Losing Your Guilt

Mike Hosey, An Elder

The highest ideal of the American criminal justice system is that everyone is to be considered innocent until proven guilty. We adopt that position because we know that we are finite human beings.  No judge, no lawyer, no jury and no citizen is able to intrinsically know whether a man is guilty of a crime or not unless they were there to witness the actual transgression. So in order to protect the truly innocent, we declare everyone innocent (regardless of their actual guilt) until their evil is proven before men, and agreed upon by them.

But in God's judicial system, everyone who does not belong to His family is guilty. Unlike man with his finite knowledge, God can hold all of us guilty.  He knows every crime we've committed, the laws we've scorned, and the rules we've bent or broken. He knows the darkness in our hearts that motivates our bad deeds.  Even more importantly, He knows the darkness in our hearts that often motivates our "good" deeds. Because of His all penetrating knowledge, we cannot stand before His court and survive His scrutiny on our own.

In earthly courts, once your guilt is proven, there is no way to ever earn your innocence back.  It is gone forever.  You will always be considered a thief, a murderer, a perjuror, a rapist, or whatever you have been declared. Your only hope  is to pay out your sentence and do your best to regain credibility with your fellow man.

God's court is the opposite.  God says that if you believe Him, and Christ's sacrificial death, and His resurrection for your wrongs, then He credits goodness or righteousness to your account (Genesis 15:6, Galatians 3:6, Romans 10:9) and you will be saved from your sins.  When we put our faith in God, He puts his righteousness in us.  He declares us innocent, even though we are not.  Instead of seeing our guilt, He sees the perfection of Jesus Christ.  Even more glorioius than all of that, we become His children.  And with that, He begins to make us into new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17), and begins to guide us to a place where we won't be sinners at all!  Not only will we be declared innocent.  We will be made innocent!

Why Are We A Nation of Laws?

Mike Hosey, An Elder

It has been said that America is a nation of laws.  When this phrase is used, it is almost always used with great reverence, and often a tinge of patriotic superiority – as if America is special in this regard.  In truth, every civilized nation is a nation of laws because every nation is a nation of fallen and sinful people.

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In a nation that is made up of fallen and sinful people, it is good to be a nation of laws.  Laws help to keep evil people in check. But it is better to be a nation of Spirit. You see, laws are external. They are based almost solely on fear of punishment from an outside force. A law that provides no threat of consequence is a useless law.  Think about it, how many people would obey the speed limit if no one could write them a ticket for which they would have to pay a price? – An even better question is: would you obey it? Further, laws are not written for people with a good spirit.  They are written for people who don’t have a regard for others.  In fact, they are written for people who don’t have a regard for law at all.  The bank robber doesn’t give one whit about the laws governing stealing. He only cares about what happens if he gets caught.  The murderer who kills someone with a gun in a drug-deal-gone-bad doesn’t give one whit about “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” nor does he care about narcotics laws, and he certainly doesn’t give a rat’s eyes that the gun he used is illegal.  All that laws do in these cases is give society the justification it needs to remove freedom, or life, from such people. In contrast, people in a nation of Spirit obey laws because they love and respect their society, not because they fear punishment. I don’t rob a bank because it’s against the law. The reason I don’t rob it is because I love my fellow citizens, and I don’t want to take money that they earned and I didn’t.  I don’t murder the people that are an offense to me, my comfort, or my well-being because it’s against the law.  The reason I don’t murder them is because they bear the image of God, and for me to murder them would deface that image and displease the God I love.

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This is partly what Paul means when he says that he has been crucified with Christ and no longer lives by the flesh, and that it is no longer Paul who lives, but Christ who lives in him (Galatians 2:20). This is what he means when he tells us to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh (Galatians 5:16).  The more a person walks by the spirit, the less that person needs laws.  And the more people in a nation that walk by the Spirit, the fewer laws that nation needs.

Building Strong Children

Mike Hosey, An Elder

It has been said that it is better to build strong children than to repair broken men (or women).  This is a statement of profound truth.   When one looks at all of the broken adults in the world, one must wonder if this truth has been realized by it.

Thankfully, Fellowship Church has realized this truth, and tries to put it into action every week on Sunday mornings. We do our best to build strong children through Sunday School classes, through our SonSeekers program, through our CrossTrainers program, and on Wednesday nights with our youth group.   We try our best to strengthen families and parents through solid preaching and teaching from the pulpit, so that those families and parents can apply the powerful word of God to their own lives. And through our staff of elders, we offer pastoral counseling to those families that need a little shepherding through some of life's more difficult pastures, so that the children of those families benefit from growing in a house that honors God and His order.

We take building strong children very seriously.  And all of the things we do to build them are good.  But doing Vacation Bible School is one of those children building activities that we do that is especially good because it has a great impact on the community outside of Fellowship's regular members. It often benefits children who don't get regular biblical instruction.  It models for them that church community is fun, vibrant, and worth while.  And sometimes it benefits children who have never heard of the goodness and love of God, or the wonderful relationships we can have because of Jesus!

But we also get to model for them that the church is a body with many parts (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).  Everyone working together using their unique skills on teaching, or doing skits, or crafts, or supervision, or cooking food, or cleaning up, and on so many other things, demonstrates that we are a team, a community, and a family that comes together to serve Christ by serving the people in our neighborhoods.  On behalf of all of the elders, we are proud of, and thankful for, everyone who has sacrificed their time and energy this week to be Jesus to so many children!  Thank you for helping to make them strong!

Biker Deacon Drew On Giving, Going and Growing

Deacon Drew Castoral

In Matthew 28:16-20, Jesus introduces us to the importance of missions. In that passage, known as the Great Commission, He tells the disciples to GO into all the world and make disciples. This is the command many missionaries have answered.

The church is called to support those missionaries. There are two missions in regards to Fellowship Church that stand out in my mind. One of those missions is I Am Born Again Ministries in Palawan, Philippines, and the other is, Feed My Sheep Ministries in Haiti.

Last week Harrell Hemingway, the missionary we support in the Philippines, spoke with us, and at the end of his message he invited us to pray with him concerning sponsoring a child. As the music started I went and prayed with my wife at the altar, and God gave me some pretty incredible instructions concerning ministry and missions! God reminded me that as a church we are called to give to the needy and the poor, both near and far! WE can do this in many ways. WE can do this financially through sponsorship, and by meeting the needs of others physically. Many of us do this by sending clothes and materials to Haiti, or bicycles to the Philippines, or by directly sponsoring with our finances. The church, as a whole, sponsors these missionaries every month with a portion of your tithes. But our support is not limited to just these things. We are also called to pray for our brothers and sisters, who with much faith, have answered the call to be missionaries -- which is not an easy job.

As I continued to pray, I asked for the Lord to give Harrell the strength he needed to continue the mission God gave him. And in that moment, I felt God move in my heart, and I began to understand how one faithful congregant could invest in some good soil and reap a harvest, and how one person could change a child’s life, or a man’s household. The command of the Great Commission is a resounding GO for every Christian. The fruits of this going are very important. They include lives saved, towns revived, and Christian communities planted. It starts with US, the church, having compassion in our hearts, and yielding to God.

So GIVE according to what God has given you. GO according to His power and mandate, and watch His Kingdom GROW.

This week Pastor Damon and some of our Fellowship family had an opportunity to GO to Haiti and GIVE. Ask them how much they grew the kingdom, and ask how much their giving grew them.

Fellowship Church Statement on Marriage and Homosexuality

Mike Hosey, An Elder

The culture that once made America great was rocked in June, 2015, when the Supreme Court of the United States legalized marriages for gay couples in all 50 states of the union.  The decision by 5 of the 9 justices on that court has far reaching  implications, not just for the secular community and its culture, but for those of us who have submitted ourselves to God as well.

For the secular world of lost men who depend on external powers to govern them, the court's decision will strengthen those forces who foolishly wish to shape a new culture that has no place for God, His authority, or His order. Their desire isn't to celebrate a legalized union between two people of the same sex who love each other.  That option was already available in a variety of forms.  Instead, what they want to do is to bring about a new and fundamental morality and impose it on all domains of humanity by force of secular law. Sexuality is but one small front on their march.  Those forces practice a kind of ungodliness, and take pleasure when others do as well (Romans 1:24-32). At the moment, those spearheading this change are advancing in their pursuit.  Ultimately, they will not win. But, for the time being, they will have victories. Their march will bring fundamental change not only to the fabric of America, but also to the world.

For the church, there are many questions which those of us in leadership will have to grapple with, and many possibilities for which we will have to prepare.  For instance, will the state force us to officiate same sex wedding ceremonies? (This is not likely for the foreseeable future) Will the state eventually penalize us for preaching and teaching that marriage is only between one man and woman, and that homosexual marriage isn't marriage at all? How will we communicate to the world that homosexual behavior displeases God and is sin when the prevailing culture eventually accepts it as normal, and perhaps even wholesome?

You may rest assured that the elders at Fellowship Church will defend, preach, and teach what we believe the Bible says about marriage, as well as any other part of the human condition, regardless of what any secular power attempts to impose.  We understand that it is better to suffer the disapproval of men than to suffer the disapproval of God (1 Thessalonians 2:4). We understand that while we have citizenship here in America, we have a greater citizenship in Heaven (Philippians 3:18-20).

Here is a very short brief of some of the things we will continue to teach:

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR IS SIN:  Though Jesus doesn't address homosexual behavior directly, it is listed many times among a litany of other sins (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). Furthermore, when Jesus was tempted concerning the issue of divorce he replied “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female (Matthew 19:4 NASB)? In making this statement, Jesus confirmed and affirmed the creation account of Genesis.

AND SO IS HETEROSEXUAL ADULTERY (or any other kind of sexual immorality): Proverbs 6:32, Matthew 5:28 (this would include pornography and many other "accepted" American behaviors), Hebrews 13:4, 1 Corinthians 6:18.

AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU: The beauty of the 1 Corinthians passage above is that we can escape the bondage of any sin.  While we may always wrestle with certain desires (Romans 7:18-25), we do not have to be a slave to them (1 Corinthians 6:11).

WE BELIEVE IN LOVE: We will teach and model that love means being committed to the well being of others. This means that to the extent biblically possible, we will strive to accept and include all people in the activities of our church community, and that we will treat them with kindness, dignity, gentleness, and respect, regardless of what sins are hindering their walk. It also means that we cannot lie to them about God's expectations, or the damage caused by their sin.

TOLERANCE DOES NOT MEAN ACCEPTANCE:  The word tolerance actually means to put up with or to endure something that one finds wrong, distasteful, or problematic. God tolerated divorce, but he did not accept it as good or right (Matthew 19:8).  God also tolerated polygamy but His standard was always one man, one woman in a covenantal physical relationship that pointed to a spiritual reality (Eph 5:31-32).  In that spirit, Fellowship will extend grace and love, and will tolerate (but only to a point) the existence of sin in the human condition. Our desire, however, is that everyone may enter into a Real Relationship with God, experience Real Change, and find Real Purpose while growing in that blessed state of sanctification. This desire or expectation regards ALL sins, homosexual behavior or otherwise.