Paul said in Romans 10:1 that his "heart's desire" and prayer to God for Israel was that they might be saved. Paul said of his heart that he had "great sorrow and unceasing anguish" about his kinsmen and their salvation (Rom. 9:1-3).
I sit here this morning as a man with "great sorrow and unceasing anguish" about my neighbors, about my 'kin' and their salvation. I sit here this morning with my "heart's desire" and prayer to God that these might be saved. I sit here this morning, with an able body and a mind of understanding given by God but paralyzed with inaction, preoccupation and obligations not approved by God.
Let me work backwards through that short proclamation. I have obligations not approved by God. I am a lawyer in a practice I hate, serving a purpose I despise, in a system that is irredeemably corrupt and hopeless, and managed by, for and of a government that is inextricably "of this world" and can be nothing else. I owe education debt and now tax debt that I simply cannot hope to get repaid in my lifetime as I am now on the doorstep of 47 years old and the trends of earnings vs debt are headed in the wrong directions. I am married now for 26 years and the father of a 10 year old daughter and could not hope for a wife and daughter more precious and wonderful than they are. But, my decisions that bring us to this point and circumstance were mine and not God's; the sovereignty of God was surely present, but the obedient seeking of and following Him was not.
So, in light of these, I am preoccupied. Entangled, as Paul would say. Why? Because my love is not for the thing that I chose. My love is for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the salvation of my neighbors, friends and kin. That is my at-the-core-of-me reason for breathing each day -- the obedience of Christ and the salvation of men. My longing. My "occupation". But, because of my worldly choices, I have "preoccupation" and cannot see a path toward the true service of Him whom I love.
This paralyzes me. I am becoming more ineffective on any level as time passes. Yet, at the same time, I am blessed with a reasonably good mind. I love the study of God's Word. I love to communicate that Word. I love to teach it. I love to exhort and encourage others in it. I love to boost up and not tear down others. I love to help them. And, I am particularly well equipped in these areas.
I feel like a QB who has taken a shot to the neck. Able to understand, able to execute, unable to leave the chair because of a severed vertebrae, but unable to teach others to throw the ball and read defenses because my abilities stop as the severed spine. In similar fashion, my hope stops at my decisions made when my desire severed from God's leadership years ago. I crippled myself.
So, "I sit here this morning". I sit here this morning with a full knowledge and understanding that the type and kind of fellowship that the good brothers and sisters who meet in their homes and smaller gatherings (instead of larger corporatized church meetings) is the kind of fellowship where real evangelism and discipleship happens. I sit here this morning with a modest, rented home that is open, warm and available to meet around the Bible and prayer and mutual building-up one another. I sit here this morning as part of one of the corporatized churches where the skepticism of home churches is so great that it is dismissed for lack of leadership, lack of accountability, etc., while the form is acknowledged as valuable to the corporatized church (you know and have heard the dismissive nods -- "cell groups are great"). I sit here this morning hearkening back 23 years ago to a conversation I had as a young bible college student all but certain that I would be a pastor one day when I asked our denomination's head about the potency of home churches as a substitute for what we knew as "churches" only to be brushed aside and told in no uncertain terms that such thinking was "not going to help". I sit here as a committed veteran to local church ministry having served in every capacity almost except as a pastor. (And, not church-hopping, but choosing and staying and committing and enduring in mainly two churches since getting out of college and law school in 1997 -- one which no longer exists and the current one that is just fine as much as it can be.)
I sit here as a married man whose wife is so smart and creative and locked in on biblical truth, so effective at communicating, that had she married a more ambitious sort of man she would probably be leading a big women's ministry somewhere. (She's also too humble to admit to any of that on the one hand, and too biblical to endorse it on the other!)
I sit here as a father of a 10 year old who is learning the things of God and is battling with and for her against the things of the world, while at the same time watching this child's mind unfold with understanding about Godly things and a genuine concern in her heart about the eternity of her friends and neighbors.
I sit here as a resident of a town that is so self-righteous that everyone "goes to church" in some measure, but it is a place of deep spiritual darkness and overwhelming worldliness that no one seems particularly alarmed about.
In other words, brothers and sisters, we're in a prime location, time and circumstance for a move of God. We SEE and KNOW the need for local gathering in a gospel fellowship of the type advocated on SermonIndex. We want to do it. But, we haven't. We don't know if to start, simply because we've made so many wrong calls. We don't when to start, how to start. And, certainly, we're not going to be given the encouragement to start through our local church because it is 100% sold out on the "come and see" model of everything as opposed to the "equip and send and multiply" model.
So, I'm asking you a favor. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me, but this is a desperate time and we need a move of God in our little place on the map. Pray for my family. Fast a meal or a day for us. We are in a spiritual battle like we've never known. Marriages are falling apart in every place around us: friends, family, church folks. Ours is being assailed for the past 3 months in particular; after celebrating 25 years of marriage last spring, we've been more attacked in our home life a week after our anniversary and since than in all of the 25 years before that put together. And, I've reason to believe that it will probably get more intense. We want to obey the Lord. We want to do what His Word says to go and do. But, we see around us a fortress of things that, rightly or wrongly, seem to us insurmountable. We do not run from it, we do not yield to it. We stand and we seek God who rewards diligent seeking of Him. I'm only asking you to, for the briefest of times and as much and however you think you are led to do so, stand with us in prayer and perhaps fasting, too.
Thank you for whatever you do!!!!