Sunday Preview ~ Nov 25, 2009

I like to stop preaching before the congregation quits listening; so two weeks ago I only got half way through my sermon. This Sunday my message is called, “A Life of Fruitful Ministry Part II” from I Peter 4:7-11. These verses are simple to understand, but they contain powerful truths that can bring us joy by increasing our fruitfulness.
I read a report recently about an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Kansas City that was bringing great joy to the people involved. They could sense the presence of God and their hearts overflowed with joy. King David said, “In your presence is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). I have friends who bring me joy. They encourage me with their faith. They challenge me with their insights. They lift my spirit with their love. The joy that does the most to sustain me comes from the Holy Spirit. When I humble myself and seek the Lord, the Holy Spirit breathes life into my soul like air being pumped into a deflated tire.
I hope that your heart will overflow with gladness this Thanksgiving. My prayer is that you will become more fruitful than ever in the days ahead and the desires of your heart will come to pass.

Sunday Preview ~ Nov 12, 2009

This Sunday my sermon is called ” A Life of Fruitful Ministry” from I Peter 4:1-11. If you read this in advance, you will discover some truths that are simple and direct and some that are difficult to understand. As with every difficult challenge in life, there is something here we can discover that will be liberating when the Lord reveals His purpose to us. Jesus wants our lives to be fruitful and meaningful, even more than we do. I hope that these truths will lead us in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake.
A couple of Sundays ago I mentioned in my sermon that Jackie Reed had said to me, “We are going through a time of testing and this will lead to a time of blessing.” I had a hard time hearing what she said across the dinner table, so she repeated herself, “We have been going through a time of testing at the church and the Lord is going to bring us into a time of blessing.” I nodded with a smile, hoping Jackie was right. She then proceeded to repeat this statement to me five times over the next few minutes. At first I couldn’t understand why she kept saying the same thing over and over. She is very persistent, and as her husband Dan testifies, she knows that men sometimes don’t really get the message the first few times we hear it. I finally realized that the Lord was using her to try to get through to my heart.
In the past week some of the blessings that Jackie prophesied are starting to come to pass. The First Baptist Church of Phoenix Foundation has forgiven $1,000,000 of interest accumulated over the past three years on the Central campus property. They have also given us very gracious terms for future monthly payments. Our agreement with them covers the next three years and then it will be reviewed. A generous family in our church has also offered to help us financially over the next six months so that our pastors and staff salaries will not have to be cut. Many of you have been faithful and generous as well. In difficult times it is a real blessing to see God’s faithfulness expressed through those who love Jesus and the church.
I want to thank those of you who have been praying, giving and serving the Lord so faithfully.

Sunday Preview ~ Nov 5, 2009

My sermon this Sunday is called “The Triumph of Christ” from I Peter 3:13-22. In this passage Peter writes about the diverse themes of suffering, fear, sharing your faith, Christ preaching to spirits who have died, and baptism. This chapter concludes with the statement of triumph that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand–with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

It is wise to have a focus when you are giving a sermon. I wondered how I could effectively teach through this passage, which includes Scriptures difficult to understand, and maintain a focus that people could retain. I decided that there is no point in ignoring truths that the Apostle Peter deemed important. Whether we wrestle with suffering, fear or authorities, we can be confident that we will triumph because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. From His position at God’s right hand, Jesus gives us grace to overcome every adversity we face in life.

I’m looking forward to our worship services this weekend. I hope you will pray for everyone who comes to receive grace and truth that comes from the presence of the Lord.

 

Sunday Preview ~ Oct 29, 2009

I woke up this morning with the wonderful thought that I am a blessed man. This doesn’t happen to me often. Usually I wake up and think, “I’m still tired, but I need to get up,” or something like that. My second thought this morning was “The stock market dropped 119 points yesterday. Thank you, Lord, that I am a blessed man.”

I get affected emotionally when the stock market drops. I love our country and I pray for our economy. I want our economy to prosper. I also get affected when the Cardinals, the Diamondbacks or the Suns win or lose. I root for our home teams. It matters to me if they win or lose. I’m not so spiritual that the teams I root for, the country I live in, or the economy that we have doesn’t matter to me. Yet there is something that sustains me so that I can still enjoy life, even when many of the things I care about are not going well.

I want to talk about this blessing in my message to Living Streams on Sunday. My message this week is called “How to Inherit a Blessing” from I Peter 3:8-12. Jesus Christ has given us a blessing more wonderful than money and more powerful than the forces of darkness. We do not have to earn this blessing. We can inherit it.

I’ll always root for our home teams and I’ll always pray for our country. However, regardless of who wins games, or the ups and downs of America, every believer in Jesus Christ can inherit a blessing that will enable us to have a life we really love. This is my desire for you and the focus of the Scriptures I will preach on this week.

There is a spiritual battle associated with this blessing that makes it difficult to receive. Please join me in praying that we will have the grace to receive the fullness of the blessings the Lord has in store for us.

October 22, 2009 ~ Sunday Preview

On Tuesday our pastors and staff went door-to-door, as well as to bus stops and shops to share the good news of Christ with our neighbors. Some of us handed out tracts and others gave out water bottles to joggers.

I met a man named Ted who had prayed that morning, asking God for direction. He said that my visit to his door was an answer to his prayer. I also went to Butler Park and met a lady named Tina from Germany and a man named Will from Cuba. We had good talks and I invited them to bring their children to our Hoedown Showdown on Halloween night.

David Stockton had challenged our staff to do this outreach. I don’t think any of us were in the mood for it, and we all had a lot of other things we could have been doing that morning. By the time we returned two hours later, however, we had all been blessed by divine appointments and opportunities to touch the lives of people in need. I was reminded that the Lord gives us ministry assignments for our sake as well as the people we reach out to.

This weekend David will be speaking from Jonah 4 about the frustrations that come when our hopes and dreams do not come to pass. This is a message designed to help us understand God’s plans and purposes that go far beyond what we normally perceive.

I hope you will be surprised by joy in the days to come as you accept your assignments from the Lord.

Sunday Preview ~ October 15, 2009

My sermon this Sunday is called, “The Connection between Wisdom, Honor and Discipline,” from Proverbs 3:7-18.

Whether I’m hiking in the desert or playing with my grandchildren, I like to find connections between what I’m experiencing and the truths in the word of God. The longer I live, the more I can see connections between people and events in my life that at one time did not seem to me to be related. When studying Proverbs 3, I saw how these Scriptures, which are individual principles, are also related.

Those who honor the Lord and receive His discipline are rewarded with wisdom. Whether we go to a counselor, a therapist, a doctor, a lawyer or a financial planner, we are usually hoping to find wisdom. The prosperity we hope to experience and the significance we desire for our lives are also granted to us when the Lord gives us wisdom. One of the greatest ways we can add value to our lives is to grow in wisdom. Jesus is our wisdom from God (I Corinthians 1:30).

I’m praying the Lord will help me communicate to you the wisdom of Christ this week in a way that will enrich your life.

Twenty-Five Years and Counting~ September 2009

On the last Sunday of September in 1984, the Buckley and Stockton families, along with three other people, gathered in our north Phoenix living room for the first worship service of our new church. We prayed and sang songs of praise. We shared communion and received an offering. Then Kristina took our four children and the three Stockton boys into a back bedroom for Sunday school while I gave a sermon from Isaiah 54 about God enlarging our tent.
The offering that Sunday consisted of a check from the Stocktons and one from our family, along with a $1 bill from a wealthy developer who came that week. The next day I went to the bank to deposit the offering. I told the teller that we were Desert Streams Christian Church. She  said, “Oh, I have heard of you!”
“You couldn’t have heard about us, we just got started,” I replied.
When she told me about Desert Springs Bible Church a few miles away, I realized that we would have to change our name to avoid confusion. So the next week we became Living Streams.
One Sunday we prayed and prepared with all our hearts, but the only people who came for the service were Peter, Jon, and David Stockton, who were all in grammar school, along with their grandpa and one visitor.  After that discouraging Sunday, I felt more desperate. I went to the local park and handed out Bible tracts about Jesus. One lady from the park started coming to our services. We also went door to door in our neighborhood, as well as near by trailer parks and apartment complexes, to talk with people about the Lord and invite them to Living Streams.
By January of 1985, the church had grown to about thirty people, so we moved out of our living room and into Mercury Mine Elementary School. The services which had been small but intimate in our living room seemed stark in that  school cafeteria. We shrank down to about a dozen regulars. In those days I self consciously introduced myself as the pastor of the tiniest church in Arizona.
I was given the opportunity to host a live radio call-in show on KXEG called “Jesus is the Answer” from 10:30 pm to midnight. I had to fight to keep myself from falling asleep during the program, which was past my bedtime. In those days KXEG had about as much power as a loud shout out of an open window on a windy day. However, people would call in and we would pray for them. Eventually the station manager moved us to daytime and gave us a free hour five days a week.
Over the past twenty-five years, our little church grew in what seemed to me to be a slow, agonizing process. Kristina Buckley and Patty Stockton laid down their lives to make our church a home. Billy Stockton invited patients from his medical practice and gave generously to keep our little fellowship going. Hylan and Rita Slobodkin, Patty Struck, Marty Fenn, and Keith Kostlan all moved out from California to help us. I will always be thankful for those who have joined their lives, their faith, and their treasure with us to establish the church.

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A Faithful Friend ~ May 2009

I was hitchhiking to College of Marin in Kentfield, California in 1970 when a big old low-riding car pulled over to pick me up. A heavy-set man wearing black wrap-around sunglasses was behind the wheel. I had been hitchhiking every day since I lost my driver’s license the year before. I had also started following Jesus and sharing my faith whenever I got the chance. The man introduced himself as Marty. He asked me a few questions and I began to tell him about Jesus. When I paused to catch my breath, Marty started telling me about the Lord. It took awhile before either this ex-hippie or the Jewish Midwesterner believed that the other person really knew Jesus.
I met Marty again a few weeks later at a house church meeting where Jesus People had gathered. He invited me to visit his office where he had just begun a new ministry. I went to his little office and met a couple of young Jewish believers. Marty told me he intended to let Jews everywhere know that Jesus is the Messiah. One of the guys went with me that afternoon and we handed out gospel tracts they called “broadsides” at a local high school. At the time this was a normal day for me; going out with whoever would come to share the gospel with whoever would listen.
The next time I met Marty, his ministry had grown and he had changed his name to the Hebrew, Moishe. His little team of evangelists was called Jews for Jesus. Their ministry philosophy was to use their resources to make the maximum possible impact on Jews with the gospel. New York City has more Jews than any city in the world. Moishe had a couple of evangelists stationed at the San Francisco Airport handing out broadsides to passengers getting on planes to New York City. He had another couple of evangelists at JFK airport in New York giving broadsides to the passengers when they got off the plane. Soon articles were appearing in Jewish newspapers and magazines decrying the fact that there seemed to be Jews for Jesus everywhere. Jews for Jesus didn’t back down. They took their gospel broadsides to the streets from San Francisco to New York. Even negative publicity they received was used by the Lord to stir the curiosity of many Jews. Through their ministry there were soon Jews coming to faith in Jesus all over the world.
When Kristina and I were married in August of 1973, Moishe came through the reception line to greet us. He laid his hands on us and prayed a blessing for our marriage and our future children. Years later, after we moved to Phoenix, we received a letter and a gift of $100 from Moishe to take our four children out to dinner. We were living on a very tight budget in those days and it was a big deal for us to take the family out. We set up an empty chair at the Pinnacle Peak Patio that night in honor of Moishe. We told our children stories about the man who prayed for them before they were born.
A few years ago, Moishe turned Jews for Jesus over to a younger leader. He is now fighting cancer and diabetes, yet every day he is able he gets on his computer and goes online to share his faith in Jesus through e-mail and in chat rooms. He has continued to send me encouraging letters and pray for our ministry. It has been a privilege for me to know Moishe, to listen to his wisdom, and watch his ministry grow. His apostolic legacy now includes a multitude of people saved and a ministry of Jewish evangelists boldly sharing Christ around the world. Proverbs 11:30 says, “He who is wise wins souls.” Moishe has been wise. He has won souls, fought the good fight and kept the faith. I too want to stay faithful and fruitful until the day I meet the Lord. Join me in praying for my friend Moishe. You too can follow in his footsteps by sharing your faith in Christ with someone who needs a Savior.

Wealth Greater than Money ~ April 2009

In the past eighteen months, 40 percent of the value of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange as well as a significant portion of the value of the homes and real estate in our nation has been lost. This has distressed me, both because I love our country and also because our personal situation has followed the fortunes of our country. We were also trying to raise money to purchase our new church facility in the worst economic environment of our lifetime. I felt like I was being squeezed until all the anxiety in me was drained out. I had to let go of my concerns and learn to trust the Lord on a deeper level. Though we have had financial losses, God’s kingdom has not lost a bit of value. In light of our situation, the wisdom of Jesus is more clear to me than ever. Jesus told us to put our treasure in God’s kingdom where moth and rust cannot corrode it and thieves cannot steal it (Mat.6:20). For many generations if people had wealth, they had to bury or hide it because it could be stolen if it wasn’t continually guarded. The banking system that allowed safe keeping of wealth enabled people a new level of freedom and prosperity. Jesus asked a profound question, “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” (Luke 16:11) Worldly wealth is money and possessions. The way we handle money determines whether or not the Lord will give us gifts more valuable than money. Wisdom is more valuable than gold (Prov.3:13-14). A good name is better than great riches (Prov. 22:1). A good marriage, freedom from fear, love and peace in your heart all have value greater than money. Kristina and I lived in rental houses for the first six years of our marriage. One day Kristina went to the nursery and bought flowers. I was upset when I saw what she had done. “Why did you spend money on flowers for the yard of a home we don’t even own?” I asked her. “I believe in treating a home we rent just like it was our own. Maybe if we take good care of this house, someday we will own a home that somebody has taken good care of,” she replied. A few years later, a group of friends from the Open Door Church helped us buy our first home. The house had beautiful trees and plants in the yard which I knew were God’s gift to Kristina. Every time we tithe and give offerings to the Lord, we are investing in God’s kingdom. Those investments never drop in value. They connect our hearts to a treasure of peace and joy. When we pay our bills on time and keep our financial commitments we are being trustworthy with worldly wealth. When we share our possessions with friends and help those who are poor, we are demonstrating faithfulness to the Lord who provides us with everything we need. He has our destiny in His hands. The apostle Paul said, “Godliness with contentment has great value.” (I Timothy 6:6) Contentment is the capacity to enjoy each day and every experience. While spending responsibly and giving generously does not guarantee that we will have more money in the bank, it does enable us to have more satisfaction in our lives and peace in our hearts. A man recently said to me, “The Lord wants you to model faith in the face of uncertainty.” I believed him. Following Jesus is not just knowing scriptures. It is also trusting God and staying faithful in trials. Unstable times give us an opportunity to show that we believe our Father in Heaven is loving and faithful. He wants us to be free from fear about our future. Ultimately, it is not what we own that makes us secure, it is the One who owns us.

Easter Preview

I hope you are doing well. Passion week began with the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, went through his crucifixion at Calvary and ended with the resurrection of Jesus on Sunday morning. That week went from triumph to agony to glory for Jesus and the disciples. In some ways this is the story of each of our lives. At one time or another, we each experience agony and each of us can share the glory of Christ.

On Friday at noon, many of us will gather in our sanctuary to contemplate the crucifixion of Christ. Then beginning on Saturday evening we will have four weekend Easter services. David Stockton will be speaking Saturday evening at 5:30. Lance Rauhoff will be speaking at our sunrise service at 7:30 am on Sunday in the courtyard. I will be speaking on Evidence of the Resurrection from John 20:1-18 in our 9:00 and 11:00 am Sunday services.

We would really appreciate our prayers for our services this week. Many people will be bringing friends or family members who we hope will experience the grace and love of Jesus Christ. We want the Lord to touch you, your family and the people you love with His power and presence. May the desires of your heart for blessing be fulfilled.