Pastoral Notes for Sunday, March 31, 2019

On the behalf of the elders, it is my distinct privilege to announce the recommendation of Mr. Mark Elliott and Mr. Mike Payne for election as deacons at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church. These two brothers have faithfully completed officer training and sustained a thorough examination in the areas of Christian character, Bible knowledge, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the PCA Book of Church order, and qualification for church office (1 Timothy 3:8-13). Upon completion of their exams, they received a unanimous recommendation for election as deacons.

The election will be held on Sunday, April 28th during the Sunday School hour. Only communing members of Cornerstone are eligible to vote in the upcoming election. If you are a communing member of Cornerstone, we strongly urge you to participate in the upcoming officer election. Electing officers to represent, serve, and lead the church is one of the weighty privileges of membership at Cornerstone. 

Over the next month, please pray for these brothers. And if you don’t already know them, please take time to get know them better. Take them out for lunch or coffee. Ask about their testimony, their walk with Jesus Christ, and their sense of call to the work of the diaconate. They would love to hear from you, and I believe you’ll be encouraged by spending time with them.

Name: Mark Elliott

·      Born: Canton, OH

·      Vocation: Operations Analyst, LHC Group (Home Health)

·      Family: Married to Lindsey (11 Years). Children are Taylor (10), Noah (9), Amara (8), Zeke (6), Malachi (4)

·      Ministry Gifts/Passions: Serving, Finances, Shepherding

·      Church Service: Home Fellowship Group Leader, Children’s Sunday School Assistant, Nursery Volunteer

·      Recommended Office: Deacon 

 

Name: Mike Payne

·           Born: Rockford, IL

·           Vocation: Guitarist; Studio and Live work

·            Family: Married to Melissa (Mel) Payne for 8 years. Expecting our first child.

·           Ministry Gifts/Passions: Serving, Mentoring, Teaching

·           Church Service: Men’s Ministry Team, Watchmen, Home Fellowship Group Leader

·           Recommended Office: Deacon

Pastoral Notes for Sunday, March 24, 2019

Last week in this space we talked about the biblical origins of tithing and the shift in the focus of measurement in the New Testament toward sacrificial giving based on the gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 8:1-15; Rom. 12:1-2). Commenting on this shift, several of you noted that it’s not easy to calculate whether you’re “giving enough” to the work of the Lord. If you thought that after reading last week’s piece, I sympathize with you. You’re absolutely right, and I think that’s the point.

 Instead of letting us rest in a percentage point of giving and feel like we’ve done our duty, God is calling us to continually reflect on the generosity of the gospel and repeatedly ask ourselves, “Am I giving of my material resources in a way that reflects the generosity of God’s gift to me in Christ Jesus?”As we hone our understanding of the Bible’s teaching on this matter and prepare to give generously and sacrificially to the Lord, let’s look at three other general Scriptural principles for giving:

1. Giving is a spiritual discipline that requires forethought and planning.At the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul speaks of the collection for the saints, and he says, “On the first day of the week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come”(1 Cor. 16:2). Notice that Paul is teaching the Corinthians to set aside a portion of their resources each Sunday for giving to the Lord and meeting the needs of the poor. Paul knows that if we’re not intentionally setting aside resources and making preparations to give, we will fall into the trap of using that money for other things. Set aside your giving to the Lord on the front end to ensure that Lord has first place in your giving.

 2. Giving is to be commensurate with your income.In the passage I quoted above, Paul says to set “something aside” in keeping with how “he may prosper” you. He teaches the same principle in 2 Corinthians 8:12 when he says, “For if the readiness [to give] is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.”Paul recognizes that resources rise and fall, and that our giving will rise and fall, too. He’s instructing us to give proportionally, and to not be bound by a certain number or dollar figure. Let your giving track with the normal ups and downs of income.

3. Give generously, cheerfully, and sacrificially.In Luke 21:1-4, the rich were placing their gifts in the offering box, but a poor widow came and placed two small copper coins in the coffer. Jesus says of her, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”On the surface, this principle appears to undermine principle #2 about giving commensurate with your income, but that’s not the point at all. Instead, the Bible is placing us in a good biblical tension.We’re being called to look at what we have and consider our basic needs, and then sacrificially invest in work of the church. We’re not sacrificing if it doesn’t cut into our lives—that is, if it doesn’t hurt.We’re beginning to practice biblical giving, if we’re actually having to say no to things we’d like in our lives in order to give to the church and meet the needs of the poor (see Acts 2:42-47). By placing these two principles beside each other, the Bible is inviting us into the wisdom of a giving pattern that’s discerning, generous, and sacrificial (2 Cor. 9:6-15).

As those who have been given so much, let’s not be stingy or begrudging—trying to get away with giving as little as we can. Instead, let’s joyfully prove our earnest love for Jesus Christ by giving to His church in a manner that reflects, even faintly, the generosity of the gospel.

Pastoral Notes for Sunday, March 17, 2019

After last week’s message, someone asked me such a great question that I thought it worth answering publicly, so that the rest of you can overhear. The question was this:

“After receiving the vision of the stairway from heaven and the promises of God, Jacob responds by saying, “And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to the Lord” (Genesis 28:22). Is this where we get the idea of a tithe?”

It’s a great question. The answer is yes and no. The answer is no in the sense that we’ve already witnessed tithing with Abram in Genesis 14. After the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the eastern kings, Melchizedek, King of Salem, blesses Abram and, as an act of homage, Abram gave to him a tenth of everything he had (Genesis 14:20). But the answer is yes in the sense that the idea or principle of a tithe is derived foundationally from Genesis 14 and 28.

It is interesting, however, that in the same way Abram received a blessing and then responded by giving a tenth of all he had (Gen. 14:20), Jacob too received a blessing from God and responded by pledging a tenth of all he had (Gen. 28:22). In both instances, the same pattern is followed, and the pattern illustrates a fundamental principle in giving—that we give generously to God in response to His generous giving (blessing) to us. In other words, we don’t give to get blessed, as if we could earn God’s favor through giving. (Sadly, we hear that line of reasoning too often from prosperity gospel preachers). Rather, we give from blessing. From the overflow of God’s generosity, we are generous!

Now, at this point in the biblical text, Abram and Jacob are giving voluntarily. There was no command to give a tenth or tithe to the Lord at this point. That changes later on. The principle of the tithe becomes the commanded standard for Israelite giving under the Mosaic Law (see Leviticus 27:30; Numbers 18:25-28; Deuteronomy 14:22-29).

All this raises the question, “Should we still tithe today?” Some believe the command to tithe remains binding on the Christian in the New Testament. For instance, Jesus references the Pharisees tithing in Matthew 23:23, and he doesn’t expressly do away with it. He does, however, criticize them for their fastidiousness in tithing when they neglect the weightier matters of justice and mercy.

When we turn to the key writings of the apostles on giving, we find no interest in the matter of tithing. Instead, we see a more radical standard—sacrificial giving. Sacrificial giving starts with offering your whole self to God (Romans 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 8:5) and then giving generously of your material resources to the work of the church (1 Cor. 9:6-8, 16:1-3; Gal. 6:6, 10; 2 Cor. 8:1-15).

In the wake of Christ’s fulfillment of the Old Testament law, the New Testament writers are unconcerned about percentage points when it comes to giving. Not once do the New Testament writers invoke the tithe in their many appeals. Instead, the central and driving focus for giving in the New Testament is the gospel. To summarize Paul’s plea in 2 Cor. 2:8-15, are you giving of your material resources in a way that reflects the generosity of God’s gift to you in Jesus Christ? That’s where the New Testament wants our attention when it comes to giving, and that’s the question we must keep answering with a clear conscience before the Lord.

Pastoral Notes for Sunday, March 10, 2019

I was a freshman in college when I first heard of Wendell Berry. One of my professors read a paragraph from What Are People For, a book of Berry’s essays. In a moment, I was captured by the integrity of his voice and the tender toughness of his truth telling. That moment sent me on a journey. I’ve been reading Wendell Berry ever since.  

Some of you are already devotees of Wendell Berry’s work. Others of you haven’t heard of him till this moment. No matter where you fall on the continuum, I’d like to invite you to join me at the next Community Literature Discussion on April 1st to discuss one of Berry’s most celebrated novels, Hannah Coulter.

The book is essentially the memoir of Hannah Coulter, a principal member of the imaginary town of Port William, KY. Now in her seventies, Hannah remembers and memorializes the history and legacy of Port William and the particular experiences of her life there—coming of age, her first job, the loss of two husbands, children who grow up and leave home, community life that binds together and then scatters to the wind. As Hannah walks the landscape of her life and finds, and re-finds, her place in the world, she honors the joys and heartaches that make up human existence in this beautiful and broken world.

Like life, Hannah Coulter will make you smile and weep, often at the same time. As life and joy give way to loss and grief in Hannah’s life, and then somehow come back around to life and joy again, we’re invited to take our own walk through the landscape of our life, to smile and weep, and learn to give thanks for it all.

As Hannah says, “The chance you had is the life you’ve got. You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people’s lives, even about your children being gone, but you mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: ‘Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks.’ I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.” 

Pick up a copy of Hannah Coulter on the Bookshelf this morning and come join us on April 1st at 7pm to discuss it. Look forward to seeing you then.