Lately there has been this faucet at my house that has been dripping when you shut it off. I am by no means a plumber, but I am decently handy, so I decided to see if I could fix it (I know what you’re thinking…domestic bliss!). In no time I had the handle taken apart, trying to figure out what was causing the leak. You would be amazed at how many pieces there were to that one handle – at least I was. As I was putting everything back together, it occurred to me that this faucet was a lot like our lives – humor me here, you know how preachers are always looking for things that will preach!

Over the years, dirt and grime had built up on the inside of my faucet handle to the point where things just weren’t working the way that they were supposed to. I took it apart, cleaned up all the pieces, and when I put it all back together, everything worked just like it was made to.

Most of us can probably relate to feeling like the dirt that has built up over the years keeps us from functioning like we were made to. The problem for us is that we lack what it takes to clean off the mess. Sure we try to dress things up and convince everybody else that everything is okay; a lot of the time we might even succeed at it. The point is that we can never really fix things by ourselves, though. Instead, we need someone to take the pieces of our lives and to clean us and put us back together.

This is where the beauty of the gospel finds us. We know that on our own we can never do enough or be clean enough to earn God’s favor. Instead, he desires for us to surrender everything to him in order that he might fix the broken pieces of our lives. There was a point as I was playing a plumber that I thought to myself, “If only I knew how everything in this faucet worked, this would all go much easier.” This particular faucet was made by Delta, and I can’t help but think that it probably was made right here in Chickasha at the old Delta faucet factory. Somewhere out there is somebody who used to build these faucets every day, and were that person to have been staring at all the pieces, I’m sure they would have known exactly what was needed to make everything right again. This is what God does for us. He made us, and he knows exactly what we need to be fulfilled and to experience the fullness of life that we were made for. And when we respond by faith to the gospel of Jesus Christ, he cleanses us and puts all the pieces of our lives back together.

I’m not saying that it’s always easy to surrender to him. In fact, if it were easy, what would stop us from doing it? The truth is that being cleansed and restored is often a slow and a painful process full of breaking free form old habits and getting rid of sins that we grown quite comfortable with. But until we allow Christ to really do work on the inner workings of our lives, we will never really work the way that we were made to. We’ll always be like my old leaky faucet, always running from what God has for us.

So what is it that keeps you from surrendering your all to Christ? What things does he need to cleanse you from in order that he might fix what is broken in your life? Remember that he made you, and he knows exactly what it’s going to take for you to experience the fullness of life that you were made to know!

In case you haven’t heard, our Celebrate Recovery program is celebrating its 5 year anniversary this week, and I wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate with them over all that God has done and will continue to do through this ministry. Because of this ministry, our church has been able minister to hundreds of people over the last half-decade who were in need of the life-changing message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is something truly special about a group of people who are willing to be so honest and humble with one another as to share their struggles with life’s hurts, habits, and hangups. With Celebrate Recovery, that’s what you get every Monday night. If you’ve never been to a meeting, you really ought to come participate some Monday; you might be surprised with what you find.

When I served as a youth pastor, my church attempted to start a Life Hurts, God Heals group, which is essentially the companion to Celebrate Recovery for teenagers. We had a group of leadership who were committed to the ministry and who worked passionately to make it succeed, but we could never get the ministry to take off. It seemed that despite all of our planning and our best efforts, we couldn’t remove the stigma of the group being for broken, messed up teenagers. Everyone thought of it as AA for teens, and, for better or for worse, this was a hurdle that we couldn’t seem to overcome. We tried a number of ways to make the program work, but after about a year and a half we eventually decided that the ministry just wasn’t going to work until we found a group of students who were willing to be brave enough to open themselves up to being vulnerable about their struggles and their failures.

That type of honesty requires an extreme form of bravery. We all would admit that we make mistakes, but how many of us are willing to sit in a room with other people and to share openly about the ways that we fail? This sort of thing only happens if there are a few brave leaders who are willing to go first. I am grateful for the leadership of our Celebrate Recovery ministry, who from the beginning, have set the standard by creating the kind of environment where people feel safe to share openly about their struggles. But not only the leaders, I thankful for the hundreds who have come over the years to share their struggles and to celebrate the freedom that is available because of Jesus Christ.

The reason that Celebrate Recovery works is because it is based on leading people to surrender control of their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If Celebrate Recovery were just about people admitting their mistakes, it might provide some form of catharsis or a temporary victory, but it wouldn’t last. It is because the program is centered on gospel that it truly works. The only power that can change us or set us free from our sin and our patterns of destructive behavior is the gospel of Jesus Christ. More than any other reason, this is why I am thankful for our Celebrate Recovery ministry. Rain or shine, every Monday we have a group of people who are faithful to listen and to pray for one another, all while celebrating the power of the gospel at work in our hearts as Jesus transforms us into something beautiful and new. Consider this your open invitation to come celebrate the power of the gospel to change hearts and transform lives. Join us as we Celebrate Recovery!

If you missed our worship service this past Sunday, then you missed a real blessing. We celebrated by observing both baptism and the Lord’s supper together. It was such a great picture of what God is doing in our midst to see so many share together in a solemn reminder of Christ’s sacrifice that purchased our freedom. There was a real sense in our worship on Sunday that God is doing something special in our church, and it’s exciting to be a part of his kingdom at work.

But my favorite moment from our service on Sunday was one that few people saw. At about 9 Sunday morning I met the Lee family upstairs to make sure that everything was squared away for Lydia’s baptism. We went into the baptistry room, and as I opened the baptistry to make sure the water temperature was okay, I received quite a surprise. There was no water in the baptistry! At some point it had been emptied and cleaned and I had no idea. I felt like I had egg on my face. Here is this precious young girl excited to be baptized, with family and friends all making the trip to cheer her on, and I forgot the first rule of being a baptist – make sure there’s water in the baptistry! (If that’s not the first rule, it ought to be…) The Lees were very understanding, assuring me that they would be okay with whatever we could work out, but that if it were at all possible to fill up the baptistry, Lydia really wanted to get baptized. She had been waiting anxiously for this day and small details like not having water weren’t going to dampen her excitement. I turned on the water, said a brief prayer, and I crossed my fingers, hoping that we would have enough water by service time to make good on Lydia’s baptism. It worked. We were able to start our service with Lydia’s baptism yesterday, as scheduled, but with one big difference from our plan. The water was cold. And when I say cold, I mean COLD! I was wearing waders, and when I got out of the baptistry, my legs were totally numb.

I learned a few important lessons yesterday. First of all, ALWAYS check the baptistry to make sure it’s full. You can bet I won’t make that mistake twice. Second, I now have expert knowledge of our baptistry. I know where every pump, every drain, every water line and shut off valve is. And I learned that it takes exactly one hour to fill that thing full with 500 gallons of freezing cold water. But more importantly, I learned a much greater lesson. Lydia Lee taught me that when you are serious about following after Jesus, little things like a tub full of freezing water won’t get in your way. See, the part that no one else got to see on Sunday was the excitement on that little girl’s face to tell the whole world that she had given her life to Christ. And nothing – not even bone-chilling water or small things like an empty baptistry – was going to stand in her way from making her declaration that she belongs to Jesus.

Too many times we use the hurdles that are in front of us as an excuse to give up. When the going gets tough, we throw in the towel. But an 8 year old girl reminded me yesterday that there is nothing in this world that should stand in my way of declaring my allegiance to the King of all Kings. Thanks, Lydia. I needed that.

Merry Christmas! As you are finishing your final preparations for Christmas, I pray that you will have a joyful holiday with family and friends. As 2011 draws to a close, I’ve spent some time reflecting on all that has happened inside of the last year. To say the least, this has been a huge year both for our church and for my family. Who would have known just one year ago just how much God was going to bless us by leading us on a journey that would bring us here to First Baptist Church Chickasha.

It was in the days just before Christmas last year that Raylee and I formally accepted the invitation from the pastor search committee at First Baptist Church Chickasha to come in view of call as the church’s next pastor. We spent Christmas of 2010 with hearts full of joy and anticipation for where we felt God was leading us. Fast forward another year and the thought of coming to pastor First Baptist Church is no longer just a dream. I can tell you that Christmas is even sweeter this year than ever, now that we have come to be a part of the First family. We love our church family more than you know. You are constantly on our hearts and in our prayers. There have been many times this past year where we have had the occasion to reflect how much God blessed our lives by leading us to Chickasha.

As Christmas day approaches, I want to take one more opportunity to challenge you that you not miss Jesus this year at Christmas. John sums up the real reason for our celebration better than anyone in John 1:14 when he writes, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” At this time of year more than any other we celebrate the fact that the Word became flesh! I pray that you will worship Jesus fully this year at Christmas by honoring him with all that you do. This year at Christmas, I hope that at every family gathering, every party, even every worship service you attend that Jesus may be center stage as we celebrate the birth of our risen Savior!

If you missed our service this past Sunday night, you truly missed out on a blessing. Gerald and Vicki Davis, Southern Baptist International Mission Board missionaries to Southeast Asia were with us sharing about their experiences in more than 27 years on the mission field. Their stories were truly amazing; hearing them share about ways that our IMB missionaries are at work to advance the gospel to all the peoples of the earth was both inspiring and motivating. There is so much work yet to be done in order for us to fulfill the Great Commission task of taking the gospel to every tribe and tongue, but it is encouraging to know that we have some of the most gifted and committed believers that I know of serving on the front lines as our IMB missionaries.

When it comes to reaching the unreached people of the world, there are three significant ways that we can be involved as a church. The first thing that we can commit to do is to Pray for our missionaries around the globe. Gerald and Vicki shared with us last night about the blessing that it was to know that their SBC family was supporting their work in prayer. The great thing about prayer is that anyone can do it. No one has the excuse of not being able to pray for the work that needs to be done. You can pray for our more than 5,000 missionaries that are serving on the mission field through the IMB. You can pray for the nationals in all of the countries where the IMB has an active presence, that an indigenous church with indigenous leadership would be raised up from those who our missionaries are reaching and discipling. You can pray for the millions of people from among the 3,789 unengaged, unreached people groups who have no witness to the gospel among their culture. You can pray that God might stir your heart with ways that you can take a more active role in helping to reach the unreached people of the world. Everyone can pray!

The second way that we can be involved as a church is to Give. This month Southern Baptist churches are working together collecting our annual Lottie Moon Christmas offering. The convention-wide goal for Lottie Moon this year is 175 million dollars. We have the opportunity to contribute toward this all during the month of December. So far this year our church has raised close to $1,200 for Lottie Moon, but we can do so much more. As Americans, we have been blessed with so much. You have but to travel outside of our country to realize the many things that we take for granted each and every day. With Christmas approaching, most of us are going to spend hundreds if not more buying gifts for people who want for very little. What if instead this year, you commit to spending less on Christmas in order that you might give more to our Lottie Moon offering to help reach people everywhere with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

And finally, you and I can help reach our world by looking for ways that we might Go. Let’s face it, praying and even giving are easy ways to be a part of reaching people. Where it gets much more difficult, much more personal for us is when God calls us to go. And yet if we do not accept the call to go and to make disciples, then how will the unreached people of the world ever hear the gospel? This next year we will be working as a church to develop strategic partnerships with IMB missionaries that will enable us to begin sending people to serve in short-term missions. Could it be that God wants you to join us as we are stirred to action for the Great Commission? My prayer is that you would be open to God’s leadership in your life, so that wherever he leads you might go.

There are three ways that we must be involved in strategically reaching people from around the globe with the gospel. We can Pray, Give, and Go. Let us commit together to be focused on God’s direction, that he might use us to fulfill his desire to reach people everywhere!