Sunday, December 23, 2012

Sermon (video): Jesus, Our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6)

The bad news makes the good news, great news!

I hope you enjoy this sermon that presents Jesus as our Prince of Peace. Our God desires to bring us into a mutually enjoyable relationship with Himself. Yet, as a just God, He must punish us eternally for our sin. How does He solve this "problem?" How is is even possible that we can be brought into relationship with Him? He sent the Prince of Peace! 

To view the sermon, click here.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Blogging, Influence & Recent Stats (12/16/2012)

I am encouraged as I periodically looks at the stats and realize that my blog is being read by folks in many different countries. I would LOVE to know some of your stories and how this blog has/is helping you! Please e-mail me at mattellis1997@gmail.com.



Hits per country in past month:
United States - 197
Russia - 110
Israel - 11
Poland - 8
United Kingdom - 5
Australia - 3
France - 3
India - 3
Germany - 2
Guam - 2
etc.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Incredible moments at the 2012 Brooksville Christmas Parade

I took my boys to the 2012 Brooksville Christmas Parade. There were some incredible moments in that parade that are worth sharing.

The first is a short 55 second video I created from a picture and some footage of a pretty touching moment. I snapped a picture of a soldier placing some candy into the hands of one of my sons. What made that moment touching is ... well, you'll just have to watch the video.


 
This next video was extremely impressive. It is a 4:41 minute video of Central High School's NJROTC. I was in the perfect spot to get many of their incredible drills on video. Enjoy!
 
 

Sermon (video): Jesus, Our Mighty God (Isaiah 9:6)

When you think of God, who do you think of? 'God the Father' is probably your answer. Yet, Jesus (Who is the second person of the Godhead) is just as equally God.

In this sermon, we consider Jesus' infinite power and two very important responses we must have to the fact that Jesus is our Mighty God.


To view the sermon, click here.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Praying for Revival

My wife took a business trip to San Diego with a female co-worker the year before we married. During some down time, she and her friend took the opportunity to rent a car and drive to the Grand Canyon to experience the wonders of God's creation.

Since then, I have heard Kim express with passion, that comes from deep down inside her being, how wonderful that experience was. As she recounts the memory of standing on the rim of the Canyon, her eyes get a "far off" look and she enjoys grabbing as many adjectives as she can to describe what it was like.

Yet, I can't help but realize that when she has shared that experience with others, it is met with apathy more times than not. She is excited but her listener doesn't seem as impressed. They try to mask their indifference with a surface interest but the mutual excitement just isn't there.

Have you ever experienced something like this? You're excited about some person, event, purchase, or whatever and you try to share the excitement with others only to have it met with indifference by the one you are talking with?

Why is this? Quite simply, because they haven't experienced it. They just don't have the same frame of reference. They don't have the same memories and incredibly positive emotions.

Frank Page
SBC Executive Committee President
That's how I feel when I speak of God moving in times of revival. I read an article today in Baptist Press where the SBC's Executive Committee President Frank Page is calling for Southern Baptist churches to make 2013 the year of prayer for revival. There will be those who hear of his call to prayer and will be inflamed with a passion for God to move powerfully among us. There will also be those who hear Frank Page's call to prayer and will respond with nothing short of apathy. What's the difference? It could be that some have experienced the glory of God and others have not.

When I read of this call to prayer for revival, I get excited beyond words! Why? Because I've experienced it! I was a student at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary when the Brownwood Revival swept our seminary. No one saw God but everyone would have readily agreed that He had shown up. We had an overwhelming sense of the holiness of God which led to deep, heart-felt repentance. Then, with clean hearts and a passion for the glory of God, we were empowered for ministry.

It's been awhile since God has moved in revival in our country. Those who have previously experienced God's glory in powerful ways should allow their experience to motivate them to call out for God to do it again.

There will be those who won't pray for it. They won't be excited about it. But there are those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2:3). I pray that they/we will passionately pray that God would revive us again!

"Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?"
(Psalm 8:6)

Friday, December 7, 2012

Sermon (video): Jesus, Our Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 9:6)

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:6) 

Isaiah 9:6 is an often quoted verse around Christmastime. But have you ever stopped to look into what it means?

I had never seriously done any in-depth study on this verse until recently. What it reveals about our Lord Jesus Christ is nothing short of amazing!

I loved sharing some of those insights with my congregation on Sunday, December 2, 2012.

You can view the sermon by clicking here.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Hymns, Nostalgia and Revival

I entered the sanctuary one Sunday morning, ready for worship. I shook some hands and spent some time with many of my church family who I hadn't seen since the previous Sunday. After catching up on the week's events with a few folks in attendance, I made my way back to my seat a couple minutes before the worship service was to begin. That's when I saw it.

I took a quick glance over to the side table where our bulletins, prayer lists and other relevant church family items are made available. But there was another stack of papers I didn't recognize. My curiosity got the best of me and I went over to take a look.

The stack of papers had been photocopied by a well-intentioned, unidentified church attender that morning. It was an article titled: "Let's Don't Lose the Hymns" by Pat Barker. I absolutely agreed with much of what Pat wrote but heartily disagreed with one of his conclusions. Here are just a few of my reflections on this issue.

First, I LOVE the old hymns for a lot of different reasons a few of which are: 1) I grew up singing them and know most of them by heart. 2) The writers of those hymns weren't 18-year-olds with a guitar. They were seasoned saints who, generally speaking, knew correct theology and had a desire to grow others in Christ. 3) Those hymns provide a connection with the Church's past ... which in many ways is a VERY good thing. God moved incredibly in times past while the church sang those hymns.

As I finished the article, I looked at our order of worship for that morning. I saw that we were going to sing some newer songs but we were also going to sing two hymns. I also knew that every Sunday evening, we sing some hymns and then spend a significant amount of time after each song reflecting on what we just sang. It's always an incredibly rewarding experience. We love the hymns at First Baptist Church.

Second, the writer of the article had a heart to see God move again like He did in the Church's history ... which I wholeheartedly share. I long to see God move so powerfully in a sinner's life that there are tears when they repent. I long to see an obvious, long-term change of behavior when someone claims to get saved. I long to see believers passionately love the Lord and take their life as a disciple of Christ seriously.

The state of the Church in America, overall, is not good. The Church has lost its "first love" (like the church in Ephesus - Revelation 2:4) and is lukewarm (like the church in Laodicea - Revelation 3:16). I long to see God move again in our country like He did during the First and Second Great Awakening and many other times of revival and renewal before and since then. I long to see our country come back from the brink of moral collapse because God has blessed us again with a national revival.

Yet, while the author of the article craved these same things, I believe he drew an erroneous conclusion in regard to how we get there. He connected the lack of hymns in our worship gatherings with the present, lethargic state of the church. I wish that the problem were that simple. Yet it isn't. There are many churches that don't sing hymns that are winning the lost and pushing back the moral darkness of their culture. There are also churches that sing nothing but hymns that are only a few funerals away from closing their doors.

The real problem is not necessarily the songs we sing or when they were written. The problem is the lack of a desire to really know, love and obey our great God. When our churches are filled with men and women who crave to see God's glory like Moses (Exodus 33:18), when they are willing to bemoan and repent completely of their sin like Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5), when they desire to love the Lord their God with all of their heart, soul and mind like Jesus instructed (Matthew 22:37), and when they come to realize that they express that love for God most clearly when they submit themselves to His leadership and obey His every Word (John 14:15), then we just might see God move again.

In that state of renewal, we won't care who wrote the songs or when they were written. Our sole desire will be to make certain that the songs we sing glorify our great God and we'll sing them and mean them from the depths of our heart.

I love the hymns and I will always enjoy singing them. But the way back into God's favor is not necessarily found in what songs we sing. It is through desiring God, repenting of sin, loving Him and obeying Him.