New Blog.

 If you would like to read/follow my latest blogs they can be found www.discipleoftheword.com

I Resolve...

2013 will soon be of the past and 2014 will be upon us. This new-year let’s not heap on ourselves more then we can carry. Maybe instead of making a long lists of things for us to DO, we should trust even more in what has been DONE. After all, the hard work of the Christian faith is not behaving but rather believing. Believing that everything that needs to be done for salvation has been done on the cross of Christ. Let’s resolve to stop trying so hard to BE better, and try harder to BELIEVE better. 

Believe the promises of God which are a “yes” only in Christ. 

Believe that Gods love for us is not determined by our performance to him, but by Christ's performance on our behalf.

Believe that Christ's work not only saves us, but it trains us, and will one day get us to the end!

Believe that while we were at our very worst, God gave us his very best.

Believe that God's love for us is not determined by our past, present or future because God loved us before we had one.

Believe that when Jesus declared, "it is finished", it actually is finished. 

Believe that Christ will bring to completion what he began.

Believe that Christ is all powerful, Christ is all glorious, Christ is all delightful and Christ is all sufficient. 

As we soak and meditate upon this love, let it motivate us to be ferocious in our discipline and holiness, let it fuel us to be passionate in our worship, and let it to transform us to be gracious in all that we do.

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3.18-21 

For the fame of Christ’s name,

Chance Faulkner

The True Gift Of Christmas

It is the day before Christmas and I am sitting in the living room of my wife’s grandmother’s home enjoying a fresh cup of coffee and listening to Christmas music come forth from the piano. I love Christmas. I love getting together with the people that I love and enjoy the most and sharing a meal with them and giving them gifts that they enjoy. Beside me is a huge tree, decorated most beautifully; under the tree is full of gifts wrapped up nicely. I love Christmas.

As we open the many gifts, enjoy the beautiful decorations, eat to our heart’s content and spend time with those we love, let’s remember the true gift of Christmas:

Who is not found under the tree but nailed to it.

Who is not found wrapped up in pretty packaging but rather stripped naked and crucified.

Who is not opened up on Christmas day but rather on Easter morning.

Beloved, let our hearts be content and filled with joy and thanksgiving. For Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Savior of the World, has lived, died and risen so that hopeless sinners could find hopeful rest, everlasting refuge and deep intimacy with the Triune God. Let us ponder and remember the deep riches of grace that are found in Christ this Christmas.

Merry Christmas,

With much love from the South and for the fame of Christ’s name,

Chance Faulkner

Baptisms: Summer 2013

On April 14th I had the opportunity to teach Luke 8.19-22 on how Jesus Redifines Family.

Kayla's Baptism Feb 24th 2013.

                          

"Its only through forgiveness that I find salvation" Kayla

Trent Gathering Photo Essay. January 27th 2013

Internship Sunday morning Prayer

Baptisms

Pastor Alex Kloosterman

 " I love Jesus and He loves me!" Annemarie Ellingwood

 "Having a 'new life in Christ' took a literal meaning for me. There was a clear
    distinction in what I desired before and what I desire now. 
Everything started to change." Jason Ufkes

 "To think I deserve Gods grace means that I do not treasure Christ" Peter Belfry

The Blue Print: Gods plan for God's people.

Dear Ethan: a response to why churches need to be Bible focused.

The following letter is addressed to a fictional character. However, the letter is addressing a very real mindset, plaguing and unhealthy mindset that some have in our churches today. 

Dear Ethan,

This letter is a response to the concern you sent regarding the emphasis our church places on the Word and your desire that we “focus more on practical matters like loving our neighbour and transforming Peterborough”. First off, it is encouraging for me to hear that you have a heart for loving your neighbour and a desire to see Peterborough transformed. It has been such an amazing gift to see God’s work in your heart these past 5 months that you have been attending The Gathering; it’s wonderful to see his desires become your desires. I also have a desire to see both the local and universal body of believers become more intentional about loving others, as commanded by the Lord Jesus (Mark 12:31). I also love Peterborough and want to see it transformed for God’s glory. What an amazing thing it would be to see all of Peterborough saved and transformed by the Gospel!

However, the answer to loving our neighbour and seeing the city transformed is not to move beyond the Word of God, but instead to go deeper into it. In fact, to say that we must move beyond the Bible and on to loving our neighbour actually does not make sense. This is because both the ideas of “loving your neighbour” and of transformation are rooted in the Bible. To divorce these ideas from the Bible means to divorce them from being a Christian message altogether. A teacher from any religion could preach a sermon on loving our neighbour and seeing a city transformed. What makes it distinctly Christian is that it is from God’s Word and is centered in the Gospel. In the context of the rest of Scripture, we know that loving others and seeing our city transformed has only been made possible because of God’s Gospel. Because he loved and served us first, we can now love and serve one another selflessly. We are thankful and humbled because of God’s grace, which gives us the fuel and motivation to go into the world with grace. Likewise, only the power of God’s Son through God’s Holy Spirit can transform a city. Therefore, the Word of God must be central to the people of God. It must be central because by it God creates, God sustains, and God transforms.

To begin with, how do you even know that we are supposed to love our neighbour? You know that because you have seen and heard it in the Word. The Bible tells us about who God is, what he is like and how he should be worshiped. It’s his Word that informs our practice. The very source of this command IS the Word; the Word is the root and source of the actions that we make as Christians. Therefore our focus should not be primarily on the fruit, but to first look at the root! When we go deep into the Word, we see much more than we can when we choose one or two select verses to focus on; we see the fullness of the Christian life as God intended it. The Word is the standard for every teaching, doctrine, philosophy, practice, and life.

Now that I’ve discussed why the Word should be central to our ministry, I’ll share with you three things I have seen in the Bible that occur when the Word is central. Throughout Scripture, we see the Word creating, sustaining, and transforming.

It is by God’s powerful and gracious Word that all things exist. One of the first things that we learn about God in the book Genesis is that God by his Word creates existence out of nothing.1 Eight times2 in the first chapter we see “God said” followed by something being created. When God speaks things happen, and this great truth is affirmed hundreds and even thousands of times in the rest of Scripture. Throughout the Scriptures, we see that God acts through his Word3, God’s Word is an extension of God himself4, and God establishes relationships through his Word.5 A few examples: By his Word he calls Abraham out of pagan6 worship to follow after God.7 By his Word he promises the creation of God’s people8, and by his Word he does create the people of God through Jacob. By the Word of the Lord Moses was called to be the deliverer of God’s people from slavery.9 By God’s Word, Israel was given the law as a gift to be shown how to live as God’s people.10 By the Word of the Lord the prophets were called to speak, warn, and remind the people of Israel about their sin and rebellion and what it would lead to.11 The Word of the Lord incarnated himself in the person and work of Jesus, so that he could be fully known.12 And finally, in Revelation we see the picture of Jesus returning with the name “The Word of God”.13

As Jonathan Leeman wrote in his book Reverberation, “This same power that the Word has to create in Scripture is alive in our ministry as well. True spiritual life is produced in the heart only when the Father speaks with creation power through his Son and by the Spirit.14 God’s Word produces actions, and then those actions and words work together to give witness to the power of God’s salvation.15 Lives begin to be shaped by words, so that people begin to live differently at work and at home. They discover that these words are life giving, hope-giving and love producing.”16 In sum, “spiritual Words create spiritual actions”.17 So on our topic, it is only because God has spoken “love your neighbour” that we should actually go and do it.

Jesus had just been baptized by John and led into the wilderness for forty days, where he was “tempted in every way”.18 In the midst of so much suffering, Jesus counters temptation from quoting from the Scriptures, “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”19 Jesus is quoting what Moses said to the people in the wilderness about the manna that God had provided for them. Although God provided the manna and they could physically see it on the ground, they still had to believe and trust that God’s Word was trustworthy for their existence. They were commanded to only take what they needed for one day and they had to trust that God would continue to provide for them. They needed to believe that they would not die in the wilderness and could depend on God and his Word for sustenance. Notice that he does not say that man “should” not live on bread alone, but rather he says man “does” not live on bread alone. In quoting this verse to counter Satan, Jesus shows us the true sustaining power of the Word of the Lord. Jesus knew he would not die in the wilderness and trusted in the Father and his Word for sustenance. We also see in Scripture that Jesus himself “upholds the universe by the Word of his power”.20 So like the Israelites and Jesus in the wilderness, we are also sustained by the Word of the Lord. The Word should be like food to us, keeping us going in times of trial and temptation, and filling us first before we go to fill other people. If we are not sustained by the Word then we go hungry, and our actions will be equally empty.

Probably the greatest example in Scripture in which the Gospel transformed a city is found in Acts 19. In only 3 short years the entire socioeconomic system in Ephesus shifted as Paul proclaimed the Word of God. The Spirit transformed the people in the city in a way that those who were profiting off of selling idols and magic books, cheating, stealing and exploiting could no longer make money in those sinful ways.21 There was no longer anyone to buy from them because the Word of God had so transformed the hearts and lives of people in the city. Within this short period of time, a number of those who practiced magic art burned their books. The value of 50 thousand pieces of silver would come out to about fifty thousand days’ wages for an average worker!22 Within three years of the gospel first entering the pagan city of Ephesus, all the residents of Asia had heard the good news.23 Those of other religions even saw and acknowledge the power of God.24 The city of Ephesus was turned upside-down because of the proclamation of God’s Word! In this example from the Bible, we see  “God’s Word working through God’s Spirit which is God’s primary instrument for growing God’s Church.” 25

Paul also tells us in Romans 12:2 that we should “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. Transformation isn’t something that happens by trying harder or being focused on our actions. God transforms us after he first speaks to us and renews our mind through what we know of him in his Word. All of our actions come after God speaks. This Word that has the power to transform us also has the same power to transform our city. The people of Peterborough need to be won to God’s Word, not to an empty religion of good works. They need to be renewed in their minds and transformed by the Gospel before any true and lasting social transformation can take place in our city. All of our efforts to transform this city should be based in proclaiming and obeying the Word of the Lord. We should then have great hope for our city, because we know that the Word is powerfully able to save and transform!

Ethan, I hope I have helped you to see that first and foremost, “God’s people listen to God’s Word.”26 Gods Word is God speaking to us. Everything we do is guided by the bible; everything good is a result of the truth of the Word being used by the Holy Spirit to change our lives so that we look more like Jesus. The Bible alone teaches us what we need to know about God, how to come into relationship with him, who Jesus is, what he has done for us. Therefore, the Word of God must be central to the people of God. I encourage you to read the Bible. See how the Word creates, sustains and transforms. Get into it, meditate upon it; memorize, study, share, and apply it. Allow it to create in you good works, let it sustain you, and let it transform you. Let us be people who love our neighbour and who long to see the city of Peterborough transformed, not despite the Bible, but because of the Bible! I love you and so excited to be on this journey with you!

Your Brother in Christ,
Chance Faulkner

1 Mark Dever, 9 Marks of A Healthy Church (43), Genesis 1:1 2 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001(Genesis 1:3, 1:6, 1:9, 1.11, 1:14, 1:20, 1:24) 3 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (51) 4 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (48) 5 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (52) 6 Joshua 24.2 7 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Genesis 12:1) 8 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 ( (Genesis 35:22-26) 9 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Exodus 3) 10 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001(Deuteronomy 5) 11 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Jeremiah 1.4, Ezekiel 1.3, Hosea 1.1, Joel 1.1, Jonah 1.1, Micah 1.1, Zephaniah 1.1, Haggai 1.1, Zech 1.1) 12 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (John 1.1-13) 13  The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Revelation 19:13) 14 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (21) 15 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (20) 16 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (20) 17 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (21) 18The Holy Bible: New International Version 1984 (Hebrews 4:15) 19 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Deut. 8:3, Luke 4:44, Matt 4:4) 20 The Holy Bible: New International Version 1984 (Hebrews 1:3) 21 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Acts 19.27) 22 The IVP Bible background commentary: New Testament (Ac 19:19–20). 23 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Acts 19:10) 24 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Acts 19:13) 25 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (19) 26 Jonathan Leeman, Reverberation (31)

The Gospel that is Not.

This week I had the opportunity to do a guest post on www.nosuperheroes.com. It had to be edited down for the sake of space. This is the extended version of that post.

We live in a time in history where, more than ever, it seems that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is assumed. We Christians pay so much attention to what we need to do for God and do not put nearly enough emphasis on what Jesus has already done on our behalf. Therefore, in the church today we often move beyond the gospel and turn instead to what Christian Smith has termed “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”. In its basic form, “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” says to try harder, be better, pick yourself up from your bootstraps, and use God as an enhancement tool towards living a better life. We prefer to see Jesus as our life coach who helps us be better people, rather than the Savior who saves wicked wretched sinners by doing something for us that we could not do for ourselves. So rather than motivating people with grace, we motivate them with works. Even if we ourselves think that we understand the gospel, when we assume that our congregations, small groups, and friends understand grace and therefore skip right past it and go straight to application, then we are still motivating them by works and not the gospel. MTD is a subtle heresy that plagues the church of Jesus Christ.

Many of us have experienced this- a church where the gospel was not taught. I have seen countless kids grow up in the church and go through youth group, hearing so many rules and commands without hearing the explicit motivation and reason behind the commands. Christianity becomes “being a good person who follows the rules”. Topical sermons are preached on money, marriage, and relationships, but Jesus is completely absent from them. This breeds Christians who try really hard to be a good person and follow all the rules. When we succeed, we become full of pride and look down upon those people who are not doing as well. But when we fail, stumble, are struck by tragedy, dominated by habitual sin, or are crushed by life’s circumstances, we become angry and bitter with God because he is not treating us fairly for our good works and giving us what we “deserve”—failing to realize that apart from Christ, what we really deserve is eternal separation and torment. So we either try even harder to be better, or we despair and give up all together. We leave the church without ever experiencing a true relationship with Christ.

Whether it is from the pulpit, from across the coffee table, or in the mirror, we must always remember and proclaim what Christ has done for sinners. When the Gospel is not explicit, we will all turn to MTD.

Those who want to motivate us solely to good works, not done in light of the gospel, are using works-driven obedience rather than grace-driven obedience. Preachers, Teachers, Mentors, Evangelists, Christians—give the people you minister the GOSPEL.

A few examples from Scripture:

In Deuteronomy, the Lord has just brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, provided for them in the wilderness, and has given the gift of the law to set them apart from all other nations and to show them how to live as God’s people. Over and over in this book, we see the repeated idea of “remember”.  The Lord does not want his people to forget where they have come from and what He has done for them. Their motivation for obeying the law comes from a remembrance of what God has done for them. When giving the Ten Commandments, God declares, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the Land of Egypt” - reminding them first of his amazing, gracious, and saving character.  Why? So that their heart motivation is in the right spot before they ever attempt to keep his commandments.

As another example, in John 8, Jesus’ command to the women caught in adultery comes after the grace that he gives to her. He doesn’t forgive her conditionally based on her promise of better behavior, but instead her motivation for behaving better comes from the free, unmerited gift of grace that he gives her. She is not obligated to live this way so that God will love her, but she is free to live righteously because God has already loved her. (for more thoughts on John 8 read my blog (http://chancefaulkner.blogspot.ca/2011/12/only-one-who-could-have-thrown-stone.html)

Are you with me?

In Ephesians 3, Paul has a beautiful prayer for the believers. Those in the Ephesian church were mostly Gentiles, new Christians coming out of a culture where sex and sensual pleasure played a vital role in worship, including temple prostitution and cults that were violent, orgiastic and ecstatic. To consider nothing wrong was the highest form of religious devotion among them- this isthe lifestyle these people are coming out of, and probably still struggling with. If there was any church that seemed like it needed the most “behavior control”, it was these guys. Yet check out what Paul prays for them:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father.... that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:14–19

Do you see what Paul just did? He didn’t pray that they would try harder to be better people, but he instead prays that they can BELIEVE better. Only in understanding the love of Christ can we truly be motivated in our hearts to be harsh with sin and kill it.

Christian: God has done something in Christ that you could not do for yourself. While you were dead in your sin, rebellion, shame and depravity, He sought you, pursued, lived the life you did not live, died the death you should have died, and he gives you the gift that you could never earn. While you were still spitting in his face by either your lawlessness or “good works”, he died in your place for your sin. While you were unlovable, he loved you. While you were unclean, he made you clean. While you have sin, he gives you his righteousness. This is good news. This is the gospel.

So in light of this amazing, marvelous good news, what are you going to do about it?

Let’s start by preaching Christ crucified and not Moralistic Therapeutic Deism- the gospel that is not.

5 Reasons you should do Emmaus School of Biblical Studies.

I just finished participating in a nine-month intensive Bible training program at Emmaus School of Biblical Studies (ESBS) in Lake Lure, North Carolina. What an amazing, edifying, intense and life changing experience. As I reflect on my experience at ESBS, I only wish more people knew of the program and had the opportunity to learn the Bible in its totality. Hence, this is blog post purposes as two things. One my shameless plug of ESBS, and why you should not hesitate to do the program. But most importantly my praise to God for the program of Emmaus School of Biblical Studies.

The Staff.
The staff at Emmaus are Christ-exalting, Jesus-saturated, Spirit-filled, Gospel men and woman who love truth more than their own opinion or reputation. They know the bible, love the bible, apply the bible, and want to see others do likewise. They are in no way perfect nor do they pretend to be, but are humble people, quick to repent, admit when they don’t know something, and own up when they’ve messed up. They invest in the students through discipleship and want to see people live a life that brings attention to the glory of God. I have a personal relationship with all my teachers; a few of them especially have carried over into deep God-centered friendships.

The Teaching.
Not only does one learn the Bible, but also the background to the Bible. They help you get “into the shoes” of the the original reader and original audience. Furthermore, they are now offering Logos bible software included in the tuition!

In 9 months, you will have studied the Bible in it entirety and read through the Bible verse-by-verse a minimum of 5 times. (thats four more times than most professing Christians will read it in a lifetime.) There’s no tip-toeing around hard passages, but attacking them ferociously, head-on, inductively, and with humility, grace and truth.

You will have an understanding of each book as a whole (everything from authorship, dating, original readers, theology, themes and most importantly application). You will spend so much in-depth time with each book that you will start to feel a personal relationship with certain books or authors. Not only will you have an understanding of each book, but you will see clearly how each book fits in with the big picture of scripture and God’s story. You will be more confident about scripture and the Bible, who God is, what he is like and how that changes everything about your life and the way that we interact with one another. No other 4 year, let alone one year, programs can give the depth and intensity as ESBS can and will.

It is a gospel-focused community, where you learn how to live with the understanding that what Jesus has done for us is way more important that what we do for him. Good deeds are done because of God’s love for us in Christ, and not to earn His love. That’s the tone of the community, it’s the focus of the discipleship, and it permeates the culture.

The Affordability.
The staff are not paid, but are supported. Should they be? Yes. Could they be? Yes. Why don’t they? Because they want to see all men and women trained in the word, in a way that is affordable. Even if that means not being paid and raising their own support. They are not there for the money, they are there to teach the bible to those who hunger for it.

The Scenic.
Emmaus School of Biblical Studies is a branch of Camp Lurecrest ministries. It is located on the large camp property, in the mountains, on the lake. A perfect place to engage Gods word distraction free, while seeing his glory reveal in a deep appreciation of his creation.

Any one can do it.
Evan is a teacher; he did it.
Caleb is a pastor on Sabbatical who brought his family; he did it.
Rich is a bible teacher who brought his family; he did it.
Mary Austin and Heather are recent college grads; they did it.
Abigail is a message therapist; she did it.
Sean is a graduate with two masters at seminary; he did it.
Jon, Josh, and Bryson are all recently graduates from high school; they did it.
Ellen is a missionary; she did it.
Rylan and I are Canadian; we did it.

To you reading these words; you do it.

Mary Austin; I Vow....

Mary Austin, I Understand and admit that without Jesus it is impossible for me to muster up enough strength, loving feelings or good intentions to fulfill my biblical role and calling in marriage but In light of who Jesus is and what he has done, and by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

I VOW to Love you unconditionally as Jesus has loved the church unconditionally and died for her. I VOW to ferociously pursue your heart, mind and affection as Jesus has ferociously pursued his bride the church. I VOW to serve you relentlessly, despite how you are treating me, or what I am getting out of it. Just as Jesus served the church relentlessly despite what he was getting out of it. I VOW to not to be the hero but point you and our family continually and relentlessly back to the good news of what Jesus has done. I VOW to die to myself and spend myself on you and our family just as Jesus died for and spent himself on the church. I VOW to have thick skin and a soft heart. Thick skin to handle life, and a soft heart to love you well. I VOW to be Tough and Tender. I VOW to invest myself in you with my time, emotions and affection. I VOW to love you and commit myself to you marriage, solely for a lifetime, regardless of circumstance situation or feelings. I will never leave you. I Love you.

Chance Faulkner