Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Ecclesiology

Church Wolves Will Come

The downfall of pastors both great and small should sadden us. But such events should not surprise us. In Matthew 7:15, Jesus tells his disciples, his church, to “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” In other words, false teachers will come. Pastors will fall. The church should prepare for the arrival of wolves.

Why no Guards?

The prevailing sentiment of God’s people makes no allowance for the possibility of such false teachers. The local congregation sees no need to guard the pulpit or its ministry apparatus for it assumes that only qualified, sincere, and devoted candidates will express a desire to pastor or lead a class. The local church assumes the very inclination towards the pastorate, mission field, or Sunday school room is the greatest prove of the person’s qualifications for the said ministry. When a question or two does arise that challenges the persons fitness, the majority of the congregation falls back upon this or that positive experience that they shared with the pastoral or missional candidate. The members remark that he was pleasant a conversationalist at lunch the other day or that she passionately cared for the kids in nursery the other night. Moreover, they assume that if the soon-to-be installed leader were truly of the devil, he would tell us about his love of money, or she would list teaching heresy as one of her hobbies on her social media profile. Since he’s nice, he must be qualified to lead the youth group. Since she’s nice, we really should support her trip to Nepal. No thought is given to the possibility that that the nice face could just be a mask hiding the soul of a wolf.

Beware the Wolf

According to Jesus, we should entertain such a possibility. Instead of blindly trusting every person with a Bible, our savior longs for us to test the spirits. In other words, we should examine the fruit of those who aspire to church and ecclesiastical leadership. Jesus notes in Matthew 7:18, “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.” When a prospective leader arrives at the church, the church should pat down the person’s character to see what fruit he or she has produced. Anyone can say “Lord, Lord,” talk passionately for a few minutes, or make a charming impression at a church social. But a man called by God to serve as an elder will bear fruit well beyond the controlled interactions tied to his professional ministry. He will consistently affirm others with his words, demonstrate a love for his family, a compassion for his enemies, a contentment with his income, and sexual purity. The man who spews out hate, hungers for money, and focuses inordinate amount of his attention upon sexual topics should not be advance into the pulpit even if he seems sincere, passionate, and gifted. In other words, the man who justifies his moral failings through appeals to his ability (an ability he may truly possess) is unquestionably wolf. To borrow the words of Paul, a faithful teacher must be above reproach (Titus 1; 1 Timothy 3). There is no room for equivocation. A good teacher will not preach truth on Sunday and then lie on Monday. A godly leader will produce good fruit.

What A Wolf Does

Once the church grants the wolf unfiltered access to the sheep, the false teacher will feast on the lives, relationships, and finances of the sheep, leaving a path littered with the bloody fruit of sin. The wolf may not stop feasting until he has eaten that local church into extinction. The damage one wolf or a wolf pack can do stretches the limits of our imagination. If a wolf cannot be removed quickly, the sheep should flee.

What God Does

Though wolves remain a very real threat, no wolf will overthrow the Church. Local outposts may fall into disrepair when their pulpits are left unguarded, but the church militant will forever survive. Moreover, justice will come. Someday soon, the false trees will be cut down and cast into hell (Matt 7:19). The good shepherd will also attend to his wounded sheep, restoring them to health. God will always show himself faithful even during a wolf attack.

Though God will stand by his church, wisdom demands that local churches should exam a potential church leader’s spiritual fruit long before giving him the keys to the pulpit or the ministry framework. Not every wolf has to run rampant among the sheep if we will but stand guard. Will you?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Sermon on the Mount

How Should I Pray? (Part 1)

If your prayer life became your Sunday school’s prayer list, what would people find? Would most of the content focus upon uncle Jimmy’s cancer, Aunt Susie’s arthritis, or cousin Sally’s job hunt? Would your classmates find pleas for Bobby’s salvation or for Lashanda to love her enemies at the office? What would comprise that list?

Our answer to this question proves insightful. As Dr. Albert Mohler, the President of Southern Seminary, noted, “If we really want to know what a person believes, we should listen to them pray.” In other words, our faith is only as deep as the prayers we pray.

At this point, we should not all become self-conscience and begin praying in slow mumbles so that no one can hear us. According to Jesus, God hears in secret. Even if others do not hear us God does. He takes no delight in the mindless, repetitive prayers of unbelief. To pray well, we must pray as God would have us pray.

Our need for prayer help should not surprise us. According to the Scriptures, we do not naturally drift towards goodness. Jesus declared our hearts to be garbage dumps that produce among other things, “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” We come to faith because God mercifully reveals himself to us in his Word through his spirit. He accomplishes our spiritual growth and sanctification in the same manner. We grow in our ability to love God and others through the study of his word. We should not be surprised by our need for help in the spiritual disciplines.

What Do We Say?

When Jesus teaches us to pray, he does not begin with Aunt Judy’s broken leg. He begins with his glory. Jesus said, “Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matt 6:7-10).” It is good an appropriate to ask God to provide us with our daily needs. But we must not do so to the exclusion of God’s glory. Our prayers should be filled with a concern for the glory of God.

Hallowed Be Your Name

To accomplish this goal, our prayers should focus on the Hallowing of God’s name. To hallow God is to honor him. The apostle Peter tosses out the term when he wrote, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy (1 Peter 3:15).” To honor the name of God, we must know his name. In other words, we must hollow God as he reveals himself to us in the Scripture. Our salvation depends upon our ability to recognize the name of God. The apostle Peter reminds us, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven among men by which we must be saved.” The soul that prays to the great She God or to Mohamed does not know Jesus. To honor God, we must pray to the Father, Son, and Spirit as God commands. We cannot pray to the God of our imagination.

Practical prayers for honor should concern our hearts and the hearts of those around us. We should pray that God would teach us to revere and worship him with greater sincerity. We should pray that our quiet times and family devotions will make much of God. We should pray that our churches would hallow God’s name when they meet to pray, preach, give, and fellowship as the collected body of Christ.

Lastly, we should pray that God’s name will be glorified among the nations. When we enter this world, we arrive with no intention of honoring God. According to Psalm 53:1, we do not even acknowledge his existence. “The fool says in his heart, ‘“There is no God.”’ When we pray for God’s name to be glorified, we are praying that those at war with God would come to love him. As the retired pastor John Piper noted, “[Worship] is the goal and fuel of mission.” To pray for God’s honor is to pray for missions.

Your Kingdom Come

Next, Jesus instructs us to pray for the coming of his kingdom. As Saint Augustine noted long ago, two kingdoms exist: the kingdom of man whose dominate ethic is selfishness and the kingdom of God whose dominate ethic is love as defined in the beatitudes. When Christians pray for Jesus’s kingdom to come, they pray for Jesus to overthrow the kingdom of darkness with the kingdom of light.

This occurs in two ways. First, we pray for Jesus’s kingdom ethic to take root in our world. We pray for our hearts to become more meek, merciful, and sensitive to sin. We pray for our rules to be just and ask for help to pursue righteousness. And then we beseech Jesus to come back on his white horse. With this phrase, we affirm our desire to see Jesus overthrow the world of death and to fully establish his kingdom which will ensure that every fiber of abuse, sickness, and hatred is vanquished forever to the pits of hell. Our longings for eternity should find expressions in our prayers.

Such prayers of hope also reveal that we correctly understand that Jesus alone can establish perfect justice and mercy. When we pray for Jesus’s kingdom, we affirm that neither human charity nor human political parties can heal this broken world. Our hope is not the next benefit ball nor the next election. It is the coming kingdom of Jesus. For this we should pray.

Your Will Be Done

Lastly, we pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In heaven, God’s moral will is accomplished perfectly. Heaven is glorious because there neither angel nor saint questions the goodness of God. They know him, love him, and obey him. When we pray, we should pray for such perfect obedience to be found on this earth. When we struggle with pornography, greed, cursing, a biting tongue, or vengeful heart, we should ask God to bring our will into agreement with his. Our prayers should be filled with petitions that seek to unshackle our hearts from the pains of sin.

Similarly, we should pray that the same would be true of our spouses, kids, coworkers, and fellow church members. Instead of attempting to force them to change through the withholding of intimacy for example, we should pray that they will do God’s will do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. We should take our concerns about our husband, our wife, and that annoying guy on the third floor to Jesus, imploring him to do what we cannot. We should long for God’s will to be done in our life and the life of everyone on earth as it is done in heaven.

So You Struggle to Pray

A few weeks ago, I did an informal social media poll on prayer. The number one challenged faced by the respondents concerned a lack of focus. As they begin to pray, their minds begin to wonder. Jesus gave us the Lord’s prayer in-part for this very reason. He provided us not with the ultimate prayer to pray but with a framework by which we can focus our prayers. The next time, we find our minds struggling to pray, we should begin with the glory of God. We should pray for his name to be hallowed, for his kingdom to come, and for his will to be done. We should pray as Jesus taught us.

And now we have gotten back to those prayers lists. Does the prayer list of your life resemble the Lord’s prayer? If not, let’s begin today to pray for God’s glory today.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Sermon on the Mount

Is Anger Ok?

Anger. It is something we have all done. Its something we have all experienced, serving as the object of someone else’s diatribe. As Psychology Today noted, anger is, “often pretty clear-cut. It’s rarely subtle.”

Though we have all encountered forceful and emotional expressions of negativity, few of us know what to do with our rage. Some encourage us to openly vent our frustrations. Others bury their feelings deep inside, proclaiming that everything is fine. Sure, they haven’t spoken to their friends in 50 years, but everything is fine. Lastly, others use anger as a source of motivation, referencing past insults and forecasts of doom to find the energy needed to become their schools next valedictorian or to smash the opposing football team. Anger remains both a common and complex emotion.

Thankfully, the Jesus of the New Testament addresses our challenges. He goes beyond the pithy statements found in Matthew 5:3-10 and explains how to be salt and light. In the process, he deals with things such as divorce, lying, and even anger.

According to Jesus, anger is not something to be vented, hidden, or repurposed. We are to abhor it and to repent of our sinful, negative emotions. If we remain angry, frustrated, or bitter, we will awake one day soon to find our souls imprisoned under God’s wrath with no way of escape.

Murder is Bad

When Jesus tackled the topic of anger in Matthew 5:21-26, he found his society’s understanding of rage to be artificially constrained and short sighted. The scribes and the Pharisees had restricted the discussion of anger to a discussion of murder. They said that anyone who murder their wife, coworker, or neighbor “will be liable to judgement (Matt 5:21).” Their vague restatement of Genesis 9:6, Exodus 21:12-14, and other passages on murder correctly affirmed the sanctity of human life and the need to address accusations of murder with spiritual diplomacy and legal nuance. Those who take the life of an unborn baby, a middle-aged mom, or of a bedbound senior-adult should be held accountable to the standards of divine justice. Jesus concurs with this assessment of the Old Testament law.

Anger is Bad

But Jesus did not believe the religious leaders of his day went far enough. They lost sight of the reality that God also hates our self-centered pride which fuels our anger. As Proverbs 29:22 notes, “one given to anger causes much transgression.” When men and women lash out at their children, mom and dad do so because they are selfish. The mud stains on the carpet ensure that mom and dad will have to exchange their quiet evening on the coach for some intense floor scrubbing. Because their divine plans have been interrupted, they lash out at the kids. In other words, they expressed anger because they wanted what they wanted and were willing to punish others to get it and maintain it. Even are close friends, our kids, and our spouses are not protected from the negative emotion that flows from our love of self.

According to Jesus, the eyes of the arrogant are just as deadly as “the hands that murder the innocent (Prov 6:19).” If we were to update the analogy, we could say that Jesus views the mini-van driving mom screaming at her kids and of the faced-tattooed, serial killer sitting on death row as one-in-the-same. Matthew 5:22 bluntly states, “everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement.” To keep us from writing off this sentiment as the miscalculation of a poor biblical interpretation, Jesus circles around the concept of anger and expands his definition. He notes that those who insult their friends and call their friends fools will be punished for their unkind words (Matt 5:22). The concept of the term insult implies the notion that one is empty headed. In other words, to insult one’s brother would be to call him stupid, bone headed, or dumb. To call someone a fool was to label someone as being worthy of hell fire and damnation. When we insult the guy who cuts us of off in traffic, the politician who never seems to get things right, and the kids who all seem to do the opposite of what we asked, we commit the sin of anger. We are not simply Irish or passionate or misunderstood. According to Jesus, we are angry. We are sinning against God.

The Importance of Reconciliation

Because anger leads to eternal judgement, we should quickly exchange anger for reconciliation. Jesus tells two miniature parables in Matthew 5:23-26 towards this end. In the first, he tells his audience that they need to leave everything including an animal on the alter and go and be reconciled. Were we to update Jesus’s words, we would say that if one is leading the choir or preaching a sermon and realizes they have committed anger, they need to walk off the stage, drive to their neighbor’s house, and ask for forgiveness. Pastors, church leaders, and religious people do not get a special pass when it comes to anger. God does not look the other way when they fume with anger because they reached so many people or built such a large church. Jesus tells them to drop everything and repent.

To drive the point home, he tells a second parable of a man on his way to debtors prisons. He says that if the man cannot settle before court, he will wind up in prison and will never get out. The man in prison, lacks the ability to work and to gain the capital need to pay off his debt. In other words, Jesus declares that those who take their anger, bitterness, and vengeance to the grave will miss out on the mercy of God and know only the fires of hell. Before we get to eternity, we should seek peace with those we have offended. We should ask them to forgive us for all the wrongs that we have done. And we should stand at the ready to forgive others freely extending mercy to everyone who asks. Those who voice their negative emotions on Facebook and those who secretly nourish a lifetime of bitterness that pops out in the occasional ugly look or snide comment will miss the hope of heaven and spend eternity under God’s wrath. Instead of cultivating anger, we must invest in reconciliation, seeking peace with all. If we do not and allow our angry to fester it will destroy us. We must hate anger and pursue reconciliation for judgment is coming.

Is All Anger Bad?

However, the concept of God being wrathful or angry reveals that not all anger is sinful. Some things should be viewed with forceful negativity such as rape and murder. God’s righteous and just anger should burn against sin. Moreover, Paul tells us in Ephesians 4 to be angry and not to sin. A place exists for forceful, godly negative emotions.

When human anger is righteous, it should mimic the character of Jesus and provoke within us a strong desire that pushes towards justice and forgiveness. Godly anger pushes us to help the poor and to demand justice for the abused. But it then leads us to evangelize and pray for those who cheated the poor and committed the abuse. When Christ emptied the temple with a whip in Matthew 21:12, he returned the next day to call those same men and women to repentance. When he was hung on a cross and insulted, he extended his murderers forgiveness (Lk 23:44). Indeed, “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Ps 103:8).” His people should do likewise (Jm. 1:19).