Author: Cori

Sometimes, it feels as though there isn’t a whole lot to smile about. Rainy days! World news! Slow service! Family issues! Gas prices! Cost of living! We sometimes just need a laugh break. Even though it isn’t true that it takes less muscles to smile than frown, let’s exercise
those muscles a bit.
 
To help you, here are some bulletin bloopers (you have likely seen them):
If any of you ladies have an electric girdle for the pancake breakfast, please drop it off at the church office.
Ushers will eat latecomers.
The third verse of “Blessed Assurance” will be sung without musical accomplishment.
For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
The pastor will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing, “Break Forth with Joy.”
Remember to pray for those who are sick of our church.
The peace-making meeting scheduled for today has been cancelled due to a conflict.
If you choose to heave during the Postlude, please do so quietly.
 
Ok, I could go on. The point is we need to laugh more. And laugh at yourself. As I have said before, “I try to laugh at myself and that way I always have plenty of material to work with.”
 
Maybe it is time to laugh again. I am not talking about being frivolous or indifferent toward serious matters or denial of the problems that exist. But isn’t the sound of laughter one way we make a joyful noise unto the Lord? We tend to think that the only joyful noise we can make
means singing. Aren’t you drawn to the sound of laughter? Isn’t it contagious?
 
I grew up in a home that loved to laugh. Our mealtimes were the best times. And it rubbed off on me. I can remember church goers growing up who could quote, “Rejoice in the Lord always,” while looking as though someone had just buried their dog. Or as Joe Aldrich loved to
say, “Some Christians look like they have been weaned on pickle juice.” On rare occasions, someone will say to me, “I don’t care for your use of humor in your sermons. God’s Word is to be taken seriously.”
 
I do not apologize for my attempt at humor from the pulpit. Humor is not the result of the fall. Only perverted humor is. I believe God loves a good laugh. We just might be surprised when we get to heaven how much we will laugh! It is God who says, “A joyful heart is good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22). It is true that a distinction is to be made between joy and happiness. Just don’t dismiss too quickly that a joyful heart is a happy heart and a happy heart can smile even in this sinful world because we know that Satan’s time is limited and that “the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming (Psalm 37:12-13).
 
Yes! People are dealing with heavy matters. Life can be hard. The burdens we feel about living in this upside-down world and seeing people living without Christ are heart wrenching. All serious stuff! I do not tend to make light of any of that.
 
Just don’t forget to laugh! Don’t forget to tell your face that you have a happy heart. “If you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it.”
  
Blessings to you, Pastor Brian

“Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount out-poured–
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.”

—Julia Harriette Johnston (1849 – 1919)

Grace so great as to be greater than all my sin? Is such a grace even possible? Well, the Apostle James clearly and succinctly answers this question when he says, “But he gives more grace.” (James 4:6) 

In your mind’s eye, picture an archaic balance scale. Place all of your sins upon the scale. Start with the beginning. Start with the smallest ones first. Start with the cookie you stole from the jar on top of the fridge. Then the test you cheated on in the ninth grade, place that on top of the cookie. On top of the cookie and the test, place every lustful thought you have ever had and every red light you’ve ever run. And just for good measure, all the other sin weighing you down, put that up there too. With the scale weighed down with the burden of your sin, watch what happens when the Lord places his grace upon the opposite side of the scale. Watch your burden lift as his grace counters the weight of your sin. 

God’s grace is greater! It has always been greater! It will always be greater! Why? Because “Yonder on Calvary’s mount out-poured–There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.” Jesus took the burden of our sins upon himself, and in doing so, the scales of sin and righteousness listed in our favor. At the cross of Christ, the finite weight of our sin was countered by the infinite weight of God’s unmerited favor towards us.

Live out of His grace today!

Blessings, 
 
Pastor Dan
 

Hi EBC Family,
The gospel does include health, wealth, and prosperity.  That’s right, the gospel does include health, wealth, and prosperity.  It is in the life to come!  
 
In passing I mentioned this past Sunday, I disagree with prosperity gospel teaching.  Actually, disagreeing with it is not strong enough.  I despise any teaching that says that financial blessing and physical well-being are what God wills for us as believers.  I despise it because it perverts the true gospel.  I strongly reject it because it distorts Scripture to appeal to people’s lustful desires.  This false gospel sells!  Books like, “Your Best Life is Now” sold millions of copies worldwide.  
 
Who doesn’t want to be healthy?  Who doesn’t crave more money than what we have?  Who wouldn’t want more power to live out all of our potential?  Who wouldn’t want all suffering to be eliminated from our lives?  
 
Is all this promised in this life?  Can we claim suffering and problem-free lives now?  Prosperity preachers say, “Yes!”  And they would go as far as to say, “If we aren’t living this kind of life now then it is a matter of unbelief. 
 
There are so many reasons why this teaching is false.  Let me list a few.

• It feeds covetousness and covetousness is idolatry (Colossians 3:5).  It is idolatry because it dethrones God and exalts material things.
• It ignores context.  “Context is king” is a basic principle of interpretation and one often neglected by teachers of the prosperity gospel.  Just as we accuse cults of ripping verses out of their intended meaning to fit their beliefs, this is what prosperity gospel teachers’ practice.  Verses like, “You have not because you ask not” is used to support their “name it and claim it” teaching.  
• The absence of teaching on the place of suffering and trials in our lives as followers of Christ.  The Bible has a lot to say about the normalcy of suffering as well as the necessity of it.  It is in times of suffering that our faith is refined, that we experience the comfort of God, and that we long more deeply for the life to come.  
• It dismisses the teaching of self-denial and the cost of following Christ.
• It fails to teach the whole counsel of God.  Any serious student of God’s Word must wrestle with the tensions in Scripture.  The Bible speaks of both joy and sorrow.  It addresses questions like, “Why do the godly suffer and the unrighteous seem to prosper?”  And “Where is God in my hurt?”  Prosperity gospel teaches one dimension of God’s Word while ignoring other parts of the Bible that “seem” to contradict it.  This false gospel offers quick fixes and easy answers to the complexity of life in this world as we wait for the next.  

Doesn’t Scripture speak of the groaning in this life while we wait for the glory to be revealed?  Read through Romans 8 for it calls us to embrace all circumstances in our lives knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ and that our great God is sovereignly working all things out for our good and for his glory!  The true gospel offers to us that the best is yet to come!  
 
In anticipation of that day, Pastor Brian