Today I would like to share some brief reflections about my last two years here on staff. Most of you know that CFC sent me to the Sov. Grace Pastors College, and upon graduation, brought me back on staff here. For the past two years, I’ve held a role we call a “Church Planting Resident.” This team position was developed in partnership with Sovereign Grace Ministries to evaluate, train, and prepare me as church planter. Now, even though I’m not going to actually “plant” a church, but instead will serve the Sov. Grace church in Akron, OH, there’s still a lot I thank God for about this residency.

The first is the opportunity to preach. Over the course of two years, I was able to preach about twice a month in churches throughout Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Indiana.

• I thank God for this  residency He used it to develop my preaching.

The second invaluable opportunity was getting to participate in Sovereign Grace Ministries’ Church Planting Group (Yes, our name is that creative!) This is a group of guys that regularly gather together to brainstorm, plan, and administrate initiatives aimed at serving Sovereign Grace church plants and planters. So, for example, we helped plan and orchestrate the Plant! conference, held here at CFC last March.

• I thank God for this residency because He used it to position me to serve others in advancing the Great Commission.

Finally, the most significant opportunity afforded me was getting to work with the men on this pastoral team. It was phenomenal to be able to learn from Jared about preaching, from Marty about children’s ministry, from Andy about counseling, from Joel and Brian about caring for sheep, from Rob about family life, from Doug about mercy ministries, from Joseph about music and Sunday gatherings, from Raymond about administration, from Jim evangelism and from Dave about church planting. And to top it all off, I had Mark as a mentor, guiding and caring for me all along the way.

• I thank God for this residency because He used these men to entrust to me what I will in turn be able to teach others also (2 Tim. 2:2).

Let me finish with one last thing. I want you all to know that Jenny and I leave here thanking God in all our remembrance of this team and this church, because of our partnership with you in the gospel (Phil. 1:3-5). We may be off to Akron soon, but we look forward to years of partnering with CFC to advance the gospel.

• We thank God for this residency because He used it to forge a gospel partnership between us and all of you.

This isn’t goodbye. It’s just until next time…

In the “The Merchant of Venice” Shakespeare’s luxury- and money-obsessed Prince of Morocco chooses the gold casket in his suit for the hand of fair Portia.  He is not successful and receives a correction that has come down to us through the centuries: “All that glistens is not gold.”  Now, you have to remember that Shakespeare wrote before they had spell check, so we won’t hold it against him that he misspelled “glitters.”  J

Okay, some things appear to indicate success but don’t.  So, what does success look like?

After 30 years as senior pastor at Sovereign Grace Church of Indiana, PA, Mark Altrogge is now seeing what most pastors would call success: a growing church, a brand new building and a very cool blog The Blazing Center.  Yet when he spoke to us this weekend, Mark didn’t bring us church growth principles.  His communication was on what God looks for: faithfulness.

Along the way Mark’s learned what’s important, “If you are preaching, thinking, applying the Gospel,” he says, “that is what God is interested in.”  Mark warns, “The thought that ‘numerical increase will happen if our techniques are right,’ is a wrong idea we can bring into everything.”

Mark quoted J.I. Packer’s “A Passion for Faithfulness;”

“The passion for success constantly becomes a spiritual problem–really, a lapse into idolatry–in the lives of God’s servants today.  To want to succeed in things that matter is of course natural, and not wrong in itself, but to feel that one must at all costs be able to project oneself to others as a success is an almost demonized state of mind, from which deliverance is needed. J.I. Packer, “A Passion for Faithfulness” pages 205, 206

God wants to stir us to be faithful to what is central: Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, died for our sins.  If we are faithful to live and proclaim THAT Gospel, we can trust the results to God.

Mark looked back on the difficult years with gratitude.  Mark recounted a low season when he was asked if it was time to “turn out the lights” on his church and send everyone to other churches.  He remembered hearing about other churches that were growing and feeling tempted to self pity. During those days he learned the comfort of I Corinthians 15:58:

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (emphasis added)

And Philippians 1:6:

 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Mark’s words and God’s words are encouraging and releasing.  They remind us that difficult times, like no others, present us with the opportunity to be faithful.  Here’s Packer again:

Christ will build his church, using us as he wills, in ways that involve the appearance of triumph and disaster over and over again.  Our part is not to let either appearance fool us, but to maintain an unflinching fidelity to the particular tasks and roles we know we have been given to fulfill, all for the honoring and pleasing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. J.I. Packer, “A Passion for Faithfulness” page 212

So, if you are going through tough times, beware of judging yourself by some external measurement of success.  Focus, instead, on Christ’s faithfulness to us though the cross and, by His power, being faithful as sons and daughters.  And when you think about your efforts – our efforts, know that our heavenly Father is full of mercy – mercies that are new every morning.

Shakespeare’s Portia from “The Merchant of Venice” said it well,

The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

I met a man today: Bob, who has hailed from San Diego these past 59 years, was born and raised in Kimbolton, Ohio. He was back for the Kimbolton Homecoming Day, replete with a parade down Main Street and a roasted chicken dinner served in the Kimbolton Community Center. We talked as Methodist Church members walked by in their Civil War tribute clothes and the 1940’s vintage John Deere tractors rolled along.

Bob had left after seven years working at the Ford repair shop looking for better work out west. “They were looking for Midwest mechanics out there.” Really, why? “Well” he said humbly, but matter of factly, “We was better trained. Wasn’t afraid to work.”

“Before that, I was in the infantry. They shipped me off to Japan, but we never made it. The war ended.” Wow! That must have been something! What did it feel like when you heard the war was over? “Oh, they didn’t tell us anything, really.” You didn’t know about the bomb? “No, nothing about the bomb – just that the war was over. You know, we didn’t get news back then like we do now.”

I was struck by what he said. Of all the things that have developed exponentially over the almost seven decades since Bob rode the blue Pacific in a freighter turned troop transport, certainly communication has to be at the top of the list. I have found myself texting while surfing on line as I talk on the phone. My new favorite thing is to get on Google Plus and “hang out” with the kids – that means we’re all on a video chat all seeing each other in our own houses in different states. Communication is instant and global.

But what are we saying?

Are we riding the communication wave or are we being swept away by it?

Enter the new Covenant of Grace website. Thanks to many hours of excellent work by Matt Elsey we now have this new and improved Community Center of our own. Consider us one of your cyber surf boards. We want to carve this wave for the Gospel and for that adorning grace we call “community.”

In the months to come we will be pushing more content to our site. We want it to be an open door 24/7 for those God is calling to himself. We want this site; along with our Covenant of Grace Facebook page (check it out), to be places online for friends and family.

For whatever other reason this communication explosion has happened, none is more important or eternally significant than sharing the Gospel and building the Church. Jesus Christ, holy God in man, died for your sins and he has called you into his family, the church. You won’t get any better, more important or more relevant news today by any means.

And you read it here.