The Politics of Jesus
Introduction:  Let me start off this morning by saying that in the last few decades there has been a strong push to get pastors to influence their congregation’s political views from the pulpit. A friend of mine who is a new pastor got discouraged recently when a few members sent him a link to a program broadcast on a Christian radio station calling pastors who do not use their pulpits politically cowards. I find it interesting that many of the same people calling pastors out are wined and dined by the candidates and lobbyists who they are advocating for. This is not a left or a right phenomenon but one that is an area where there is unity across the aisle. My job as a pastor is to proclaim the Word of God and present you a Biblical perspective, to pray for you, to lead us in reaching the loss regardless of their political affiliation. I believe that you are plenty capable of applying Scripture and prayer as you vote and I believe that I would actually have very little influence over this area of most people’s lives even if I wanted to. However, go vote if you haven’t. Pray diligently before and after you do. So when you see a title of a message like this I want you to take a breath. We are going to look at an ariel view of politics in general and reflection, not necessarily on one election or another but on the topic as a whole. And let me say, as I watch the news on occasion, as I scroll on social media and see local politics, as I get texts or spam calls from this one or the other one, I have wished that I had Jesus’s cell phone or at least his email.  I say this knowing that as a believer I can go to Jesus in prayer and he will speak to me but sometimes it is a lot of hard work to hear his voice and know what he wants. If I could sit on the couch with Jesus and say “what do you think about all of this it all seems kind of messed up.”  Not just in presidential races but in all of it. Right, you vote for someone you think best represents you, sometimes not really feeling like anyone fully represents you.  Things can still get complicated.  If I had Christ’s email or cell phone I would shoot him a text that would ask the question Jesus what do you think about all of this political stuff?
Transition:  Is that a fair question though?  Should I expect Jesus who seemed to deal little with politics to give me an answer about politics?  Did Jesus ever address politics?  Can we even fairly compare Ancient Rome with the United States of America? I know a lot of guys will kind of work Scripture and kind of insert America in places, but is that fair to do? There are a lot of tough questions to wrestle with but we have to wrestle with them.  To answer some of these questions we have to deal with the page in your Bible between Malachi and Matthew.  Did you know that there are some 400 years between the last recorded events of the Old Testament and the first recorded events of the New Testament?  While scripture was silent time moved on.  So what happened during this time scholars refer to as the intertestamental period?
So let’s have a different kind of message this morning, let’s have a bit of a history lesson and then we will land on a main point here at the end. So don’t panic if a lot of this feels like an introduction, it’s not a three hour message, it’s a tour through history that will, I think, help us answer this question of what would Jesus think of all of this.
Intertestamental History
1. Well about fifty or sixty years after the events of Ezra and Nehemiah (which is chronologically the end of the OT) A guy named Alexander the Great entered the scene and conquered much of the known world.  While he conquered Greece he loved their culture and wanted to spread it across the world.
2.  While some of the Greek culture was great such as their philosophy, their view on government and their food they also had some very negative things in their society such as their philosophy which either advocated multiple gods or no gods at all.  They held to very loose moral standards.  Israel was conquered and many of their people accepted these views and tried to merge them with Judaism such as the Sadducees while others tried to maintain the purity of Judaism (the Pharisees).  We will get to more of that in a minute.
3.  Alexander the Great died and his four generals (who weren’t so great) took over various portions of their empire and it played out like a giant game of Risk where Israel eventually wound up under the reign of the Seleucid empire.  Initially this is great because he let the Jews practice religion as they wanted unfortunately when a guy named Antiochus IV enters the scene he bans certain Jewish practices and sets up an altar to Zeus in the Jewish temple next to the altar to God (many scholars consider this the Abomination of Desolation that Daniel addresses in his book).  Priests are expected to offer sacrifices to Greek gods and Yahweh.  A man by the name of Matthias Maccabee decides not to do this and he begins what is known as the Maccabean rebellion.  (While Protestants do not consider this to be scripture the Catholics include information on this in the Apocrypha it makes for interesting reading although I do not believe it is divinely inspired).  During the rebellion Judas Maccabee leads the Jews to conquer many of their foes and establish an independent Jewish state.  His brother Eleazar is such a mighty warrior that he rushes into battle with a sword and charges an elephant that one of the generals was seated upon.  He stabbed the elephant in the belly, it fell on him and he died.
5.  The free Jewish states prospers for a while but the religious leaders start to quarrel amongst themselves as to whether Israel is becoming too worldly.  The Sadducees like everything Greek but the Pharisees not so much, they advocated a strict Jewish law that added things to the scriptures.  This conflict creates a civil war and one side calls out to Rome to come and help.  Rome who is rapidly becoming the most powerful nation in the world enters Israel and helps but never leaves. 
6.  Rome now considers Israel part of its kingdom.  In response to this there are really four different kingdoms being campaigned for during the time of Jesus.  So forget a two party system you have four different groups.  Let’s take a look at these groups
7. The Pharisees actually held a lot in common with Christ. He built upon their understanding of a coming resurrection and afterlife. However they built such a strong law tradition that in their minds they were the only ones who could keep it, they had a sense of self-righteousness that alienated them from common Jews and messed up their pursuit of God.  Although they ultimately pushed for the arrest of Jesus he fussed at them for their strict legalism but he also encouraged their search for God (John 3 with Nicodemus, Mark 12 the greatest law).  Many would convert to Christianity after Christ died.  They pushed for a purer Israel and wanted people to separate themselves from Roman culture.
8.The Sadducees were on the other side of the spectrum.  They agreed that the OT purity laws need to be kept but they did not believe in an afterlife.(That’s why they were sad-you-see).  They loved Greek philosophy and were more than willing to profit from Rome’s control of Israel. Their plan was to work Rome to benefit themselves. Jesus never has a positive encounter with a Sadducee.
9. The Zealots hated all things Roman and wanted to reclaim the free state at whatever cost necessary.  Many expected Christ to join this group and advocate this sort of takeover.  However, Christ really never speaks ill of Rome.  He never directly challenges Rome.  Some of his disciples belonged this group, some even hold that Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ was meant to initiate a political rebellion (although scripture tells us he was greedy, and certainly that greed played a role).
10.  The Essenes are probably my favorite group.  In response to Rome conquering Israel and the culture of the Jews becoming defiled these guys just left.  They headed up into the mountains and ignored the world they lived in.  They convinced themselves that the world was going to end and as a result they had little impact on the world around them.  They took the nearly impossible law of the Pharisees and made it completely impossible.  It was so ridiculous that from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday (Sabbath) you supposedly couldn’t go to the bathroom.  Good luck with that.  Christ respected their isolation and we have no record of him ever interacting with the Essenes.
11.  Then there was Rome.  Rome enjoyed their power and continued to expand their influence all over the world.  Rome enjoyed the power they had, Roman emperors believed that they were gods and ruled the world.  They often persecuted the people that they ruled over but despite that, Christ interacted favorably with them.  He told the Jewish citizens that if a Roman soldier legally forced a citizen to carry their load for one mile do it for two.  He healed the centurion’s servant and in the end the Roman guard who stood before the cross exclaimed upon the death of Christ that “surely this man was the son of God.”
Transition:  I recently watched through an old television series called the West Wing, it’s an idealized version of the what it would be like to work in the White House. The show depicts fictitious candidates making decisions that impact the country and dealing with all the challenges that come with that position. What was interesting to me is that everyone who showed up at the White House had a plan, they wanted something for their plan. Usually, the result was them getting ahead and getting power. You know every political party during Jesus’s day had a plan, they were working toward something.  Every group has plans some of which are honorable and some of which are not.  But Jesus also had a plan.  He was building his own kingdom.  Not a physical one but a spiritual one.  He wasn’t intimidated by the power of Rome because he knew one day Rome would no longer be ruler of the world.  He wasn’t impressed by the Essene’s isolation because he knew they would come and go with little impact on the world in their day (however, the Dead Sea Scrolls have had quite the impact in our day).  Christ didn’t buy into the plans of the Jewish Zealots because he knew that any kingdom built by man could be destroyed by the children of those who built it, as it had centuries before.  The Sadducees’ fancy thinking didn’t challenge Jesus to loosen up and relax he had a plan that did not involve sucking up to Rome.  Finally, the strict law of the Pharisees didn’t impress him because he knew their hearts.  Any kingdom they built would collapse on itself.
Christ knew this and so should you:
Colossians 1:15-20
1. He was God, the God none had ever seen an image of before.
2. Everything was created with his knowledge and his blessing including Rome, the groups of priests and the Zealots.
3. Everything that existed was for him.
4. He was going to use everything in existence to bring people to a right standing with God through his death on the cross.
           
1. God used Alexander the Great to establish a common language throughout the known world so that by the time Jesus came his life could be recorded in one language and passed along so that any literate person could read it. 
2. God used the four generals who came after Alexander to spread Jews throughout the known world bringing God’s word to many who had never heard it.
3. God used Rome to build roads that would allow the same Jews to travel to Jerusalem and hear of the work that Christ did on the cross.
4.  God used the Essenes to record and preserve the Old Testament so that thousands of years later people would find these Dead Sea Scrolls and see that the word of God is trustworthy and has not been manipulated.
5. God used the Zealots to show that a physical kingdom made by man was not the answer they needed.
6.  God used the Sadducees love of the Greek culture to teach the Jews of that day Greek so that they could read the recorded words about Christ’s life.
7.  God used the Pharisees to show that no one could ever live up to God’s strict standards and the world needed someone to deal with sin and that someone was Jesus Christ, God in flesh.
They were all used by God and they didn’t even know it.  That didn’t make it alright that they did things that they shouldn’t have but it did show that God was working through the kingdoms of the world to establish his kingdom.
Now let’s get back to our question that we asked at the beginning of the sermon.
What would Jesus say about the 2024 presidential election?
Closing:          Jesus rarely provided people with the answers they expected.  Often times he would turn around and answer their question with another question.  Jesus when asked about paying taxes gave a straightforward answer, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s so in that we are challenged to give our country what it is owed.  The answer is prayer, support, taxes, and participation in the electoral process.  Government isn’t bad, it may do bad things at time but that’s because it’s ran by people and people are imperfect and do imperfect things.  Guess what if you had to run the white house you would do some pretty dumb things, how do I know this because imagine the pressure involved in making decisions involving the lives of millions on a daily basis.  A decision that creates 5,000 new jobs may inadvertently destroy 3,000 other jobs.  A decision to let a starving kid come into the country may cause another child already here to starve.  Those are some staggering decisions. They need our prayers and some of you children, youth, maybe even adults may be called to have a career in politics and if God calls you to it there is nothing wrong with that, it is honorable to seek to better your country.  However, the answer I believed Jesus would have given based on Scripture would be this, a question.
Main Truth: Whose kingdom are you building?
-a kingdom for the thief who came to steal, kill and destroy or a savior who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly.  If you chase after the world and its agendas you’ll build the first kingdom, not the second. Give what is owed, rise above, build in the right order.
 
Invitation

In Isaiah chapters 40-45 we see a common theme given to God’s people through the prophet Isaiah. This common theme is that the gods of all the surrounding areas and the people they had interacted with are not worth comparing to the living God of Israel. We see the common theme that God can do things that these other gods cannot do. We see also the common talk of a coming Servant of the Lord who is going to be better than these gods as well. This Servant is of course Jesus. You might be asking yourself why in the world does this matter?

Well, the living God that is talked about in Isaiah is the same living God that can deliver from anything you may find yourself in! There are times that God even insults these gods for their lack of ability to do anything even something as simple as move - but guess what - He can! The chapters are full of almost comparisons and contrasts to this is what God can do and this is what these other gods cannot do. In your life today, do not trust in the things that cannot fill. Do not say this or that is better, but trust in the living God that can and will change your life and anything you find yourself in!

“Go therefore and MAKE DISCIPLES of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
Matthew 29:19

It has been my biblical conviction for nearly as long as I have been in
ministry that a healthy, growing church must be involved in missions and
outreach both at home and abroad. Some Christians have struggled with going
abroad when there is so much to do at home, and from a logical standpoint this
concern makes sense. However a biblical analysis doesn’t support this idea. Jesus
journeyed regularly throughout the neighboring regions and when He sends His
disciples out in Mark 6:7 it is to the surrounding villages. So even then ministry
where they were was to be assumed while also moving into new locations. When
Jesus sends the disciples out in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20, He
sends them out to all nations. This was part of God’s plan from the beginning.
Look at the churches you know that are growing and healthy and I think you’ll find
that most of them are involved in international missions. Even though from an
earthly standpoint this may not make sense from a heavenly perspective it does.
God blesses us at home when we go other places.

In 1796 William Carey left for India in what began the modern mission
movement. That isn’t to say that before Carey that people weren’t going abroad
and sharing the Gospel but it is to say that it was the beginning of the first
concentrated missions effort in a very long time. He, being in Europe, England to
be precise, left all he knew and journeyed to a foreign land with a very different
culture and even though he endured numerous hardships, God used him to have
a lasting Gospel impact. Even though I had been to Mexico and Haiti to do mission
work, in my heart, I wanted to follow in the steps of Carey and make a missions
journey to India. I had met Pastor Cyril Antony who was heavily involved in
successful missions work in India but God had not opened the door for that trip.
Pastor Cyril and I became friends, probably a decade ago, and even though I hadn’t been able to make a mission trip with him I prayed for him and supported
him as best as I could.

Then in a conversation one day he caught me off guard by saying: “You
should come to Italy with me and minister to the South Asian migrants there. This
is a very overlooked group and we should start a church there.” I began to pray
about this and watched as God started to open doors. Although I hadn’t been at
FBC Bogalusa long I could see that the church had a clear heart and support for
missions. So four of us went. Across the ocean to a place where there was no
Protestant or Evangelical churches, to a place where there were few Christians.
While the beauty of Italy was captivating the lostness of it was heavy. These were
people that God loved and they didn’t know about Him. Neither the South Asians
we had come to reach and minister to or the Italians. Yet a group of Indians was
reaching both people groups. What was intended to be a mission to reach South
Asians became a mission to reach Italians as well. Like William Carey, those
ministering on the ground discipling new believers and sharing the Gospel were
having immense struggles. Yet God was working.

We returned this year, not with a group of four but a group of ten from
multiple churches. During prayer walks in large cities we were able to make
connections with people and invite them to the food festival or church services.
We spent time discipling new believers through Bible studies in homes. We
encouraged them as well as presenting the Gospel to those who were curious and
seeking. Tears rolled down eyes as the love of God was proclaimed and heard by
individuals for the first time. Questions were asked of us, people were counting
the cost of following Jesus. Muslims pondered with us how different Christianity is
from Islam and if maybe they ought to consider it, one man, a devout Muslim
quickly told us that he could not find God despite all his religious efforts.
In the next few months a new missionary is supposed to be on the ground
full time to work with these individuals and to firmly establish this church. Please
pray for this, it’s a big deal. Most previous mission trips I’ve been on involve lots
of large evangelistic services, but before this can happen in Italy there has to be a
discipled group of believers ready to pour into new converts. There must be a
solid church they can come into and grow. This cannot be overlooked.

As I reflect on the events of the previous weeks I have to smile a little.
William Carey left Europe over two hundred years ago to bring the Gospel to India
and the results are now evident. While there are still lots of lost people in India
who need the Gospel there are also thriving churches, despite government
persecution. There are seminaries and Christian orphanages, the Gospel is being
proclaimed and lives are being changed. Meanwhile so much of Europe, Italy
included is without the hope of the Gospel. Churches have been converted into
museums and cultural centers. People are desperate for Jesus and don’t even
know it. Yet God knows and is making a way for them to hear, how amazing is it
that people from India are sending missionaries to proclaim the Gospel to the
very places that once did the same for them.

Please keep our Italy mission partnership with Spice Road in your prayers. Ask
God to protect and build this work so that many may come to know Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior.

Encouragement is a big deal. I was reminded of this yesterday as many of you came up to me after church and let me know that you’d be praying for me as I travel to Italy for missions, there were even a few unexpected neck hugs and I have to be honest with you, it meant a lot. I’d like to think sometimes that I’m tougher than I am, but let’s be honest, sometimes following God is hard. Sometimes God is calling us to step out in a big way or an inconvenient way and we struggle. As a dad, leaving my kids for a week is challenging, and as a pastor, leaving my church is not always easy. I’m glad to be a part of a church that believes in and practices encouragement.

Perhaps this is why Barnabas is one of my biblical heroes. I love that when we see Barnabas in Acts 11:22-24 on a missionary journey to Antioch he is encouraging the believers there. I also think about how Barnabas supported and encouraged the Apostle Paul. I wonder how much of what Paul did, especially early on, because God had used Barnabas to encourage him. The same has been true for my Christian walk. I can’t imagine how much of what I’ve accomplished is because God used people around me to encourage me through prayer, a supportive word, or some other simple form of urging me to keep pressing on in my calling.
 
Sometimes, we think that the words we say to others don’t make a difference. Other times we feel like we can’t do much for the Lord. Yet if we seek the Lord’s guidance He will show us how we can encourage and build up those around us. Consider 1 Thessalonians 5:11: “There encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” This is a simple command, but an important one. Especially in the age in which we live, there’s no shortage of reasons to be angry, critical, or just to avoid and ignore others. Yet God may use our words to help someone do something great for him or maybe to help someone get through a challenging season in their life. Certainly, there are moments when the truth needs to be spoken in love directly. However, I think that there are far many more moments when love needs to be spoken.

Thank you FBC Bogalusa for encouraging me and praying for me and I ask you to continue to do so for all of those individuals that God brings your way. I will seek to do the same as your pastor. I’ll pray for you and seek to build you up as well. I also hope that like Barnabas I can be an encouragement to the Christians in Italy as they serve Christ.

As Baptists, we unabashedly affirm that salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is only attainable through grace alone. Paul stated in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” This verse shapes a core tenant of our religious philosophy – we can never please God through our own works. If you are like me, when you read that verse you say PHEW! and wipe your forehead dramatically. We do not need to do a bunch of tasks throughout our life to receive salvation; rather, salvation is offered as “the gift of God,” free of charge, with no expiration date.

I know a lady who grew up in a system that taught her the exact opposite of that ideology. For several decades, she believed that her salvation was contingent upon her servitude to archaic, legalistic principles. For example, she could never watch TV, listen to the radio, go to college, cut her hair, join the military, wear pants or makeup, or participate in many other activity that would be considered normal today. Let me say this clearly – if your religious philosophy starts with, “You should be doing xyz to stay out of hell,” your philosophy is not Christian. True Christianity is much more joyful and beautiful than that!

One of the most influential Christian thinkers is Gregory of Nyssa (335-394), a Cappadocian Father, who believed that the end goal of Christian glorification is to become one with God. According to Gregory, this can only be accomplished through an act of God’s grace. This Christian philosopher, along with every other respected Christian theologian, echoed our inability to save ourselves from ourselves.

However, as St. Paul made clear in his letter to Titus, there is a connection between good works and salvation. Paul stated,

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. -Titus 2:11-14

There is not enough space in this blog to fully dive into the beauty of these verses; however, what Paul argued here is crucial – our salvation, although free of charge, produces evidence of renewal. That is, our eternal security in the resurrection of Christ will produce goodness. As C.S. Lewis famously stated, “The Christian does not believe that God loves us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”

When we become Christians, we do not automatically become perfect do-gooders. On the contrary, through the long and grueling process of sanctification, we become closer and closer to God. As we draw nearer to Him, we become more like Him. We should be zealots for goodness because God is goodness. Different translations of Scripture employ different wording, but the term “zealous” means “showing great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or objective” (Oxford Languages). Thus, according to Paul, we should show great energy and enthusiasm for good works because Jesus Christ “gave himself for us.”

My encouragement for you this Labor Day is to be zealous for goodness, not because it is required for salvation, but because you have been saved by grace. What a wonderful and incomprehensible truth to celebrate!

Let me know your thoughts below in the comments. See you next Monday for another blog post!

The past couple weeks, I have been deeply studying the wonderful book of Philippians. The phrase that has been sticking out to be the most is found in Philippians 2:1, “If there is any encouragement in Christ.” The content of Philippians is one of the most joy filled and encouraging books of the Bible; however, the context it is written in is anything but what we would call joyful. Paul was in prison for his faith while he is writing this letter and he time and time again talks about the joy we have in Christ and uses this phrase, “encouragement in Christ.”

What do we think about when we see these three words? Of course, we know that there is encouragement in Christ, but how can we tell that? I think, first, we need to look no further than Scripture. In fact, no further than Paul himself, as Paul has nothing to be encouraged about on his own doing or in his own life. His only encouragement is coming from the things God is doing. He rejoices because his imprisonment is allowing others to hear and speak the gospel. The biggest form of encouragement in Christ we see is that He provides salvation for us - that we can go from death to life, from lost to found, only because of Him. We can see countless other times of the church being encouraged throughout Acts, especially from one man named Barnabas, which means Son of Encouragement (Acts 4:36). Throughout Scripture, we see that there are people who encourage in Christ and there are circumstances that cause us to be encouraged because of what Christ is doing.

This does not stop at Scripture; I am currently reading a book called To the Golden Shore, a biography about a famous missionary named Adoniram Judson and seeing how God worked in his life even from a young age to prepare him for the work that God was going to do through Him is truly remarkable and a great point of engouement. We can look around even right now at First Baptist Church of Bogalusa and see the wonderful things that God is doing. These things should leave us with nothing but “encouragement in Christ.” Now this of course does not mean that everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows and that we will forever be on “cloud-9” so to speak. There will be low moments in our faith. There will be times where it seems that Satan is working and that we are losing bad, but the good news is that we get to look around and see that in Scripture, and in the life of our church, God is working - and that should bring us encouragement. Encouragement to continue pursuing Christ, to continue to see the encouraging things He has in store for us, and to live a life being encouraged and encouraging others in Christ. May we all be like Barnabas to the disciples and be a force of encouragement for Christ. I leave you with this, to quote one of our very own, Frank Martin, “Are you encouraged?” I hope and pray our answer to this can be yes, because of what Jesus has done and what He is continuing to do.

Bro. Josh is leading us through a journey of understanding Our Victory in Christ. Yesterday, he spoke about faith and how it permits us to have fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. While listening to the sermon, I had this thought on my mind: what is faith?

Often, Christians are chastised for having “blind faith,” that is, belief in something that cannot be substantiated. This argument generally comes from nonbelievers who think that faith is in opposition to intellectualism. I firmly believe, contrary to these arguments, faith cannot be blind because everything is based on something. For example, let’s say that I believe aliens are real. Although this claim cannot be proven, I could point to the vastness of the universe, the likelihood of life on observable planets, and many more astronomical facts to base my belief upon. Additionally, even those who may not use factual data base their claims on anecdotes. Tangent aside, faith is not unfounded belief; rather, faith is belief in something that cannot be seen (Heb. 11:1).

One of my favorite reads is Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard. The entire book is dedicated to unearthing the motives of Abraham in sacrificing his son, Isaac, on Mt. Moriah. Throughout the writing, Kierkegaard praises Abraham for his incredible faith. One of his primary claims is that, contrary to popular belief, Abraham did not have faith that God would provide for him after the sacrifice. Rather, Abraham’s faith was assurance that God would stop the sacrifice. Kierkegaard stated, “But what did Abraham do? He came neither too early nor too late. He mounted the donkey, he rode slowly down the path. All along he had faith, he believed that God would not demand Isaac of him, while still he was willing to offer him if that was indeed what was demanded.” He continues by claiming that Abraham had faith in the absurd. Without any evidence or logic, Abraham believed that God would demand Isaac’s sacrifice, and in the next moment, stop it completely. Abraham had complete faith in God, which is why Kierkegaard named him a knight of faith.

As Soren Kierkegaard articulated, faith is believing in God’s character and promises even in moments of absolute absurdity. How often have you found yourself in a case of absurdity? Has God ever pushed you to share the gospel with a random person? Has He ever implored you to take a job position that you did not want to take? Has He told you that everything will be alright in situations where nothing is alright? I have asked myself this so many times – “How in the world could God turn this into something good?” Believing that God will do what He says is, according to the world, a very absurd thing to do. But in reality, not having faith in God is much more absurd! God is capable of “far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20.

Although I could have written much more, you have plenty to do today! As you are contemplating your faith, I encourage you to consider how much of it you possess. Would you be willing to completely upend your life to pursue God? Would you walk up to a mountain to sacrifice your child with the faith that God would stop you? These are very uncomfortable questions to ask because they make us think about how much we truly believe in God.

But here is the most wonderful part of it all – God can do a lot with our faith. Jesus said, “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

Let us all go out today with the wonderful knowledge that God is on our side. With the faith of a mustard seed, God is capable of moving mountains for us!

Good morning church family! I hope you are all having a wonderful start to your week. I wanted to take some time to introduce the newest addition to our online presence.

Over the past several weeks, the staff and I have been pondering how to further our church's involvement on social media, particularly through our app and website. We have discussed many avenues on how to expand the ministry of our church into this sphere. Although more additions will be made in the future, we want to introduce the FBCB Blog!

We will use this platform to share spiritual encouragement and more details about church events, expand on ministry opportunities, highlight the activities of our church, and so much more!

• Spiritual Encouragement: The primary purpose of the FBCB Blog is to provide spiritual encouragement to you and the other wonderful members of our congregation. Starting next Monday, we will publish weekly devotions for you to read and participate in. After you read a blog post, you can comment any questions or insights you gleaned from the devotion, allowing the author to clear up any confusion. These posts will not follow a consistent theme; rather, they will simply be spiritual insights that the author wishes to share.
• Church Events: With the addition of our blog, you can see expanded info for upcoming events, providing more personal information on how they relate to our church vision. 
• Ministry Opportunities:  Through the FBCB Blog, we will provide you a way to learn more about how a particular ministry will be conducted, how it will forward the goals of our church, and how you can get involved!
• Church Activities: Throughout the week, we have many activities and ministries going on that we want you to be know about! We will keep you up to date through this new blog so stay tuned!

The start of the work/school week can be a stressful time. Each of us have too many things going on in our lives to count. If you are like me, getting trapped into a negative web of thinking can be easy! Too often, my thought process is this: I have so much to do, so I will get all of that stuff done and then I will read my Bible, pray, etc. God continually reminds me that He is not another task to be completed but the paper on which the to-do list is written. Everything that we do should be oriented around worshipping and glorifying our Father in Heaven. Thus, starting our week off grounded in the promises of God is vital!

As stated, we will be posting on this blog every Monday will spiritual devotions aimed at starting your work/school week off right. These Monday posts will never be as long as this one so you should be able to read them quickly.

Our mission at FBCB Bogalusa is simple: to make disciples. Each of our ministries is aimed at this goal, including the addition of this blog. As Christians, we often fall into the trap of believing that once someone comes to Christ, he or she can be left alone. This is not only false, but detrimental to the health of the church.

According to Oxford Languages, a disciple is a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher. As a college student, I am frequently expected to learn from those with much more wisdom and knowledge than I possess. This is an absolutely necessary process that I must endure to eventually become a teacher myself. During this process, I fail, get up, try again, keep failing, try again, succeed, fail again, and so on and so forth. However, this difficult process will be worth it in the end, as all good things are. Just like my academic journey, we are continually expected to follow Jesus Christ. Just as a college student continues to learn from his or her professor, so should we continue to learn from Jesus Christ. And as we learn, we should be teaching others as well. Let us be bold and excited to share the gospel and continue to disciple those who believe as we do!

Throughout the week, you will see posts that encourage you to grow in your walk with Christ. I pray that you use these opportunities to reflect on your own walk and share your experiences with others. Regardless of whether you have been a Christian for decades or minutes, know this: we are NOT the type of church to leave you stranded after you come to Christ. We are here to be your community and we have every intention of sticking to that!

We want you to be included in the FBCB Blog! As stated, you will have the ability to leave comments on each post, which will allow us to clarify any questions you may have or hear your insights. Also, using the form below, you can give us suggestions on topics to discuss in the future!

As this new ministry begins, I hope you will share this blog with others and stay active in this a part of our church community. If you have any questions, please reach out to the church office.