So “why Catalyst,” you ask?

Posted by Rod Hamilton

There are plenty of things I could have called this blog, and some would be quite clever. But I have found over the last 7-8 years that if I could categorize “worship” as anything other than worship, I would call it a catalyst for change. Worshiping God is serious stuff, and to do so demands a lot from us in our lives. It demands a life truly set apart. It demands daily walking with our God. It demands a level of forgiveness that the world cannot understand. It demands a sincere level of humility that doesn’t take credit for any of the good things that we do, but bears the burden of accountability for our words and deeds.

One definition of the word “catalyst” is: a person or thing that precipitates an event or change. Speaking from life experience, aside from the initial giving of myself to Christ, nothing else precipitated change in my life like the act of worship has and continues to do. In fact, through the Worship Ministry at Valley View, I have seen many lives changed by the simple act of a person’s giving his/her time and talent back to the One Who gave it in the first place. This is the stuff that precipitates radical change.

I encourage you to check in from time to time at this blog and see what’s going on at Valley View. I also encourage you to visit our church if you aren’t currently plugged in somewhere else. If you are a Valley View person and know that God has gifted you in worship, I encourage you to get involved in the worship ministry and I challenge you to view your involvement not as a new activity, but as a link to God in a way that will change your life.

Personalized religion, wrought through lack of studying and understanding.

Posted by Rod Hamilton on Feb 04, 2010

It seems that many people who have “come to Christ” have done so by taking on Jesus as the fix-all for life’s problems. Alcoholism, addictions of every kind, marital strife, financial struggles and other things were catalysts for a walk down the aisle to the altar, but what’s often accepted in this type of decision is a hope for a promising future in Christ yet no true repentance or “taking up the cross.” What I see happening so often is that, having taken such an easy theology about our Great Savior, many fall away at the first sign of trouble. Jesus was pretty clear in His parable of the sower in Matthew 13 that this would be the case. These types of decisions for Christ, as Jesus explained in Luke 8, would invariably fall away, as seed that had been planted on the rock. “Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.” (Luke 8:13)

I think that when left with a theology of “easy-believism,” a person will almost always negate the grace of God by building up a religion in order to stay in God’s good grace. Obviously, anyone who takes just a cursory reading of the New Testament should understand that faith is a gift from God and is not based in any way on what we have done or will do nor is it given to us based on anything that the Father knows we’ll do in the future. However, having a deficiency in understanding, the rocky ground guy will strive, as man always has, to please God by works and not by faith. The Bible is clear that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6) but the rocky ground guy continues trying. But why does he continue trying even if it’s obvious that the efforts are in vain? Because man has, by his own power, always done religion that way. And the end result of such practices? Eventually, by clinging to bad theology and never surrendering to the rewarding work of becoming disciplined in study, meditation and prayer, the rocky ground guy, realizing he can never live up to the expectations, throws his hands up in futility and “gives up” on God.

Our religion is based solely upon our faith in Jesus Christ. We are justified the moment we believe. But grace, by design, baffles the unregenerate man. In the flesh, grace does not and cannot make sense. It is only by the Spirit of God that we can truly believe and develop an understanding of the things of God. Martin Luther said that “justification is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls.” At no time in history has this proven to be more true than today.

Train up your child.

Posted by Rod Hamilton on Feb 03, 2010

It seems that the longer I live - and it is becoming longer everyday - that I learn more about how to “train up” my children. A good lesson was taught to me last year by a man whom I respect very much, when he mentioned, in passing, The Heidelberg Catechism. It was a certain thing that he said that caught my attention; it was this: “...and that’s how Christians taught their children 500 years ago.” Out of sheer admiration for this man and his faith, I decided to explore exactly what that meant. For starters, I’ve come up through pretty contemporary Christian channels via the Church Growth Movement (CGM), and seriously, a catechism was something that I knew some Catholics used with their kids but it was not at all anything I understood Protestants to use. And to say the least, the CGM has left far behind many of the great practices and principles of The Reformation. Wow, how that partial sentence has changed the lives of my family and me!

A couple of months ago my wife began teaching our five year old daughter “The Catechism for Girls and Boys,” and just what she has learned, and what we all have learned, is astounding. When you study a Protestant Catechism, the first thing you learn is that this whole faith thing ain’t really about us! It’s about a mighty God Who created us with some expectations, and a Catechism teaches those expectations and formalizes a system of theology not just for the young, but for the old as well. Now, can a girl of 5 years old fully understand all that she is reciting? No, but that’s not really the issue. What is developing is a lens, and as she enters into an age of critical thinking, she will read and understand her Bible through that lens. Why is that important? In a world so inundated with different doctrines, where so often all doctrines are accepted as equal, she will grow to recognize heresy and poor teaching when she reads it and hears it.

Proverbs 22:6 exhorts us to “train up a child in the way that he should go” with an understanding that “when he is old he will not depart from it.” It is of premium importance that we (particularly fathers) plant solid doctrine in our homes by employing solid biblical practices in the area of teaching and understanding our Bibles as well as using other tried and true methods to reinforce those things. The Catechism for Girls and Boys is the best tool I have found.

Here are the first ten questions/answers. They become more challenging as you work through them. Trust me; if you are interested in teaching your child this way, he or she is highly capable of learning this way.

1.Q. Who made you?
A. God made me (Gn 1:26, 27; 2:7; Ec 12:1; Acts 17:24-29).

2.Q. What else did God make?
A. God made all things (Gn 1, esp. verses 1, 31; Acts 14:15; Rm 11:36; Col 1:16).

3.Q. Why did God make you and all things?
A. For his own glory (Ps 19:1; Jer 9:23, 24; Rv 4:11; 4:15).

4.Q. How can you glorify God?
A. By loving him and doing what he commands (Ec 12:13; Mk 12:29-31; In 15:8-10; 1 Cor 10:31).

5.Q. Why ought you to glorify God?
A. Because he made me and takes care of me (Rm 11:36; Rv 4:11; cf. Dan 4:39).

6.Q. Are there more gods than one?
A. There is only one God (Deut 6:4; Jer 10:10; Mk 12:29; Acts 17:22-31).

7.Q. In how many persons does this one God exist?
A. In three persons (Mt 3:16, 17; Jn 5:23; 10:30; 14:9, 10; 15:26; 16:13-15; 1 In 5:20, 2 In 9; Rv 1:4, 5).

8.Q. Who are they?
A. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:14; 1 Pet 1:2; Jude 20, 21).

9.Q. Who is God?
A. God is a Spirit, and does not have a body like men (Jn 4:24; 2 Cor 3:17; 1 Tim 1:17).

10.Q. Where is God?
A. God is everywhere (Ps 139:7-12; Jer 23:23,24; Acts 17:27,28).

Another book suggestion? Sure. “Minority Report” by Carl Trueman

Posted by Rod Hamilton on Oct 12, 2009

I bought a few great books a week or so ago from one of my favorite sources, Monergism.com. While I’m currently reading a couple of them, I wanted to go ahead and recommend this one right now: “Minority Report” by Carl Trueman.

Trueman is a professor and Dean of Faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary. The book, as the subtitle reads, addresses “unpopular thoughts on everything from ancient Christianity to zen-Calivinism.” It’s a thought provoking, vocabulary developing read. I particularly appreciate Trueman’s thoughts on postmodernism as it relates to church and on the necessity of church history and doctrine, despite the current railings against each of these.

Here’s an excerpt that, I believe, does a great job of identifying a poor attempt on the part of some to cater to a style that has no substance:

“Now, when one approaches the major texts of postmodern evangelicalism and asks what they are saying, the answer is exciting: they claim they are opening up radical new directions for theology; but when one approaches the same texts and asks what they are doing, the answer is somewhat more prosaic. Far from pointing to new ways of doing theology, these texts are on the whole appropriating an admittedly new idiom, that of postmodernism, in order to accomplish a very traditional and time-honored task: they are articulating a doctrinally minimal, anti-metaphysical “mere Christianity.” Like pouting teenagers in pre-torn designer jeans and Che Guevera tee-shirts, they look angry and radical but are really as culturally conformist and conservative as a tall latte from Starbuck’s.”

That is an amazing passage to me, but it won’t strike everyone that way. If postmodernism is simply a matter of personal taste and attire, we’re going to find ourselves bending to the constantly shifting sands of culture, even as it sifts right through our fingers. I appreciate good writing by smart people, but I appreciate so much more the perfect word of God written through men who were inspired by God’s Spirit - perfect and infallible. Isaiah 55:10-11 says “"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

I’m am so very grateful to God that despite my best efforts to sing and speak to bring glory to Him, it is His word that will always be that which does the work!

Yet another good book….

Posted by Rod Hamilton on Jul 29, 2009

I make it a point to read books that are known to be good books; books by theologians and thinkers who are known to be good theologians and good thinkers. I don’t take too many risks on books, mostly because I don’t have much time to invest in experimental concepts, but also because I’m fairly boring. If I’m going to go out and spend a lot of money on food, I’ll typically go to a restaurant that is known to be worth the bucks. I feed myself the same spiritually, I guess you could say.

So what I just finished “eating” this morning is a book by A.W. Tozer called The Knowledge of the Holy.  It’s a great book that deals primarily in the areas of the character of God and our typically low view of God. I highly recommend this book.

So today it occurred to me…..

Posted by Rod Hamilton on Jul 08, 2009

Today it occurred to me that though fully trusting God is never easy, trusting God when it’s just God and me is easier than trusting God through somebody else. The greatest part of that revelation? I ask somebody everyday to trust God through me. That’s a lot to ask, I think.

Recount God’s wondrous deeds.

Posted by Rod Hamilton on May 14, 2009

Psalm 75:1 We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.

As I read Psalm 75 this morning it struck me that a key to keeping a right relationship with God is constantly recognizing not only what He’s doing, but also what he has done in my life. We all go through seasons of abundance and, frankly, dryness. As 75:1 says, “God is near.” Even when it seems like He’s doing nothing, He’s doing everything. I love 1 Samuel 7 when God delivers the Israelites from the Philistines and Samuel “took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Till now the LORD has helped us.” This “Ebenezer (literally “stone of help) was to serve as a reminder to the Israelites of God’s wondrous deeds to this point.

The stone wasn’t there to say what God was going to do for the Israelites, and part of the reason that Samuel might have set this stone up to recognize that God had brought Samuel and his people to this point, and to not mention the next thing that God was going to do, was that, as a prophet, Samuel knew well that the sins of the Israelites frequently kept them from the next great thing that God called His people to. To claim anything in advance when it was historically obvious that the Israelites would likely mess up the perfect plan would seem foolish, and a real prophet prophecies the truth only. Samuel could not have soft-stroked the future of the Israelites, but he did well in setting up this monument to God’s faithfulness “till now.”

I don’t know that I have many physical Ebenezers in my life - most are memories - but the ones I do have are precious to me. God is faithful and his plan cannot fail, though I can surely fail at his plan for my life. But He has brought me this far, and for that, I give him all the thanks, all the glory, all the honor and all the praise!

Maybe the next billboard should tell the truth.

Posted by Rod Hamilton on May 06, 2009

Abortion is a sin - it’s murder, and the Bible is clear about murder and sin.

That being said, I have had it up to here (note: my leveled hand is at my chin as I type) with these billboards around town that twist and contort God’s word. On my drive in today I noticed on Dixie Highway a billboard that said “Weep not for me...but for your children.” Luke 23:28 I hope that you are the kind of discerning Christian reader that never accepts sentences that contain ... ( I know there has to be a mechanical term for “...” but I haven’t a clue) without thinking about what the complete thought might be. In fact, whether in politics or religion, the “...” causes a whole lot or problems. Misquotes run amok when we accept a “...” without discernment. So it is with that billboard and so many others.

What’s the big deal, Rod? The big deal is that Luke 23:28 actually says “But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children...” and continues on into verse 29 to say “For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.” (KJV) Essentially, what’s happening here is that Jesus, at this point a beaten, battered and bruised bloody mess, was being lead to Calvary. As a “great multitude” was following Him, weeping and wailing, He assured them of the the tribulation that was soon to come. What he was telling them is that the women who weren’t able to have children would feel blessed that theirs did not have to go through such a horrible time.

So what does the scripture reference on the billboard have to do with abortion? Absolutely nothing. Which gets me thinking: when “the church” twists and contorts scripture to make a righteous point, such as what God does say about murder, what separates it from the church that twists and contorts scripture to make a doctrinal shift away from the traditional understanding of God’s word? The answer, in my opinion, is nothing. God can and does make His point well known, with authority and with power. It’s up to God’s people to read the bible with perpiscuity (a dollar word that refers to the clarity of scripture.) And God’s word is clear that any and all who seek to understand His word will understand His word. If we accept even the slightest bit of twisting then we are priming the pump to gradually accept any doctrine that suits us, and that’s where it gets dangerous.

Itching ears, anyone?

Watch your step, it’s slippey out there!

Posted by Rod Hamilton on Apr 18, 2009

“Their foot shall fall in due time” Deuteronomy 32:35

I remember the first year I lived in Louisville, KY in the winter time, 1992. Up til then I was always either a SoCal guy (I say that only to sound cool) or a Dirty South guy (I say that too to sound cool) and lived, aside from those places, for a far too fleeting moment in Hawaii.(<== that is cool, but I was only 1). Suffice to say, I didn’t know too much about walking on icy patches, but you learn quickly, and usually by negative reinforcement.

I was walking one cold, frozen February day in Louisville through some ice and snow. The ice and snow became one in a few spots, making walking pretty treacherous, or at least for those who already knew the perils of walking on such terrain. I, with my hands in my coat pockets and donning my leather soled shoes, did not recognize such danger and walked on. The first hard lesson I learned on that snowy day is one of physics and statistics. If a person, dressed as I was and postured as I was, were to step on a big ‘ol hunk of ice, the rate at which he falls makes it statistically impossible for him to remove his hands from his pockets to relieve the severity of the landing.

You get my point, don’t you? Whether I’m aware of the danger or not, it’s still a real danger. Whether I was prepared or not, the slip still happened and the resulting plummet and crash were no better or worse than if I had known it was coming and did nothing about it.

So what did I really learn?
1) When I’m walking into a slippery situation, whether literally or figuratively, I should be prepared to brace myself. Hands in pockets is way low on the list of ways to do that.
2) There are both signs of danger and people all around who have been there and done that. Wise counsel from experienced slippers is a good idea!

So all of this “slipperiness” reminds me of a classic sermon from Johnathan Edwards called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Chances are, if you’re in a Bible teaching, Bible believing church, you’ve heard of this sermon. Well, here’s your chance to read it. It’s well worth your time, and you can read it online here: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God