The Law, Idolatry, and the Heart

A message from Exodus 20:4-6 on January 17, 2010 by Aaron Orendorff.

What The Law Isn't...

A message from Exodus 20:1-3 on January 10, 2010 by Aaron Orendorff.

10 Hundred Hours of Prayer

After the powerful response to December’s 5(hundred) Hours of Prayer, this coming Monday (February 1st) New Life Church will begin a new season of prayer focused on the upcoming (Fall 2010) Wilsonville Church Plant. As the logo indicates, this time around we’ll be aiming at reaching a cumulative total of 1,000 hours of prayer—i.e., “10 Hundred Hours.” This period of prayer will stretch from the beginning of February to Easter Sunday (April 4th). This will be the first of our prayer efforts for Wilsonville, but it won’t be the last.

Why Spend 10 Hundred Hours in Prayer?

Matthew 16:18
“. . . on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

At its core, church planting is a strategic and offensive engagement in the advancement of God’s kingdom. The ground we seek to take is far from neutral. It is hostile, enemy territory dominated by the powerful and gospel-blinding “god of this age ” (2 Cor. 4:4). Our aim is not to simply open a new or renovated building in which to sing songs, preach sermons, host events and invite the lost. Our aim is to see, as Jesus put it, the “ruler of this world cast out” (Jn. 12:31), to see the “strong man bound” and “to plunder his house” (Matt. 12:29).

In line with that aim we are beginning 10 Hundred Hours of Prayer with a focus on spiritual warfare. This Sunday you’ll find an insert in your bulletin (that will also appear on the blog) containing a scripted prayer to help guide you through Week 1. Most of that prayer will be taken from Ephesians 6:10-20 which begins by commanding its reader to “be strong in the Lord” and to “put on the whole armor of God.”

We hope you will join with us in this exciting and dangerous endeavor.

Treasureland Kids Collect Cans for Haiti

On Saturday, January 24th about 20 Treasureland kids and their parents joined together for a pop can drive. They loaded vehicles with bags of refundable cans and bottles they collected by going door-to-door asking people to donate their cans and bottles so the proceeds can be given to help those affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The children also gave out fliers with information on other ways people could give to this cause. In addition to collecting numerous bags of bottles and cans, the children received over $100 in cash donations.

A job well done by our Treasureland kids!

Prayer and Fasting on the re:Gen Blog

Check out this recent series of posts on Prayer & Fasting over at the re:Generātion blog that were put up in preparation for the launch of our on-campus Clackamas Community College (CCC) Life Group.

Prayer and Fasting (1) - Why Fast?
Prayer and Fasting (2) - Transformational Fasting
Prayer and Fasting (3) - Missional Fasting & Application(s)

Your Dream For Your Church Is Too Small

A Message from Acts 1:8 on January 3, 2010 by Scott Reavely

Treasuring God

Here is a message, Treasuring God, from December 27, 2009, on Philippians 3:4-14 by Scott Reavely. This message captures much of what New Life Church is about and what we mean when we talk about Treasuring God.

re:Generātion Pre-Launch Underway

re:Generātion had its first of three pre-Launch Meeting last night here at the church. Thanks to the footwork and recruiting of a number of key people (as well as to the prayers of those of you who aided in last month’s 5(hundred) Hours), we’re starting off with a core team of just under 30 young adults representing at least three different churches: New Life Church (West Linn), Good Roots Community (Milwaukie) and Clackamas Bible Church (Clackamas). If you’d like more information on what’s going on with re:Generātion check out our new blog at nlregeneration.blogspot.com.

A Thank You to New Life Church

Dear Church Members,

Your love, compassion, and kindness is greatly appreciated. Words can't express how thankful I am to be part of New Life's family. You are a part of my family in Christ. Thank you.

Love,

Jaden & Maddison Hope

Children Helping Haiti

New Life Church children will be collecting aluminum cans to help the crisis in Haiti through the end of January, 2010. Our funds will go to support Forward Edge, a relief organization based in Vancouver. They will buy building supplies when the rebuilding starts.

Here’s how you can help:

• Donate pop cans to New Life Church children in the next two weeks.
• Give online at www.newlifenw.com. Click on the eGiving tab and designate “Haiti” in the line marked “other.
• Make a check out to “New Life Church” with “Haiti” in the memo line.
• Pray.

Here are some pictures from the Boston Globe to give you an idea of the devastation.

What is re:Generātion?

Vision

New Life re:Generātion exists to engage young adults in gospel-centered community focused on worship, mission and leadership development.

What is re:Generātion?

Starting February 28th, re:Generātion will be primarily organized around a weekly, Sunday-night gathering from 6:00-9:00pm made up of three, interlocking elements.

First: missionally-focused Life Groups. From 6:00-6:45pm, the church will be open and available as a meeting place for various small groups each of which will be organized around reaching a specific people-group for the sake of the gospel (i.e., recovering addicts, a particular neighborhood, CCC students, young, single-mothers, etc.).

Second: Word and Worship. From 7:00-8:45pm, there will be a time of public teaching and corporate worship aimed (in both style and content) toward communicating and applying the gospel to a 20-something audience. Because worship is a response to revelation, this “service” will be intentionally frontloaded with gospel-Word so that the last half or so can be spent in gospel-Worship.

Third: a prayer ministry. After the time of teaching, while most people will still be in worship, the Fireside Room will be open for prayer to those wanting to respond to the message or who came that night with special needs. A team of trained volunteers (led by Kevin Dickey and Crystal Carlson) will provide a welcoming and guiding presence in the prayer room in service to those who reach-out.

Who is re:Generātion for?

re:Generātion is aimed at:

1. Training and equipping young adults at New Life Church for life and ministry.

2. Training and equipping young adults from other churches for life and ministry in their local church.

3. Reaching unchurched, young adults with the gospel.

How can I (as a church member) get involved?

First: through prayer. The Sunday-night prayer room will be the primary place for relational overlap between New Life Church at large (i.e., non-young adults) and the members of re:Generātion. This setting will provide a powerful opportunity for mentor-type relationships to develop.

In addition to the Sunday-night prayer room there will also be an ongoing prayer effort organized to support the ministry of re:Generātion. This group will meet periodically through the month to pray for the leadership and leadership development of re:Generātion, re:Generātion’s evangelistic outreach and any other special needs.

If you’re interested in finding out more information about serving in the prayer room or on the support prayer team, please contact Aaron Orendorff at aorendorff@newlifenw.com.

Second: through giving. Most of the financial support for re:Generātion will come from the general fund. However, there will be special projects from time to time that we’ll need help to accomplish. Please keep your ears and eyes open for opportunities to give.

Exporting, Not Hoarding, Leaders

At last Saturday’s elders’ retreat we asked the question, “What does a ‘win’ in 2010 look like for New Life Church?” One the answers we surfaced was “exporting leadership.” What this means is that as church our goal, to borrow Scott Haugen’s phrase, can’t be to “just get fat.” Although it may sound backwards at first, taking a gospel-shaped view of leadership development means giving our leaders away in order to grow new and more developed ones. In reality, this is nothing more than the straightforward application of Matthew 16:25 to the area of leadership: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

First of all, I love being part of a church whose spiritual leaders are fueled by the belief that the only way to gain something is to give it away. This conviction is one of the major reasons we spent so much time giving ourselves away last year in Oregon City. It’s also one of the main reasons behind giving ourselves away this next year in Wilsonville.

Second, I was incredibly encouraged when I came across the following quote from a new book I’ve just begun reading entitled The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything:

We must be exporters of trained people instead of hoarders of trained people. . . . [O]ur view of gospel work must be global as well as local: the goal isn’t church growth (in the sense of our local church expanding in numbers, budget, church-plants and reputation) but gospel growth. If we train and send workers into new fields (both local and global), our local ministry might not grow numerically but the gospel will advance through these new ministries (25-26).

re:Generātion Blog

From Karma to Grace

Towards the end of yesterday’s sermon—“What the Law Isn’t . . . and Is”—I used the following excerpt from an recent interview with U2 front-man Bono on the difference between what many people call “karam” and grace. It really is a powerful and well-put illustration between how the law-as-principle operates (i.e., legalism) and how the gospel-as-principle operates.

Bono: I really believe we’ve moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

[Interviewer]: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so you will sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

[Interviewer]: I’d be interested to hear that.

Bono: That’s between me and God. But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. . . . It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

[Interviewer]: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way [you] are, to selfishness, and there’s a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humble. . . . It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

Christ and the Ten Commandments

Given the natural, human tendency to try and justify ourselves by our works (that is, by who we are and what we do) rather than depend fully upon Jesus Christ by faith (that is, on who He is and what He did), I thought it would be helpful to begin our study of the Ten Commandments by sharing a decidedly Christ-centered summary of the Decalogue from John Frame’s recent book The Doctrine of the Christian Life:

Christ is the substance of the law. . . . Jesus is not only a perfect law keeper, according to his humanity, but also the one we honor and worship, according to his deity, when we keep the law.

1. The first commandment teaches us to worship Jesus as the one and only Lord, Savior and mediator (Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5).

2. In the second commandment, Jesus is the one perfect image of God (Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3). Our devotion to him precludes worship of any other image.

3. In the third commandment, Jesus is the name of God, that name to which every knee shall bow (Phil. 2:10-11; cf. Isa. 45:23).

4. In the fourth commandment, Jesus is our Sabbath rest. In his presence, we cease our daily duties and hear his voice (Luke 10:38-42). His is Lord of the Sabbath as well (Matt. 12:8), who makes the Sabbath his own Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10).

5. In the fifth commandment, we honor Jesus, who restores us to the divine family as he submits himself entirely to the will of the Father (John 5:19-24).

6. In the sixth commandment, we honor him as our life (John 10:10; 14:6; Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:4), the Lord of life (Acts 3:15), the one who gave his life that we might live (Mark 10:45).

7. In the seventh commandment, we honor him as our bridegroom, who gave himself to cleanse us, to make us his pure, spotless bride (Eph. 5:22-33). We love him as no other.

8. In the eighth commandment, we honor Jesus as the source of our inheritance (Eph. 1:11), as the one who provides everything that his people need in the world and beyond.

9. In the ninth commandment, we honor him as God’s truth (John 1:17; 14:6), in whom all the promises of God as Yes and Amen (2 Cor. 1:20).

10. In the tenth commandment, we honor him as our complete sufficiency (2 Cor. 3:5; 12:9) to meet both our eternal needs and the renewed desires of our hearts. In him we can be content with what we have, thankful for his present and future gifts.

The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John Frame

5(hundred) Hours Finale

Last Sunday, January 3rd, marked the close of re:Generātion’s 5(hundred) Hours of Prayer.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated. As of Sunday’s collection, 502 hours have been reported (and remember, those are actual hours, not assumed, not pledged, not padded, actual hours).

With the launch date quickly approaching, there will (of course) be an ongoing need for prayer in re:Generātion. If you’re interested in serving on the prayer team (whether in Sunday night’s prayer room or simply in support), please let me know.

The launch schedule for re:Generātion is as follows:

January 17th
Launch Team Training; 6-8pm @ Riverfalls

January 24th
Launch Team Training; 5-7pm @ Riverfalls

January 31st
Launch Team Training; 6-8pm @ Riverfalls

February 7th
Super Bowl; Promote re:Generātion (No Meeting)

February 14th
Valentine’s Day (No Meeting)

February 21st
Pre-Launch Meeting; 6-8pm @ Riverfalls

February 28th
re:Generātion Launch; Doors Open @ 6pm

After last Sunday’s message, it should be clear that the vision for 2010 is enormous, ambitious and truly impossible without God’s presence and blessing. It won’t be long until our next corporate prayer effort begins . . . and you can be sure that if we spent 500 hours praying in December, with all of the travel and crazy scheduling that Christmas and the New Year bring, our next goal will be even higher.

10Words in Twenty10

Exodus 20:1, “And God spoke all these words, saying . . .”

Exodus 34:28, “So [Moses] was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.”

This coming Sunday—January 10th, 2010—we’ll be launching into a new sermon series picking up where we left off in the book of Exodus before Christmas. This new series—“10Words in Twenty10”—will focus on the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:1-17, known traditionally as the “Decalogue,” a compound term which literally means the ten (deca-) words (-logos). Each week we’ll work our way through one of God’s covenant “words,” fleshing out first how that law applied to the people of Israel when it was originally received and then examining its relevance for us today.

It should come as no surprise that the key danger in devoting ourselves to series of sermons focused on the law is, of course, legalism—what has sometimes been called “works-righteousness.” Legalism is a way of relating to God that places the determinative factor in our relationship squarely on our (make-it-or-break-it) shoulders.

Every system of philosophy and major world religion operates on this straight-forward, “legal” principle. Sometimes people call it “karma” instead of “law,” but whatever the particular name, it always boils down to the same, simple equation: “Obedience means acceptance.” In other words: “You reap what you sow.” The Beatles encapsulated it like this: “And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give.”

The gospel, on the other hand, operates on a principle of grace: “In the end, the love you get is insanely out of proportion to the love you actually give.” Over-and-against the principle of law, the gospel says: “In Christ, God has already accepted you (fully and unconditionally), therefore obedience is an act of gratitude—the powerful outworking of the new, spiritual life God has imparted to you through His Spirit.”

In light of this danger, we’ll begin by focusing first on what the law isn’t—the law is not a rulebook that if we keep God will save us and reward us with heaven—and then on what the law is—the law is God’s perfect and soul-reviving revelation (Ps. 19:7) given to guide his redeemed people for the good of both themselves and the nations (i.e., the lost people) around them.

If you’re interested in studying along with the series here are a few recommendations:

The Ten Commandments by Thomas Watson

The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John Frame

How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments by Edmund Clowney

Dave Henderson's Memorial Service Video

If you missed Dave Henderson's memorial service on December 19th, you can see it on video. Here is a link.