Trinity Christian Church // Owen Sound, Ontario

The Spirit & Freedom.

trinity — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:49:37 +0000

The gift of the Spirit is not given to make us charismatic personalities or so that we can operate in a variety of spiritual gifts. The Holy Spirit is given to us so that we can enter into relationship with God as His sons and daughters. The person who understands what it means to be a son or daughter of God and has entered into that freedom is a truly charismatic person. Whatever else God does in our lives by way of spiritual gifts flows out of that central reality. What divides believers is not whether we operate in spiritual gifts or not, but whether or not we really know God as our Father and are living in the good of it, or whether we still have the attitude or identity of a slave, of one looking in from the outside, never sure of whether God really loves us or not, and trying in our insecurity to earn His favour.

And here is the good news. Where Paul begins his letter to the Galatians with a stern warning and an appeal, and then takes the chapters in between to explain what the gospel really is, he returns to his theme in 5:1. And he does so with a shout: “For freedom Christ has set us free!” What he means is this: freedom is our destiny. We are no longer slaves. He was speaking into a Greek culture steeped in the pagan thinking that all men are controlled by fate. Even the gods are not free. All we can do is accept our lot in life. We can do nothing to change it. In fact, the Greeks believed that if you tried to change your life for the better, you would be committing transgression. Transgression was the violation or the crossing of the lines of fate. It had nothing to do with good or evil or any moral values. An evil man who prospered was fated to prosper, while a good man who suffered was fated to suffer. Fate is an impersonal system that knows nothing of right or wrong, or of good or evil. So the cry of the gospel that we are set free in Christ was a radical message for those who heard it. And it is no less true today. God paid a high price for your freedom and mine. Lets take hold of it!

- David Campbell

Claiming our inheritance.

trinity — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:44:56 +0000

“Strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:11-12). There are three things listed here that should characterize a Christian: power, patience and joyful thanksgiving. They are described here as part of our inheritance… what Christ has made available to us. Imagine having an inheritance, yet not knowing about it, or, knowing about it, not claiming it! The Christian life is not just a grind, as we keep on trying to become better people. We cannot change at all without the continuous empowering of the Holy Spirit being poured into our lives. People seek the power of Spirit to make them feel better or because they get excited about the supernatural. But the power of the Spirit is given to change our lives and make us more like Christ. Even when we witness a miracle, it should motivate us to know the Christ who performed this miracle better. A changed church is a powerful church. There should be no contradiction between character and charisma. The fact is that God will pour out His Spirit most powerfully on those whose lives He can trust to use that power wisely and in a way that will reflect well on Him. With power comes patience. When we have experienced the power of God in one area, it gives us patience to wait in others. And along with power and patience comes thanksgiving. Life for the world is always cup half-full and cup half-empty. Some cope better with it than others. But for the Christian who is growing in the knowledge of God, life is always cup overflowing even in the face of suffering. The same man who wrote these words also wrote this: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21) He is the same man who, with his back raw and bleeding, sang praises to God in the Philippian jail. Was it the power of his praise that precipitated the earthquake that set free not only him and Barnabas, but also everyone around him? Think about the consequences of your praise. Power, patience and thanksgiving…. we cannot work any of them up by our own strength, but they are freely available in the Holy Spirit to those who ask for them — an inheritance to be claimed.

- David Campbell

Maturity is measurable.

trinity — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:08:53 +0000

“So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10). The result of receiving the knowledge of Christ is that our lives change. Milton had a keep insight when he talked about the pilgrim’s progress. Christian maturity, holiness or whatever you want to call it, is measurable. If we are not moving forward, we are moving backward, because the will of God is constant continuous positive change. The change may be small at times, but we are always moving in the right direction. Christians should be the most directed and motivated people in the world, and the church should be the most directive and purposeful institution. And as we change, it gives us a hunger for even more of the knowledge of God. Knowing Christ gives us a desire for God’s wisdom and the willingness to apply it practically, even if it means doing the opposite of what the world would do. Honesty, as Ben Franklin said, actually is the best policy, even if our human nature would prefer protecting ourselves through lying and cheating. When we find out that God’s ways and His Word work, it gives us a hunger to know Christ and His Word better and to find even more wisdom. After a period of time, the accumulation of knowledge, wisdom and insight begins to make our lives different from the lives of those around us and becomes a powerful testimony to the ability of Jesus Christ to change men and women for the better. To stop with salvation and forgiveness and refuse to move further into the knowledge of Christ and His wisdom being applied in our lives produces religious people whose lives are sadly not much different, and sometimes worse, than the lives of those around them and turns people away from Christ.

- David Campbell

Knowledge that changes everything.

trinity — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:57:55 +0000

“For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding…” (verse 9) Here, as in Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon, Paul prays that believers would receive the knowledge of God. “Knowledge” refers to the personal relationship we have with Christ This is not something that accumulates as random pieces of information; it is something which “fills” our lives. Knowing information may have no effect on our lives at all, but knowing Christ changes everything. This knowledge is supplemented with “wisdom” and “understanding” or “insight”. “Wisdom” refers to an accurate understanding of life and the world around us which comes from God’s Word. “Insight” carries the idea of the strategic ability to apply that wisdom. When we come to know Christ, we are delivered out of ignorance and into relationship with Christ. This is real knowledge. With this knowledge comes a correct perception of life through the Scriptures, and with that in turn comes the ability, by the power of the Spirit, to apply that understanding practically. Without the knowledge of God through Christ, our knowledge and wisdom will be limited. We will attempt to understand the creation without understanding the Creator. The world has information, but the church has revelation. The difference between the two is that revelation changes how we live. It does this by changing all our values, so that everything we do comes out of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for us. We do not think as the world thinks. We do not have the same values as they have. We realize we are in this life to live for Christ and for others, not for ourselves. Why, without an encounter with Jesus Christ, would we want to love others, to put their interests ahead of ours, to forgive those who have wronged us, to live to the highest standards in our finances even when everyone else around us is cheating? We would never live like this on the basis of worldly wisdom, but only on the foundation of our knowledge of Christ. The wisdom of the world says to stick up for yourself and do a few good works along the way to make yourself feel better and look good. The knowledge of Christ says to lay your life down even for your enemy. The knowledge of Christ is the only way to gain true wisdom and the only way to make your life a true success.

- David Campbell

Delivered from the power of darkness.

trinity — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:09:11 +0000

“For He delivered us from the authority of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (verses 13-14) The word “delivered” speaks of the action of a mighty conqueror who rescues someone by his great strength. “Authority” refers to a tyrannical form of government, enslaving those under its power. A greater power must intervene. No man can rescue himself from the authority of darkness. Jesus used exactly the same phrase at Gethsemane when the crowd came to seize Him: “While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on me, but this hour and the authority of darkness are yours” (Luke 22:53). Jesus notes that the people opposing Him are exercising the power of darkness. But those who try to use the power of darkness will also fall under its authority. When man fell into sin, he tried to make use of the serpent’s wisdom to gain his own goals, but soon found that he had fallen under both the serpent’s authority and its judgment. The authority of darkness is the place of Satan’s rule and the counterfeit or opposite of God’s kingdom. It is the place where every single one of us lived before we came to Christ. We entered it through sin, and every one of us has sinned. We can exit it only through total absence of sin and obedience to God, the state in which we were created. But no man can free himself from the hold of sin and so no man can free himself from the kingdom of darkness. We are in an impossible dilemma! Yet there is a way out, for Christ has delivered us, and as the verse continues: “He has transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” The word “transferred” or “removed” was the word used when conquering kings took with them whole populations of towns and cities and moved them to a new place. They did it for an evil cause, but God does it for our benefit. What we could not do He has done. Notice that we do not have to wait for the future to be part of His kingdom. We are in His kingdom now. To be in His kingdom means to be living under His rule and authority, to be experiencing the reality of His power in our lives. To be transferred into the kingdom means change, and change for the better. What was impossible before is possible now.

- David Campbell

Attacking while attacked.

trinity — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:04:02 +0000

Even though things may from time to time be difficult, and there will be moments when we feel despair, the truth is that, no matter what is happening externally, God is powerfully at work accomplishing His purposes. I think each of us can look back to times when things looked very bleak, times which were very hard for us, times when we were tempted to lose hope, yet God brought us through those times. And looking back, we can often see how He was working out His purposes through it all. Ask the Lord to open your eyes to how He has worked things in your life through times of battle which would never otherwise have happened. And ask the Lord to show you that attack verifies one thing: you — yes, you — are a threat to the kingdom of darkness. The enemy does not bother with those who do not threaten him. And of course, just because battle is a reality does not mean it is constant. God provides times of rest between the storms. But we do live in a fallen world. Revelation 12:12 teaches that the devil has come down to the world “in great wrath” to do battle with the church from the time of Christ’s resurrection until the time of His return. He will not give up an inch of his territory without a fight. The battle is a given. But we are victorious in it. Attacking while attacked, inch by inch, we move forward, not backward. I pray God will encourage you daily by opening your eyes more and more to the ground that has already been gained.

- David Campbell

How faith works.

trinity — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:37:50 +0000

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for.” The key word here is “substance”, which represents the Greek word hupostasis. This word is used twice elsewhere in Hebrews. According to Hebrews 1:3, the Son is the exact representation of God’s hupostasis, and according to Hebrews 3:14, believers share in Christ only if they hold fast the beginning of their hupostasis to the end.

In the Greek language, this word originally meant that which supports something, a deposit or sediment in the ground, or even an item of immovable property. It came to refer in a more figurative sense to the underlying reality behind a thing. Christ is pictured in 1:3 as the exact representation of the reality, substance or being of God. The eternal reality of who and what God is in the eternal, unseen realm is made physical, earthly reality in Christ. In the same way, the things that exist in the eternal realm – the “things hoped for”, the things we do not yet possess, are made into flesh and blood reality in the lives of individual believers in Christ through the exercise of faith. As Christ brings the invisible substance of God into this physical world, so faith brings the things we do not yet possess into our possession. Our faith in Christ reaches out for and secures what is real in the invisible world and brings it into the physical reality of this present world, whereas the outward realities of that world are in fact only passing shadows. What is real in the eternal world but has no substance in the material world gains substance through the exercise of our faith. It is this substance which enabled the heroes of faith, whose lives are recorded as chapter 11 unfolds, to conquer everything the world threw against them, and still emerge victorious, whether in life or in death.

And of course, the substance of our faith is Christ - He is God’s guarantee standing behind everything we believe — so how can we fail? Maybe it’s time we took some more steps of faith by testing the substance of what we have but often fail to exercise. We may be amazed at the results!

- David Campbell

Faith for the fight.

trinity — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:26:12 +0000

How do we view the Christian life? What does it really mean to follow Christ? We would all admit that we live in a very pleasure-oriented, self-seeking society. This attitude can overflow into our understanding of Christianity. Do we teach people becoming Christians that following Jesus means to be rescued from all worldly troubles? Or that Christianity is a gateway to material prosperity? Or that it is a guarantee of protection? If so, we will not have a framework for understanding spiritual warfare when it occurs. But what if we take the Bible seriously in its portrayal of the Christian life as a battle in which we besiege the powers of darkness, fight against them and defeat them? In this case, we will have some expectations in place:
** a battle presumes an opposing power;
** this opposition will do some damage to us;
** the moment this damage occurs is the critical point where we must trust God and hold fast our position;
** no matter what the ups and downs of the battle, God guarantees ultimate victory.

If, on the other hand, we present the Christian life in terms of benefits and protection, the result — paradoxically — will be fear. Why? Because when trouble comes, we will have no frame of reference to understand or cope with it. Why is this happening when we thought God would protect us? This is the downfall of much teaching on faith. If faith is understood as trusting God that He will keep us from financial, physical and emotional hardships, we will have no means of dealing with those situations when they inevitably arise — and we will find ourselves in confusion and even disillusionment in our relationship with the Lord. But if we present the Christian life in terms of a battle which we fight offensively, the result will be peace — albeit peace in the midst of a storm. Why? Because:
** we have anticipated the attack of the enemy;
** we are trusting God to keep us in it;
** we see God as sovereign over it; He has warned us in advance that attack will come, but He promises to keep us in it and bring us through it.

Revelation repeatedly presents the Christian life as one of overcoming — which presumes we have things to overcome, but that, by God’s grace and empowering, we will do so. And when we have fought the battle, we will never regret doing what He called us to do.

- David Campbell

Ready For Battle.

trinity — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:15:20 +0000

There is no doubt that Paul faced severe attack — far more than any of us are likely to encounter. Yet for Paul, the reality of these ferocious attacks did not change his fundamental perspective on spiritual warfare, which is that we are besieging the enemy, not that the enemy is besieging us. How do I know this? The “weapons of our warfare” he refers to in 2 Corinthians 10:4 are in fact siege engines — powerful devices used to launch an offensive attack on a besieged city, in this case the fortress of Satan. Perhaps we can describe the process as “attacking while being attacked.” But this does raise a number of questions about spiritual warfare. Who is in control of the circumstances? How much do we have to suffer? To what extent will God protect us? Will we emerge victorious? These are legitimate questions. And we can give some brief answers, all from Romans 8.

Who is in control? God is in control — otherwise He is no longer the sovereign God the Bible says He is, nor could it be truthfully said that He works all things together for good for those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). Even where the enemy is at work, inflicting damage on us as best he can, God is working over, through and in it all to bring about a bigger and better purpose, which sooner or later will become clear. There are times when we just have to hold on and trust Him.

As to how much we may have to suffer or to what extent He will protect us, the same chapter in Romans says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (Rom. 8:35). The fact is none of us can define the extent of what may come against us. One thing is for sure: it is hardly likely that this entire list of challenges — all of which (except possibly the sword) Paul personally experienced — will befall us. Yet none of them deterred Paul from following Christ, or made him feel that following Christ was not worth the price he had to pay for it. We cannot sit around worrying about whether we could withstand a trial that might or might not take place: “What would I do if this or that happened?” God does not give grace and strength for a trial until we are in the trial. The truth is God has promised that, no matter what happens, nothing will separate us from His love.

And finally, as to whether we will emerge victorious, the answer is clear: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). So let’s get on with the battle, and trust God with the results!

- David Campbell

The church’s future.

trinity — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:41:42 +0000

1 John 2:14: “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him from has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”

John says here that the strength of young men is in the Word of God and in their ability to overcome the enemy. This is an interesting statement. We tend to think that it would take as many years to come to know God’s Word and to have spiritual power to overcome the enemy as it would to gain the type of knowledge of God possessed only by the fathers who, John says, “know Him who has been from the beginning”. Yet such is not the case. It is true that some levels of understanding God’s Word take years to reach. But the problem lies in our over-emphasis on intellectual knowledge. While it make take years of advanced training to understand certain aspects of Scripture, or to be able to get up and teach the church about it, most of the Bible is pretty simple. Anyone can gain a sufficient grasp of it quickly enough to use it. A brand-new convert with only a small understanding of the Word can use it against the enemy to devastating effect. By the same token, an unbelieving or liberal-minded professor of theology may have accumulated a lifetime of facts about the Bible – many of them erroneous – but in truth understands it less than the new convert on fire for God. There is something in the spirit of a young man which takes the Bible as a sword and jumps at the chance of using it in battle. That’s what he’s talking about here.

The same thing is true for the second part of the statement. Young men are destined by God to overcome the enemy. You don’t have to have known God for years to enter into battle and triumph. After all, the armed forces usually recruit men under 25, not over 50! There is a raw strength of faith in young men which can be harnessed to achieve great things.

Satan’s strategy, therefore, is to neutralize the strength of the young men. The young men are the future fathers and leaders, and if he destroys them now, he destroys the future of the church. That’s why the fathers (who know God and equally know the enemy and his ways), are charged with safeguarding the young men and helping them to achieve their destiny. The generals, through their years of experience, know their enemy, know his tactics, and know the way to win. But it is the soldiers who will fight the battle. The job of the generals (like the fathers in the church) is to release the young men in such a way that their strength is employed most effectively.

All this leads us to ask the question: how many churches are making the raising up of young men their overriding pastoral focus? Food for thought!

- David Campbell