Quick Guide to the Radical Experiment

In 2012, we are challenging members of Westbury Baptist to take five challenges to grow closer to God than ever before. Here's a quick guide to making the Radical Experiment reality in your life...starting January 1.

Challenge #1: Read the Entire Word.

--We will hand out copies of a Chronological Reading Plan. Sunday sermons and devotionals in your Bible Study departments will go along with each week’s reading.

--Each week’s Scriptures will also be in the Sunday bulletins, and there will be a link to the reading plan on our website. Click here for a link to the entire plan.

Challenge #2: Pray for the Entire World.

--We will hand out copies of a yearly prayer calendar from the Operation World website. Each week’s prayer schedule will also be in the Sunday bulletin, and a link to the entire calendar will be on our website. Click here for the link.

--For each nation or region, pray that the Gospel will advance. Pray for Christians and missionaries to boldly represent Christ. If you know of specific issues in that nation or region, lift them up to God in prayer as well. Pray for justice, righteousness, freedom and peace.

--If you want, you can order the Operation World book from the website (www.operationworld.org) or from a Christian bookstore. It contains prayer information on every nation.

Challenge #3: Commit to a Multiplying Community.

--If you are part of our Sunday morning Bible Study (Sunday School) at WBC, commit to be there every Sunday this year, unless you are ill or out of town. Pray daily for your class, your department leaders, and the overall small group ministry of our church.

--If you aren’t yet part of our Bible Study, commit to finding a class this year. The church staff is here to help you find the right group.

Challenge #4: Sacrifice Financially for a Purpose.

--If you don’t currently support God’s work financially, commit to start this year.

--If you give sporadically, commit to giving regularly, as a percentage of your income (the biblical instruction is a tithe, or a tenth, of our income).

--If you currently tithe, ask yourself, “What sacrifices could I make for one year so that I could give more?”

Challenge #5: Spend Time Ministering in Another Context.

--Find a way to serve God outside of your own family and friends. This could be through volunteering at Braes Interfaith, McNamara Elementary, or some other ministry field. Or it could be through a short-term mission trip. We will publish a list of ministry opportunities early in the year, and add to the list as we hear of other opportunities.

Bonus: Read Radical; Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, by David Platt.

Sermon preview--Jesus our Priest

We’re in a series right now for Christmastime called Jesus: Prophet, Priest and King. The idea here is that in order to prepare the way for Christ, God in the Old Testament created three kinds of people: Prophets, priests and kings. Those people existed to help God’s people know God and experience all of His blessings. When the Messiah came, He would fulfill the function of all three. He would be the ultimate prophet, the perfect priest, the King of Kings. An Israelite would have understood that perfectly, but we’ve lost that idea, and so in many ways we’ve lost an understanding of who Jesus is and what He can do for us. Two weeks ago, we talked about the idea of Jesus as our prophet. He is the reason we know who God is and how God wants us to live. To conform our lives to His teachings and His example is the only way to become all we were made to be as human beings. But if Jesus was simply a prophet and nothing more, we are lost. We need more than a teacher, more than an example. We need a priest. Now that may sound strange to you, especially coming from the mouth of a Baptist preacher. But I am not talking about the kind of priesthood you see in many Christian churches. Long before any church existed, there were priests of God.

This Sunday, we'll talk about what priesthood was in Old Testament Israel, and why God created this institution. We'll look at several Scriptures in Hebrews that explain how Jesus is our ultimate High Priest, focusing on Hebrews 10:19-22. And we'll explain why we need Jesus to serve as priest in our lives. If this is a new concept for you, perhaps you are missing something very important that Christ wants to be in your life. If you've heard all this before, come and worship Him for making a way for you and I to get to the Father. Either way, I hope I see you this Sunday.

Christmas Devotional

I'm posting the notes of the devotional I shared at our Christmas concert on December 11. I hope they help you draw nearer to the God who came for us at Christmas...

The Christmas season of 1979 had an element of intrigue in Lawton, Oklahoma. Police and local media were getting numerous calls from concerned citizens who said there was a dead man in a department store in town. The stories varied in some details, but the consensus was that he had fallen and died in the middle of the Christmas rush, and the oblivious shoppers had unknowingly nudged his boy with their feet under a counter, where he lay abandoned. Every department store was checked, and no body was found. Finally, after some serious investigative work, the police found the source of the story. It was Rev. Forrest Siler, a local Baptist preacher (he would have to be Baptist, wouldn’t he?). Apparently, in a recent sermon, Rev. Siler had told a modern day parable about a man standing in the gift wrapping aisle of a department store with no gift in his hands to wrap. The people pushing toward the counter eventually knocked him over and nudged him under the counter, where he died of neglect. Mysteriously, the dead man was found to have holes in his hands and feet. Apparently, the people of the First Baptist Church of Lawton had heard the story and forgotten it was a parable. As Rev. Siler told a local newspaper, “It was just a parable about Christ being crowded out of Christmas by commercialism. I evidently oversold it a bit.”

We often seem to get Christmas wrong, don’t we? My dad and I were talking recently about this, and he pointed out an ironic fact: We’ve taken Christmas, a holiday that recalls that God came to Earth to save us with no strings attached—the ultimate sign of grace—and turned it into a day when you’d better watch out, you’d better not cry, you’d better not pout, I’m telling you why…and most of all, you’d better be good for goodness sakes; all of which is the OPPOSITE of grace. Why do we do this? At our Christmas concert, the choir sang, O friendless world, to you is the song! All heaven’s joy to you may belong! You who are lonely, laden, forlorn: O fallen, O fearful, O friendless world to you a Savior is born! That’s what Christmas is about. That is what is worth celebrating. But for some reason, we can’t seem to accept the fact that God loves us just the way we are and longs to help us become all He created us to be through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of His Son. If we did accept that fact, more people would become believers in Jesus at Christmastime. We would have to make our worship services two or three hours long to accommodate all the baptisms. I’d wear out a pair of waders once a month. If we did get it, people who call themselves Christians would demonstrate more joy than we do. I’m reminded of the Christian woman who got onto a packed elevator at a mall. A stranger asked, “How are you?” She grumpily replied, “I’d be a lot better if I knew who was going to pay for Christmas this year!” And the stranger said softly, “Someone already has.”

Maybe it’s because we don’t like to think of ourselves as fallen, fearful and friendless. My son, before he really knew how to read, took a nametag one Sunday and wrote, “I am awesome” on it. Only, he spelled it, “I am OSUM.” That’s a pretty good metaphor for us. We want everyone to think we’re awesome. But all our attempts to show ourselves powerful and successful and self-sufficient just make us look more foolish. John 1:14 reminds us that at Christmas, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. If you really want to receive the greatest gift of all, if you really want the amazing generosity of God to become yours at Christmas, you have to willingly rip off that tag that says, “I am awesome.” You have to come before your God in humility, freely confessing your brokenness, your loneliness, your inability to do it yourself, and call on Him for salvation and renewal. Then you will experience the Joy of Christmas.

The Radical Experiment

In 2012, Westbury Baptist Church is taking THE RADICAL EXPERIMENT

For one year, we will commit to:

1. Read through the Entire Word.

We will read through the Bible chronologically. Each week, an insert in your bulletin will give you the passages to be read for each day. Devotionals written by WBC members will be used in Bible Study classes, and a sermon each Sunday will get us ready for the next week’s readings.

2. Pray for the Entire World.

That same weekly bulletin insert will give you a nation to pray for each day. More information on each country can be found on the Operation World website.

3. Commit Our Lives to Multiplying Community.

In 2012, we will help all of our members find a small group Bible study that will become their spiritual family.

4. Sacrifice Our Money for a Specific Purpose.

For those who don’t give financially, we’re challenging them to start. For those who give occasionally, we’re challenging them to begin giving on a percentage basis. For those who tithe, we’re challenging them to make sacrifices to give over and above 10%.

5. Give Our Time Ministering in Another Context.

We will spend at least 2% of our year (one week) ministering to people outside our normal path—locally, domestically or internationally.

For more information, see www.radicalexperiment.org

Our hope and prayer is that as we seek to know God and serve His Kingdom like never before, we will ourselves be transformed! Pray about taking the Radical Experiment with us. Call the church office or email a staff member to commit to these five challenges for 2012.

Sermon preview--Jesus our Prophet

I read an article recently about Christmas customs around the world. Here some of the more bizarre ones: In the Ukraine it’s traditional to have a spiderweb as an ornament on your tree. In Germany, a Christmas pickle is supposed to be hidden on the tree, and the kid who finds it gets good luck. In Caracas, Venezuela, churchgoers are supposed to come to Christmas mass on roller skates. In Japan, a traditional Christmas dinner is Kentucky Fried Chicken. In fact, if you celebrate Christmas in Japan, you need to make reservations at KFC because that’s where everyone wants to eat. A couple of the traditions can’t actually be shared from the pulpit. But for my money, the most bizarre custom comes from Austria, where December 6 is Krampus Night. Krampus is Santa’s evil twin whose job is to beat all the children who’ve misbehaved. On December 6th men dress up in some of the scariest devil-like costumes you can imagine and drunkenly run around towns hitting people with sticks and switches.

You might find such traditions hilarious or offensive or somewhere in between, but keep this in mind: The Bible never tells us how to celebrate the birth of Jesus. In fact, the Bible never even says we SHOULD celebrate His birth. Whether you eat turkey or ham or grill steaks and baked potatoes, like a friend of mine does; whether you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, whether you watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” or you’re more of a “White Christmas” kind of guy, it’s up to you. I wouldn’t suggest getting drunk, dressing as the Devil and beating people with sticks unless you want to spend Christmas in a lovely cell with a charming gentleman named something like "Switchblade," but otherwise, the external trappings of how you celebrate Christmas are a matter of personal preference, in my opinion. But since the original purpose was to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, there should be a distinctly Christian way to observe this day. For centuries, many Christians have called this distinctive way Advent. The idea of Advent is that we celebrate Jesus’ birth by remembering what it was like before He came; feeling along with those long-ago people the anxious expectation of a Messiah, a Deliverer.

Although Jesus’ birth and life are in the New Testament, celebrating Advent means thinking from an Old Testament perspective. So what I’ve decided to do for my Advent series of sermons is to think about what Jesus came to be for us. In the Old Testament, God gave the people prophets, priests and kings to help them know Him, stay right with Him, and live the life He wanted for them. Those offices were fulfilled in Jesus. So this Sunday, we’ll talk about what it means for Jesus to be our prophet. On the 18^th, we’ll see how Jesus is our priest. And on Christmas morning, we’ll examine what it means for Jesus to be our King. Christmas traditions are typically superficial things. But my goal and prayer is that this Christmas season, we would come to know Jesus in a new, more intimate and transforming way than ever before.