The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.26

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Happy Friday, friends, or whatever day it is by the time you read this.  My prayer for you this week is that you see the people around you through God’s eyes. Read on for this week’s update for BBT.

It was good to have more of our people back last wee.  I hope you heard Priscilla’s heart during the Sunday School time.  All of us have a job to do, and all of us bear some responsibility to prepare our own hearts so that we can come together to focus on worshiping our Lord.  Having said that, no one is saying that you cannot come in with a need.  We are to be a place of healing and restoration, and it is appropriate for that to take place within our service.

In my message I shared with you the results of my study on the Sabbath day.  I think I have only scratched the surface of the meaning behind it, but I hope it helped you as it helped me to better understand its meaning and why it may be that God made it such a serious thing for the children of Israel.  Observance of the day is no longer required, but time set aside to pursue relationship with our Creator certainly is if we truly desire to know Him.

This Sunday, we’ll be in Romans 14:1-12.  Sometimes we seem determined to find fault.  I think many times this is an unconscious defense against the flaws we see in our own character, but whatever the reason, it’s a destructive tendency.  This passage addresses issues specific to the people and time when it was written, but it contains useful instruction for us today that goes beyond the obvious application.  It’s hard to be in unity if we’re pointing out each others’ faults and presenting ourselves as somehow better or more holy.  Obvious sin does need to be confronted, and Jesus gives us the process and the redemptive objective of applying it in Matthew 18, but too often we are the ones committing the greater sin with our criticism.  We may be right, but it is better to be righteous.  We should extend the same grace to others that we have received from God, and that’s a lot of grace.

Pray for Lupe as she continues to recover from her fall.  Priscilla found out this week that she has a broken kneecap and that it has been that way for some time.  The other one is not broken but is in worse shape.  She’s been told to stay off of her feet for several weeks.  This may mean we have no one to run the bus, but we’re still working on that.  Keep her and kimi in your prayers.

This Sunday is also a 5th Sunday, and we’ll be having our fellowship after the service.  Since it’s the week of the 4th we are doing hamburgers and hotdogs.  If you didn’t get a chance last week and want to help with sides, check in with Brenda to see what is needed.  Bring a friend!  See you there!

Love y’all,

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.25

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Blessings to you, loved ones.  My prayer for you this week is that you find time in your often busy schedules to spend in fellowship with our Lord.  May you be refreshed by entering into His rest.  Read on to see where we’ve been and where we’re going.

For the second week in a row we had to contend with storms, but thankfully this time the results were not as serious and everyone made it home.  We ended rather abruptly so that people could stay ahead of the weather.  Linda sent along a great lesson to encourage us to carry on the work that God started in this church, using another example of an unlikely person leaving a lasting impression on the world around him.  In observance of Father’s Day, we did our traditional gift presentations and I shared with you some of the lessons I learned from my father.  You can find both in our Podcast and the message is also on Facebook.

It was great to see Tim come in last Sunday without a wheelchair.  He continues to improve.  I just spoke with Lupe on the phone and she is in good spirits.  She does not feel ready to come back to church but she is up and around and able to see to her own needs.  Her family has been taking good care of her.

Some time ago I was reading from Exodus 31, and I noticed something I know I had read many times before but that time it got my attention.  God commanded that Sabbath breakers should be executed!  There were several things in the law that one could die for, but most of them make some level of sense to me because of the harm those sins do in the lives of those who commit them and to those around them.  Sabbath breaking didn’t seem to me to belong in that category.  So my question was, “What am I missing?”  What makes the Sabbath so important, and how, if at all, does it relate to us as Christians redeemed by the blood of Jesus?

Most of the church today has relegated the Sabbath to the dust bin of Old Testament history.  If we mention it at all, it is within the context of Jesus’ run-ins with the Pharisees over what could and could not be done on it.  It’s a relic of legalism and nothing more.

Yet we have a history of applying some of the same stricture to Sunday as the Jews to the Sabbath?  Though they have largely disappeared from modern society, laws that restrict what one can do on Sunday used to be commonplace throughout the country.  Others insist that we must keep the Sabbath on Saturday and have formed their own sect to institutionalize the practice.

What would Jesus say to all of this?  I think it could be summed up in the last two verses of our primary text for this Sunday, Which will be from Mark 2:23-28.

“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”(NASB)

The Sabbath is of great significance, but as we often do, we turned something meant for our good into a tool of division and oppression.  It was meant to signify something far greater than an enforced day off, whichever day you choose.  It was meant to draw us to the source of life!

I look forward to seeing you on Sunday!  🙂

Love y’all!

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.24

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Blessings to you, loved ones.  My prayer for you this week is that you come to know the heart of your Heavenly Father, loving, wise, and just.  Here’s what we’re up to.

There weren’t many of us last time we met, but I’m thankful that we all made it there and back safely.  We were all in before the worst of the storm and we kept our power.  I wish more had been able to come, as Priscilla’s Sunday school lesson was an encouragement and I shared some things I really want us to understand. Please make use of the podcast.

Speaking of power, we may all have the power of the Holy Spirit available to us, but some of us could use the electric kind.  As of Tuesday evening the Whitmore and Terrell households were still without it.  Pray for quick restoration and for the safety of all of those affected and those working to repair the storm damage.

Remember all of those struggling with illnesses in your prayers.  As you may have heard or seen in the prayer requests from Sunday, Lupe had a bad fall last week and was hospitalized at Parkland.  I have not had a chance to talk to her yet but my understanding is that she will have to go into rehab upon release.  Kimi is really suffering with her legs.

This Sunday will be Father’s Day.  Over the years, since my day to preach always fell on that day, I’ve tried to come up with some clever take on a father related scripture passage.  There is certainly enough good and instructive material.  But this year I am going to do something different.  I am going to share with you some of the lessons I learned from my father.  I assure you, we will not be short on biblical references, and I believe you’ll be blessed.  I am so grateful to have a father who showed me the way to The Father.

Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father, and give attention that you may gain understanding, for I give you sound teaching; Do not abandon my instruction. (Prov 4:1-2 NASB)

Love y’all!

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.23, Baptists Celebrating Pentecost?

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Blessings to you, loved ones.  My prayer for you this week is that you will have a deepening intimacy with the Holy Spirit, that through communion with Him you will find peace, joy, and purpose.  Keep reading for your weekly chronicle.

I hope you all were blessed by the celebration of life that we had for Pastor David on Sunday.  With some distance between us and the fresh grief of his leaving us, we were able to laugh together in a final corporate remembrance of the man we all knew and loved.

This Sunday churches around the world will remember the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit made His dramatic debut in that upper room in Jerusalem, filling the disciples who were praying there and causing them to loudly proclaim the “mighty deeds of God” in languages they did not know.  It was a momentous occasion that seems to have set an expectation for what was supposed to happen in the early church. Many churches today draw from this and other accounts in the book of Acts to build their traditions and theology.

What happened in that room, and why is it significant?  Does it instruct us today in matters of salvation and worship?  Should we be speaking in tongues, or did that practice fall from God’s favor sometime in the first century AD?  What does it mean to be “filled with the Spirit?”  We’ll read Acts 2:1-8 and then put some context around it as we seek to understand what God did on that day and what it means to us.

I have shared much of this before, but I think it is important to talk about it now as your pastor.  I want you to hear and understand the biblical foundation for things we might do differently in the future.

Love you all,

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.22: A Life Celebrated

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Dear friends and family, my prayer for you today is that you grow in the knowledge of our Lord, finding His heart and sharing it with those around you.  This Sunday we are going to do something different.  Last year on May 21, we lost our beloved Pastor, David Whitmore.  Shortly thereafter, a memorial was held and our building was filled to overflowing with people who came to remember his life.

Now a year has passed, and  we are going to stop and remember as a church once more what Pastor David meant to us.  Priscilla and Kimi will officiate the service.  If you would have liked an opportunity before to share what He meant to you or some memorable or amusing anecdote from his time with us, this will be your day.  It will be a time of celebration, and we’ll end it with Enchiladas, because that was one of his favorite things to eat.

And as a bonus, you don’t have to listen to me!  🙂   Well, not much anyway.  See you there.

Love y’all,

Larry

 

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.21

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Hello loved ones.  I hope that God’s goodness has been evident to you this week.  Here’s some more good stuff coming your way.

We missed Priscilla last week and those she brings with her on the bus, but we still had good attendance.  She is doing better and I expect everything back to normal this Sunday.  In Sunday school Linda gave us the “secret of endurance” and I spoke on throwing off the old self and putting on the new.  The podcast episodes are there if you missed it.

Monday will be Memorial Day,  when we remember those who have given their lives in service to our country.  As I thought about that this week, I asked myself, “what are you willing to die for?”  With our tenancy toward hyperbolic speech, that phrase, “to die for,” gets used a lot now.  It makes me sad when I hear it, because it is usually used in reference to something that is absolutely not worth dying for, like a really good dish or a pleasurable experience.

But there are things in this life worth dying for.  If asked most of us might list one or two things for which we would willingly risk or even give up our lives, but we usually do so from the comfortable assumption that we will probably not be required to make good on our word.  If the time should come, how many of us would fold like Peter on the night of Jesus’ trial?  I hope we’ll never have to find out, but we may take comfort in the knowledge that Peter was restored and went on to have a key roll in God’s young church.

Jesus thought something important enough to die for.  I should say, “someone.”  That someone was you!  That someone was me!  Our text will be from Romans 5:1-8.  My sermon will definitely not be to die for, but we’ll see what is.

Pray for each other.  Encourage and help each other.  I should say keep on doing that, as we have some shining examples among us.  Let’s not forget to thank them for all that they do. See you Sunday!

Love y’all,

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.20

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Warm greetings to you, loved ones.  Get those ACs tuned up, because Spring is in full swing and Summer is close on its heels.  I’m expecting things to heat up at BBT too, so let’s get ready!  Here’s your weekly update, hot off the keyboard.

Traffic slowed things down last week, but eventually everyone made it and we got a pleasant surprise.  We got to see Dede for the first time in several months.  Keep her in your prayers as she still needs to find a permanent and stable living situation.  We also celebrated our mothers and I shared some tips drawn from the life of Jesus on how we should relate to them.

This weekend I have a question for you.  It’s one you may have heard from your parents, even though they were looking right at you and obviously knew the answer.  But this is a spiritual question.  It is one our Heavenly Father might ask as He observes us rushing out to engage the world.  “What are you wearing?”

As children, our clothing was not so much a reflection on us as it was on our parents.  After all, they were supposed to be the ones in charge.  As children of God, our conduct serves as that outer layer that the world sees.  Our physical clothing might communicate something of that, but our character should be above reproach.  Paul uses this metaphor in Colossians 3:12-17, making it clear that we must make a choice.  A few verses earlier we are told that if we are in Christ,we have laid aside the old self and put on the new.  We’re to throw out those filthy old clothes and put on the clean, new, holy ones that He has give to us.  We begin to take on His character and to look like Him.

Now if I carry that too far, it’ll become bad theology, but we do have to make that choice every day.  Are we going to dig that ratty, stinky old stuff out of the trash because it was comfortable, or are we going to dress up in God’s finest, so that those who see us will glorify our Father and want to know Him too.

I hope you’ll join us on Sunday.  You’re welcome in our church, whatever you’re wearing.

Love y’all!

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.19

Bartimaeus Baptist Temple Posted on by

Wishing all of you wonderful mom’s out there a happy Mothers Day, here’s your just-in-time update.

Lately I’ve been feeling a sense of hope.  Sometimes I still wonder how God is going to turn things around.  We still have barely enough people to do the minimum that has defined who we are for all these years.  We’re not getting any healthier, and we don’t have the resources we used to have.  Yet I believe that He has not withdrawn His hand from us.  He is in the process of doing a new thing.  By His power we are going to come back stronger than ever and set a new standard for ministry through people challenged by disability.

Last week Priscilla spoke to this, reminding us to put the past in perspective and move forward into God’s future.  I spoke of our calling to become a church of disciples who make disciples.  If you didn’t get to come, check out the podcast.

This Sunday is Mothers day.  I used to resent days like this, but I look at them differently now.  Why not take the opportunities they provide.  Sure, we should love our mothers all year long, but we all get caught up in life and maybe we forget to honor them as we should.  So yes, like other similar days it’s been overrun with commercialism, but I choose to take it as a reminder to show a little extra love to my very special mother.

It’s not a happy day for everyone.  Some lament the passing of their loved ones on this day.  Some grieve over broken relationships.  Our fallen world affords myriad ways for good things to go bad.

As believers, we look to God’s word for comfort and for instruction.  Does it have any advice on how we relate to our mothers?  Yes, it does.  And Jesus Himself provides us with a model by His conduct, recorded by the authors of the Gospels.  We will examine four passages: Luke 2:46-52, John 2:3-5, Mark 3:32-35, and John 19:26-27.  Read the surrounding verses for a bit more context.

Come and join us as we celebrate our mothers and the loving Father who gave them to us.

Love y’all!

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.18

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As I write this, it is a dark and stormy night, but there’s sunlight in my soul!  I’m getting pumped about the new things God is going to do in His little church on Day Street.  I look forward to a transformation that brings people of all abilities into His kingdom.  Blessing to you, loved ones.  Read on for this week’s updates.

We had most everyone back again last week.  It was good to see Lupe.  Pray for Edith as she was out again with arthritis pain.  Priscilla led a session of prayer during the Sunday school and I know people were blessed.  I want us to have freedom to follow the leading of Holy Spirit regardless of what the program says.  This can be a time where we share with each other and help each other to heal and to grow in love for the Lord and for each other.  I hope you were also encouraged by the message to start thinking about what you can do rather than what you can’t.  Remember that God is your source and by the power of Jesus Christ you can do all things that He has called you to do.

Next week I am going to talk about growing up.  WE all expect children to grow up, though these days it seems to take longer than it should.  Good parents want to see their kids come into their own as successful adults.  But while they are children, they need help.  If they are not guided in the maturation process, it is likely to go very wrong.

Paul uses this analogy to describe our development as followers of Jesus.  In much the same way as with children, if we get no guidance as new believers, it is easy to get stunted.  False teaching abounds, and some of it sounds really good.  We need the influence of more mature believers to help us sort it all out and to show us how to live a life that pleases the Lord.  That’s why discipleship is so important.  Jesus modeled it for us, and His first followers did the same.  If we want to be all that God has called us to be, we must be a church of disciples who make disciples.  Our text will be from Ephesians 4:11-16.

Come join us!

Love y’all,

Larry

The Bartimaeus Blog 2019.17

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Hello loved ones. I hope you’re having a wonderful week, even if it’s a little wet too.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday, a perfect day for celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. It was great to see most all of you back at church. I hope you were blessed by what you heard. If you didn’t get to come, the podcast episodes are up.

Recently someone said something to me that got me thinking. How do we get into a mindset that says, “I can’t?” We all face challenges. We all have limitations. There are some things we really can’t do, but for most of us that list is longer in our heads than in reality. Sometimes the pressures and challenges of life wear us down. “I cant” becomes our defense and retreat. The added complication of disability can magnify this tendency.

But is that the way we should think as followers of Jesus? When our power source is the power that created the universe, is there ever room for “I can’t?” Maybe, but not when it comes to doing what He wants you to do, whether it involves something He’s given you specifically or simply doing what is right.

This Sunday we’re going to look at Philippians 4:12-13. Verse 13 is the one we all know. I’ve included verse 12 to provide some context. The context may seem to narrow the scope of the verse somewhat,, and it is important for us to understand what is actually being said. However, I think this chapter contains some very useful advice for changing the way we think so that through the power of God, “I can’t” becomes “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.”

By Sunday the rain should be gone, but I’m hoping we can flood that building with people and praise to the Most High. Come help us make it happen!

Love y’all!

Larry