New Sermon series: Part 1

Knowing Christ is a Personal Experience


10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Phip.3:10-11, NKJV)


A. Paul says, "I want to know Christ..." (Phil.3:10)

• Paul once put confidence in the flesh, personal achievements, and self-righteous legalism (Phil. 3:4-6).
• In his former life, before He came to know Christ (Acts 9:1-7), he had religion, position, influence and power in society.
• He came from the right family and the right tribe. He had all the right stuff that makes a man great in the eyes of the world; even in religious circles.
• Yet he put all of this aside, counting it worthless, for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ personally as Lord and friend(Phil.3:7-9)
• Paul goes on to encourage and exhort the Philippiam Christians to do the same; that is, to seek a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and to grow in Him, instead of striving to please God in the flesh.

Know" in this context comes from the greek word (ginosko) which is the same term used in other New Testament passages to convey the idea of the connection or union between a husband and wife. This implies:

• Intimate relationship vs. intellectual knowledge; not just a head knowledge, but a personal, intimate relationship that continues to grows deeper as each day passes.
• To know Christ personally is to know God. Jesus clearly made this connection

If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” (John 14:7);

"...He who has seen Me has seen the Father..." (John 14:9)

• Paul is saying in Philippians 3:10, "I want to know Him as my closest, most personal friend" (John 15:15)
• Friends spend time together, listen to one another, and are honest with one another; even when it hurts. Friends trust one another and often know each other better than they know themselves
• How can I tell others about someone I don't know personally in my own life? I can tell others about George Washington or Elvis Presley, yet I never knew either of them personally.
• We can know Jesus Christ personally and intimately, although none of us have ever seen Him in the flesh.
• As we share Christ with others, will they respond more to a mere head knowledge or formal religion, or to a personal experience with a personal friend?

There is a song entitled "Name" from several years back, written and recorded by Christian band PFR. The chorus of the song goes like this

My hands they made you,

My breath I gave you,

My son he saves you

If you want to, you can wear My name

My love unending,

My truth unbending

I want you to wear My name

• God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us; He wants each of us to wear His name. That is personal.
• Our goal as followers of Christ is to know God personally, to grow daily in this relationship, and then make Him known to others as He reveals Himself to us and through us.

Do you know God like this? You can!

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. (John 14:23, NKJV)

When you come to know God like this, you will discover the greatest experience in this life and beyond!

Knowing Christ is not only a personal experience, but also a powerful experience

New CORE Church sermon series: New Goals for a New Year

What are your goals in life? What about for the next year?


We have experienced the first week of 2009. Many of us have set resolutions for the new year in an attempt to improve our lives. Some of us have pledged to take up a new, healthy habit such as dieting and exercise, or to give up unhealthy ones; smoking, cursing, etc. Many Christians resolve to do better at reading their Bibles, going to church more regularly and being more actively involved. Some set more lofty goals such as continuing education or running for public office. Some of us are making progress, while others are not doing so great.

As we search for significance in this life, many of us set goals and strive to meet them. However, the ultimate goal in life, as the Apostle Paul discovered, is to know Jesus Christ, to grow in an intimate relationship with Him, and to make Him known to others.

In Philippians chapter 3, Paul expresses what he has discovered to be the number one aim in his life; to draw closer to God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and to experience the benefits of this relationship in his daily life.

After many years of life and ministry, Paul's goal in life had changed; from one of confidence in the flesh, driven by personal achievement and self-righteousness, to a much more humble, simpler, single minded goal; to seek after a life that is found in Christ alone, and to live this life in the fulness that Christ promises to those who follow Him.

How can each of us realize this same goal in our daily lives?

Here in God's word we are exhorted to not put confidence in what we have done or can do to make our lives better; to somehow improve our human experience on this earth and in this life, but to seek after and put confidence in a personal, powerful, often painful, practical and purposeful relationship with the Living God, so that we may truly experience life the way God intended from the beginning of creation. This experience is for now and for eternity, as we come to know and experience Christ in our daily lives

Over the next several weeks we will take a look at five facets of the greatest experience any of us can know, in this life and beyond. Using Philippians 3:10-11 as our backdrop and outline, we will search the Scriptures together and either discover this experience for the first time, or rediscover it anew.

Personal Experience..."I want know Christ..." Phil.3:10a
Powerful Experience..."And the power of His resurrection..." 3:10b
Painful Experience..."and the fellowship of sharing in His suffering..." 3:10c
Practical Experience..."becoming like Him in His death..." 3:10d
Purposeful Experience..."if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." 3:11

Follow along as we experience God's truth together!

Burden>Vision>Provision Part II

Burden defined: something that is carried; load, duty, responsibility.

There are several uses of this word in Scripture.Psalm 55:22 says, Cast your burden on the Lord, for He cares for you.

Here, burden = worries and anxieties; things that weigh us down (see Matt.6:25-34; 11:28; Gal.6:2)

A burden is also a sense of duty or responsibility. It is more than simply seeing an unmet need. There are many things that we see that are wrong or needs that go unmet, some that we may feel led to pray for. However, a burden, from my experience is something I see and pray for and then feel a tremendous weight of responsibility to take action and do something about.
Jesus was burdened when he saw the multitudes, "When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd" (Matt.9:36)

He did more than just see them and feel bad for them. He was "moved" with compassion. IOW, He took action. Moved with compassion = burden . The thought of people, harassed and helpless, wandering aimlessly through life, grabbed ahold of His heart and tugged on Him. He was consumed with the duty/responsibility to do something in response to the need he saw.

A burden from the Lord is a sense of duty and responsibility towards a particular people in a particular place. I see a need. I pray for the people who have this need. I ask the Lord to provide for this need that is unmet. He responds by asking me,"What will you do in response to this unmet need?"

Matthew 9:35-38. Jesus sees a great need; a plentiful harvest filled with needy people. He then turns to His disciples and commands them to pray, so that God will send out more laborers to join the few who are already laboring. Then in Ch.10 he instructs them to go and prepares them for the task at hand.

He gave them a burden "The harvest is plentiful, yet very few have responded, pray about what God would have you to do." That's a burden...Jesus laying the need before them. Vision comes when they pray, when they say, "We see the need, Lord, what are we to do."

Vision, then, is how I see meeting meeting the need that God has layed before me (burden). As I pray for these people and the need (or unmet need) hat I see, what will my response be. I pray, and God shows me the way to meet the need.

Provision= God providing the resources to meet the need that I saw and prayed for.

I saw the need and felt a responsiblity to do something (Burden)
I prayed to the Lord and He showed/revealed to me what to do and how to do it (Vision)
I began to develop enthusiasm and motivation to take action; I went to the people and place God had given me a burden and vision for. Now He is providing the resources for me to carry out the mission He has sent me on. (Provision)

Vision follows burden...provision follows vision

From Prevision to Vision to Provision: my journey of faith and call to church planting

I am currently studying Abraham's experience of hearing from God, as recorded in Genesis 12-15, and Hebrews 11:8-10. I have also read and studied Nehemiah and his return to the ruins of Jerusalem to rebuild the walls of that city; the birth place of his ancestors. Also, Jesus, Himself, and how He saw things and responded. Most prominent to me are the words recorded by Matthew.

35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. 36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” (Matt.9:35-38, NKJV)

From verse 36 we see a Biblical picture of what a "burden" is. The Scripture says (of Jesus) that "When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them..." That is what a burden from God looks like. It is not merely thinking about a person or people. It is thinking about a person or people in such a way that it burns its way into our hearts and tugs on us. Burden moves us to take action, out of love and compassion, as opposed to getting a plaque or some other earthly reward.

A burden in me says this, "I see these people. I see them struggling. I see a need that is unmet. What can I do to meet that need, ease their struggle, and give them hope and peace?"

For me, it was the very neighborhood I grew up in. Without knowing it was a burden from God, I would often think about and pray for this neighborhood; whenever I would hear on the evening news, or read in the newspaper, that another drug raid has taken place, another young person has been shot and killed, another citizen complaining about the crime and urban blight, another politician promising to do something when he or she is running for office and then doing nothing once they get elected. This is the neighborhood where most of Troy's citizens just roll up their car windows, lock their doors, and drive through it as fast as they can. Anyone who wants to get from Troy to North Troy (Lansingburgh) must drive through North Central. There are two streets that parrallel the Hudson River and run South to North and vice versa. As people drive north and cross 101st St., River St. becomes 2nd Ave and 6th Ave becomes 5th Ave. This is my Jerusalem, the place where I first took the breath of life, the streets I ran and played in as a boy.

For twelve years, while living and working just 20 or so miles west of Troy, in the city of Schenectady, I thought about my old stomping ground. As I responded to God's call to ministry, went to seminary and graduated, served on the ministry staff of City Mission of Schenectady and started my family, God was preparing me to go back; back to the streets He rescued me from.

As I look at my own journey and experience, what I see so far are three phases

1. Prevision
2. Vision
3. Provision

Prevision is the period in my life that led to the vision phase. This prevision phase includes everything in my life up until the point of seeing that God had called me to ministry and to a particular people in a particular place. Everything counts in the prevision phase, because it was in this prevision stage that God was molding me, shaping me and preparing me for the next phase of my journey with Him.

I used to think that all of the stuff I did before I came to know Christ personally (my BC days) didn't really matter; the mistakes I made, the people I met, the places I went, all of the things I thought, said and did in my heathen/rebellious/idolatrous days. But they did matter. As God said to Jeremiah

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;

Before you were born I sanctified you;

I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” (Jer.1:5, NKJV)

Nothing that we have experienced or gone through is a mistake. Even times of suffering and affliction God has used to bring about His plan. The failures and frustrations of our past, along with times of joy and prosperity, are all a part of God's fine tuning and preparation. We see this reality time and again in the Scriptures;Joseph being sold into slavery and imprisoned, Moses being adopted by Pharoah's daughter and raised in Egypt, Daniel and his friends captured in the Babylonian captivity and put to service before Nebuchadnezzar--all of it designed by God for His good purpose.

This is all part of the pre-vision stage.

More to come...

Journaling my Church Planting Journey

I have been asked numerous times by many people to share my experience and journey as an inner-city church planter. I was doing this one or two at a time via e-mail, Facebook messages, etc., and in bits aand pieces via Twitter. The next logical step in doing this is to blog about it.

I was on an SEO website/blog today where the writer was sharing tips on how to have a thriving online presence through blogging and social media. His #1 tip? Blog/commincate about something you are passionate about, because if you don't love what you are doing and telling others about, then others will see through that and will pay little if any attention to what you are saying.

The #1 thing I am most passionate about is knowing Christ and making Him known. This is my personal purpose and mission statement; "To know Christ, to grow in Him, and to make Him known to others." That's it. From that purpose statement comes my vision and strategy--how I see myself accomplishing my purpose and mission, which is: to live as Christ lived, love as He loved, and serve as He served. If I can truly do that the fruit will come as I abide in Christ and He in me.

I am on a personal quest through the Scriptures in an effort to see how God reveals His plans to those whom He calls into action.

The idea is to try and identify how God has spoken to me, through His word and through the turn of events, and discern a somewhat understandable, working knowledge. I realize I cannot understand everything; that what God wants to do in me and through me is beyond what I can fully comprehend or imagine (Eph.3:20). However, in order to share my experience with others, what can I know, understand, and then pass along? So far, I am seeing a discernable pattern emerging. Is this a Biblical pattern, or just my attempt to define my experience and put it in a box and label it? We shall see!

Saying goodbye to a faithful friend

Kitty and I met 16 years ago, in the fall of 1992, at a pet shop in Latham Circle Mall. I was a single man back then. I saw her in the pet store window and adopted her, took her home to my bachelor pad, and we became like family. It was just a few months before I met my wife. When Brenda and I were married, Kitty continued to be a part of our family, along with a stray cat we named Snuggles, because of his affectionate nature. When our two boys came along, Kitty and Snuggles were there. As The boys learned to walk and grab their tails and rough house with them, they just took it in stride. When they would pick Kitty up and carry her around the room, hanging onto her neck as her feet dragged on the floor, she did not once hiss or bite or scratch, she just went along for the ride. The boys became quite fond of our two cats.

Just as this past holiday season kicked off, my wife and I noticed that Kitty didn't look right. she was dehydrated and her stomach seemed to be bloated, yet she was still eating and moving around pretty good, so we decided to wait and see how she does through holidays before taking her to the vet clinic. As Christmas came and went, she seemed to be getting progressively worse. She stopped using the litter box and would no longer eat hard food, and barely any soft food, and she continued to look thinner and more frail. As New Year's day came and went, we noticed that she would lie in one spot for hours and hours without moving. Finally, just this morning, her breathing became heavy and labored, as she would take large gasps of air and struggle to breathe. When my son Daniel came home from school, he looked at her and thought she was dead. She was not moving at all, and she was barely breathing. So, I finally gave in and admitted to myself what I really didn't want to admit; that it's her time to go and to carry this out any longer would be cruel to her. So Dan and I loaded her into the pet carrier and took her to the vet clinic. The veterinarian examined her and told us straight up, "There's nothing we can do that would improve her quality of life, she's lived a good life of 16 years, it's time to do the humane thing and not let her suffer anymore." So we allowed him to euthinize her, as we stood by her side. I tried to be strong and not break down myself, as my son melted in my arms.The doctor left us so that we could say our goodbyes. Dan and I stood there and cried for a good five to ten minutes, and then we left. This was Daniel and Jacob's first experience with losing a pet.

It was a silent ride home from the vet clinic. Dan clung to the pet carrier all the way home, as if Kitty was still inside. When we arrived home and went inside, Mom and younger brother Jacob, along with their school friend Robert, greeted us at the door. And we all embraced and had a family moment. Jacob was sad to see that we didn't have Kitty with us and went to inform our other cat that Kitty was gone. Robert and mom sat with Dan and consoled him for awhile. And I really needed to have a few moments alone. I guess after 16 years together, Kitty had formed a bond with me and my family. She was family. My sons loved her and so did my wife and I. She was my "pretty girl" and she loved to snuggle and was very affectionate. I am sad to see her go. We will all miss her.

Good bye Kitty. We know you're not suffering anymore. May you rest in peace!

The song Playlist has to go!

Some visitors to this blog have mentioned to me that having two audio plugins embedded on the same blog is confusing as the Playlist songs and Planting Channel videos mesh together and compete for attention. I was left with a choice...music or videos. I opted for what I believe my blog readers would find more beneficial (and what I would prefer if I were visiting someone else's blog), So, I unembedded the Playlist file. Sorry music fans, you'll have to listen to The Afters and Third Day elsewhere.