Our current Wednesday night study

For the last few weeks, we have been going through the "Gospel in Life" study by Timothy Keller. It is such a good study we have had to slow it down in order to let the material sink in and work on us!

The study "is an intensive course on the gospel and how it is lived out in all of live- first in your heart, then in your community, and then out into the world."

What really excites me about it is that it isn't just a "hey you need to go and do outreach" or "hey people need to hear about Jesus" kind of study. Those things are true and outreach and evangelism are needed everywhere, even in Millville! What is exciting is that Keller lays out the gospel ground work in our lives first, before we even deal with what it means for our community or our world.

Because let's face it, if we don't get it, and after going through the first 2 sections of this study most of us really don't, then how will those outside the church get it. The first section dealt with the city, what God's intention for cities was and how that has been corrupted because of sin. And because of that there are different ways for the church to interact with cities: to remove ourselves from them and the influence of culture, to resemble them and the culture or to love and serve them so that they prosper (Jeremiah 29:4-14).

The question at hand is, how will we love and serve Millville? There are so many areas and ways to serve and love, it can be overwhelming to decide, what will we do, how will we serve others. Thankfully, we have begun to do this already with our Second Sunday ministry and other ways. God will continue to push us out there and get us engaged as we remain faithful to his call.

The second, and much more challenging, lesson dealt with the heart, with gospel living as opposed to religious or irreligious living. Self righteousness is deadly and yet I think we fall back on it more often than we care to admit as Christians. It is much harder to do all things out of our love for God than out of a desire to get from God. Much harder.

And yet ultimately, it is only when we do all things out of love that we begin to understand the depths of grace.

Tonight (and next week I believe) we will be looking at Idolatry. Very hard hitting and eye opening and humbling. My guess is that there will be more repenting and more pursuit of God after this week! I know I'm being challenged each time!