problem.”

A firearm is an inanimate object. Fully loaded, regardless of its size, appearance, round capacity, caliber or any other characteristic it does not “kill people” unless it is acted upon by some outside force. I have considerable experience with firearms of all types, though that is not the point of my comments. As I stated earlier, I did a little bit of research to get just a sliver of the picture of many of the problems that contribute to the overall sin problem in our nation today. The statistics all come from a single source to eliminate any possible bias. My source of information is the Centers for Disease Control website. All figures include the latest data available from the website, which may not all be from the same year, but all the most recent available.

According to the CDC, there were 14,542 firearm homicides in the United States in 2017, which translates to nearly 40 per day. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm Taking into consideration ALL firearm related deaths, accidents and suicides, that number jumps to 28,663 for the year 2000 or about 79 per day. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm

Alcohol usage in America has directly led to even greater problems in our country, but there is no public forum anywhere calling for a ban on alcohol. According to the CDC, ” Drinking too much can harm your health. Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.1,2 Further, excessive drinking was responsible for 1 in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64 years. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2010 were estimated at $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink.3” https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm . Alcohol related deaths are at 88,000 deaths annually or an average of just over 241 per day.

Where firearm control or an outright ban is the ideal of many, and unrestricted access is the other side of the coin, the same can be said about abortion. According to the CDC, there have were 638,169 “legal abortions” performed in 2015 or over 1,748 per day. https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm.

These statistics do not even take into account other actions that the Bible calls sin. There are things that we have turned a blind eye to as a church, collectively and as a nation. Regardless of garbage “revisionist history,” the truth is that our nation was indeed founded on morality and religion. For the most part, based on our own founding documents and the writings of our own founding fathers, we were established on a Judeo-Christian foundation. The first article that was referenced is profound and, I believe, right on target, unfortunately.

Let me sum up my thoughts here by some succinct comparisons of three of the statistics offered. Go search it yourself, by the way. The links are there. For the years available for the most current results there were 14,542 firearm homicides or nearly 40 per day in 2017. Alcohol use gives us 88,000 deaths on average or just over 241 per day. Abortion accounted for 638,169 innocent deaths or over 1,748 per day in 2015. Just a little more perspective here: for every single firearm homicide in the statistics available from the CDC, there were almost 44 innocent babies slaughtered per day.

Firearms, alcohol, abortion and more. America has a sin problem. To be continued…

Pastor Joe

Who are You to Say??

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There have been a lot of things going on in the news lately as well as in daily conversation, social media and generally on a lot of people’s minds, it seems. I’m sure my observations and comments won’t be exhaustive, but I have been involved with reading, hearing, discussing, watching and considering many of these “social issues” in everyday life. If you have different thoughts, I’d love to hear about them.

The purpose of this post isn’t to completely hash out the social issues in the news, including abortion, homosexuality/transgenderism, immigration, gun control, welfare and well, I’m sure you get the picture. If I feel it’s necessary in the future, perhaps if it’s requested, or depending on where the news (social, mainstream or otherwise) may go, some individual topics may be adressed in the future. In considering these issues, whether in discussion or news reporting, of course everyone has an opinion. The more important consideration is in all aspects is the “final say,” if you will.

Since everyone has an opinion on these issues, are there any absolutes to be considered? Is every opinion valid or is there a truth to be known in all the jumble? As many may say we either “need to keep ‘religion’ out of the discussion.” Or, “religion defines or at least guides the answers.” I would submit that “religion” is sometimes a part of the problem if “religion” is simply to be defined as a “belief system.” For some people who are passionately involved in the discussion, or interested observers with strong opinions, “religion” may be a big part of the discussion, but I would contend they are missing the forest for the trees.

I will contend that God and His word are the ultimate and absolute authority and He will have the “final say” in these issues. I also will contend that anyone who uses God’s Word, the Bible as their foundation and absolute authority when discussing these issues is right. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced “Christians” who have strong opinions about this one way or the other, who don’t seem to even consider what the Bible has to say. The other aspect of this is that some will attempt to use what they THINK scripture SEEMS to say to support their strong opinions one way or the other.

I’m not exactly sure what happens, but in many cases to me it seems that “Christians” use some kind of a digital search tool to find a verse of scripture which seems to support their preconceived ideas regarding some issue. They find what they think supports their position, but don’t take the care or the time to read the surrounding verses or similar passages of scripture to get the context. Then when anyone counters their position with proper biblical exposition, the true student of scripture is called all sorts of names or derided as being “hateful, judgemental, narrow-minded” or worse.

Some of the people involved in these heated discussons are everyday people but some are well-known in some way. Ministry, politics, business and such. I get the popularity game often played by businessmen and especially politicians (where have all the ‘statesmen’ gone?), but it’s the ‘ministry leaders’ that are especially troubling to me. I don’t get how some appear to feel the need to be popular to be able to get the message out. The true message of the Bible is that Jesus Christ came in to the world to save sinners, as the Apostle Paul stated in 1 Timothy 2:15. A huge part of that message is that sin separates people from God and left to itself the separation will be eternal (Hebrews 9:27).

Regardless of whether the person discussing the issue is an ‘everyday’ Christian or some well-known ministry leader, can we just get back to the sufficiency, inerrency and infallibility of scripture? God’s word cannot contradict itself and remain valid. God does not and will not contradict himself. Essentially, he said what he meant and meant what he said. Your thoughts and feelings hold no weight against the very word of the Creator of the Universe. When disagreements come, attempting to argue feelings or out of context verses of scripture as your proof-text simply won’t work. In that vein, the ‘arguments’ are not with me, but with God and His word.

So, considering the thought of the title, “I” am not saying anything that God has not already said. While I don’t always say it perfectly, God does. I do try to explain my position as standing on God’s word as patiently, carefully and lovingly as possible, but there are times when I certainly don’t do it as well as I could or should. I do try to employ the spirit of Colossians 4:6 in these discussions to the best of my ability by the grace and power of God’s indwelling Holy Spirit. (“Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man. ~ Colossians 4:6)

The bottom line is that God is who he said he is and what he said will stand forever. Overall, the answer is only found in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Once that’s settled, the continuing effort should be to know and understand His word by regular, continuous and diligent study (2 Timothy 2:15). The follow-up to that is consistent obedience and then boldly standing firm on His word, regardless of the opinions or actions of a sinful world.