Download MP3: Ehud: Two Edge Sword

The story of Othniel is in Judges 3:7-11. It begins with the disobedience of the children of Israel. Verse 7 says the problem began when the children of Israel forgot the Lord. They forgot His goodness and His mercy. We tend to do that. Forgetting the goodness of God causes tension, anxiety, and worry. It pulls us away from God. Remembering saves us.

The children of Israel forgot God. They turned to the false gods of the pagan world, deities of crops and fertility. These were the paths to wealth in that day. Too much success leads us to forget God. There can be blessing in struggle, and there is danger in prosperity and ease.

God allowed an oppressor to arise: Chushanrishathaim. His name twists the modern tongue, but is rich with meaning. The “-rishathaim” suffix is taken to mean “doubly wicked,” while “Chushan” identifies the king as a Cushite, perhaps descended from the evil Nimrod.

But God’s mercy is great. When Israel cried out, God raised up a deliverer in Othniel, a man of the tribe of Judah. Before fighting the oppressor, the text says that Othniel judged Israel. We may need to repent and reform before we are granted deliverance from oppressive situations in our own lives.

Othniel was nephew to Caleb, having the pedigree of a leader. Yet deliverance came from God, not because Othniel came from a notable family. As verse 10 records, “the Spirit of the LORD came upon him,” and Israel was delivered.

Download MP3: Othniel: It Only Takes One

Pastor John points out that the pool of Bethesda helped only those who could help themselves. Only those well enough to win a race to the pool could hope for healing from that quarter. After 38 years, it was clear the lame man had little chance of winning that race. The hope offered by the pool had become hopelessness for him. It was not a good life, but it was predictable. And so it was that when Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be made whole (John 5:6), the man did not say yes. Instead, he explained how the pool offered hope, but the hope could never be his.

This man thought happiness could only come from the pool. Jesus surprised him with healing and deliverance. Pastor John poses a question: what is your pool? What do you think will make you whole? We wait by many pools, sometimes for years: marriage, children, a job, a promotion, a salary, a body shape, a set of friends. Consider the lesson in this healing. The man did not earn it. His actions and words did not commend him to Jesus; he did not even say to Jesus, “Yes, I need healing.” Yet Jesus did heal him fully. Let us stop waiting by the pool and turn to Jesus.

Download MP3: Waiting by the Pool

In today’s message, Pastor John, answers this question as he explores the life of Sham-gar. Through Sham-gar, we see how God takes someone plain and ordinary and uses him for something wonderful.

Download MP3: From Plain to Precious

 Download MP3: A Thinking People

In Matthew 9:12, Jesus tells the religious leaders of the day that only the sick need healing. If Jesus spoke only of physical sickness, that statement would have been needless. Jesus was speaking of sin. In this chapter of Matthew, Jesus has just called the publican Matthew to leave his unethical trade and become a disciple. Matthew has responded eagerly, staging a feast where his friends can meet his new Master. In polite Jewish society, Matthew and his friends were not accepted. Jesus faced criticism for joining the feast: “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” demanded the Pharisees. His answer surely must have puzzled them. He further explained: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

When we deny our own sickness, our own sinfulness, we join the Pharisees in disparaging the needy sinners who receive Christ with joy. The bible teaches us that all have sinned. Not only did Jesus Christ die to defeat sin, He lives and intercedes in our lives today to bring healing from the effects of sin.

Download MP3: A God Who Heals

Our society has high standards for success. Few in fact attain the world’s performance-based praise for very long. Using Romans 5:8 as a text, Pastor John shares God’s perspective in contrast to that of society at large. In God’s view, none of us achieves success; we all fall into sin. Jesus died to secure us mercy from the punishment we deserve, and to impart the grace we did not deserve. It is the undeserved gift of grace that brings us into heavenly places.

The pursuit of the world’s standards of success can be a heavy burden, and can easily become idolatry if it displaces our trust in God as the source of our merit and our hope. Awareness of grace is the remedy. As John Newton wrote, “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” The words of the hymn teach that a true appreciation of grace, sola gratia, reminds us each day that we owe all to Christ.

Download MP3: Sola Gratia

After reading his text, “By grace are ye saved through faith,” Pastor John quickly acquaints us with a significant controversy involving this verse and others linking faith with salvation. Some believe salvation achieved through faith is that of eternity in heaven, and therefore that all of God’s children will express faith during their lives through willing submission to Christ as Lord. This position is sometimes labeled “Lordship theology.” Adherents of free-grace theology believe the scriptures record several varieties of salvation, and that the faith of the believer purchases a different sort of salvation, distinct from eternity in heaven.

Advocates on both sides of the issue criticize each other–often justly–for the errors to which their respective biases make them prone. Believers in Lordship theology may miss the size of God’s love. God is able to save (that is, to bring home to heaven) the aborted child, the mentally incompetent person, and the child born in an oppressive anti-Christian culture in the same way he saves people blessed to hear and accept or reject the gospel message–by grace. On the other hand, those who preach free grace can overlook the truth that God’s richest blessing are reserved for the obedient, and may lack a measure of evangelistic zeal. Camp Creek Church holds the free grace position.

We believe faith is not a litmus test of eternal destiny, but a lifestyle of progressive luminance, revealing God to the believer with ever more clarity. The more faith grows, the more of Christ we will see. And, because Christ alone is the way to God (solo Christo), the more of God we will see.

Download MP3: Sola Fide

In today’s message, Pastor John exhorts us to exercise our faith, so that we can experience God’s grace and experience heaven on earth. Through Christ alone, we have access to God and eternal life. This message is the third in the Core series on the five solas of the Reformation.

Download MP3: Solo Christo

In this message, Pastor John examines the bible as God’s revelation to His creation. Words define, strengthen, and enrich relationships. So do the words of God define, strengthen, and enrich our relationship with Him. Pastor John leads us to reflect on how the bible came to be written and achieve its modern form–the canon–and to consider the narrative arc of revelation as God progressively reveals His character through the events of history.

Download MP3: Sola Scriptura