Like Sheep Without a Shepherd

The Bible says that when Jesus died on the cross, His disciples were scattered like sheep without a shepherd. They were truly lost men and women.

The hours between the time His body was laid in the tomb on the Sabbath day evening, until the bright dawn of Easter morning, were the longest any of them had ever experienced in their lives. Their dreams had been shattered by the hammer blows of Roman soldiers, and their hearts had been broken. Their most treasured hope for a better life, an eternal one, lay dead in the grave. And they didn’t know what to do.

But Jesus knew. When He came forth from the tomb that morning, He began a forty day visitation program.

On that very first Sunday of resurrection living, Jesus met with Mary and the other women at the garden tomb. He later met with Peter in the afternoon; Clopas and his buddy on the road to Emmaus, and finally He met with the ten disciples late that evening. He met with Thomas the following week at the now regular Sunday evening meeting.

He had family meetings with His mother and His half-siblings, where He brought James and the rest to saving faith. He had beach meetings and breakfast meetings and retreat meetings up in the hills. He visited with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus over in Bethany, and He even had healing and miracle services (see John 20:30-31; Acts 1:3).

Jesus had a busy forty days after Easter!

If you group these appearances by region, about two thirds of them occurred in Judea, down south, while the rest were up north around Galilee. If you group them by size, which is something us preachers like to do, most were private affairs with no more than a dozen or so people in attendance, although He did have one large meeting with over 500 people!

The point is that Jesus knew that what His disciples needed the most after His crucifixion was some face-to-face time with Him. And He gave it to them. What He didn’t do however, was give them 24/7 attention. This forty day period was more one of vanishings than it was of appearances. He wanted to mend their broken hearts, but He also wanted them to get used to not having Him around. After all, He was about to ascend back to heaven for good, from their perspective.

And, so, Jesus came and went as He pleased, and yet He gave each one exactly what he or she needed.

To Mary and the faithful women at the tomb, He gave great joy and happiness. To Peter, bowed down in shame because of his denials 54 hours before, Jesus gave hope and courage. To the two disciples on the roadway, blinded by their grief, He gave a burning desire to see again. To Thomas, filled with doubt, Jesus gave a reason to believe, and to the other ten disciples, burdened down with troubled hearts, Jesus gave a supernatural peace of mind.

What is it that you need today?

The message of the resurrection is that Jesus is alive and that He has whatever it is your heart needs the most. He gave the disciples new motivation for living, new authority for ministering, and new power for witnessing. What is it you need Him to do for you? Just ask, and He will give you that which you need to pick up the shattered pieces of your life and become whole again.

All you have to do is trust Him.

The Crown of Thorns

When I think of the death of Jesus, the thing that is most real to me is the crown of thorns. Without it, I could not relate very well to His sacrificial death on my behalf, but with the thorns, I know exactly why He had to die for me.

He died for me because of the curse.

Every time I experience the difficulty of work, what the Bible calls the “sweat of the brow”, I know that I am cursed by sin. The other day I went over to the church property to pick up some trash that the winter winds had blown into the bushes lining the street. That litter was caught up in the weeds, tangled amongst the thorns, and my arms now bear the marks of that work.

When I try my hand at some gardening outside, my back tells me that I am cursed. Whenever the computer crashes, or I miss an important deadline, or the house needs repainting, or the family van breaks down, I remember the curse. It is hard to work against the curse, but we do it every day of our lives.

When somebody yells at me, or when a storm knocks out the power, or when sickness drives me to the doctor’s office, I experience the curse. Even the earth itself reels under the curse of mankind’s sin (Romans 8:20-22), such that we live in a violent world that is spinning toward extinction. The sum total of all the pain and suffering and death in this world is a result of the curse of sin, and the thorns are the particular reality of that curse and its symbol as well.

But the Bible also says that, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’ (Galatians 3:13). The crown of thorns thrust upon His head that dark day of death so long ago was the indicator that Jesus was doing something for me about those cursed thorns.

All my life has been a struggle against the curse of the thorns, and the older I get, the harder it is to bear up under the load. I know that someday, that curse will take me to my grave. Maybe the flower of choice for funerals should be the rose, since it is the one flower most closely associated with the thorns.

But, Jesus changed all that when He allowed those soldiers to jam the crown of thorns upon His brow. Because of who He was, His death counted far beyond His own and reached out to me, and reached out to you, in our struggle against the curse of sin. He brought an end to the curse such that it will not reach beyond the grave and chase us into the hereafter.

While we are in this sin-cursed world, the thorns will pierce us still, but when we close our eyes for the last time here, and open them again in heaven, there will be no more thorns. The crown upon His brow will be one of joy and gladness when we finally see Jesus face to face in glory.

Which is why I am grateful that He once wore a crown of thorns.

Peter's Denial

To deny Jesus is to lose everything, including any hope for eternal life. And if you deny Him six times, like Peter did on the night before Jesus was crucified, then your case would appear to be hopeless, indeed.

But Peter’s story gives us hope, not because of his repeated denials, but because of our Lord’s victory over his failures. Just as Jesus triumphed over death, so He empowered Peter to triumph over his loss of courage. And if Jesus can do that for Peter, He can do that for us.

Lots of folks debate how many times Peter denied the Lord: was it three times, or was it six times? The answer is that the rooster crowed twice, and Peter denied Jesus three times before each crowing of the rooster. Which makes six.

Now, before you get all caught up in the counting, ask yourself this: how many times have you denied the Lord Jesus? That is the crucial question, isn’t it? And what does it mean to “deny” Jesus?

The word “deny” means to disclaim association with a person or to repudiate someone. On the surface, it is the ultimate rejection any one person can utter about another. Such a denial represents a turning point in relationship from which there appears to be no returning. If this was true, however, Peter would be in hell today.

What matters is the condition of the heart at the moment of denial. What is the motivator of the denial? Depending upon the nature of the denial, a restored relationship is possible.

In Peter’s case, a lack of courage mixed with pride was at work. He had previously boasted that he would be willing to die with Jesus, but fear gripped his heart and denials flowed from his lips. Notice, however, that he never stopped loving Jesus; otherwise, he would never have wept over the course of events that tragic night.

For others however, a denial of Jesus flows from a heart filled with doubts. Thomas comes to mind, and in a moment of fear, he too ran away from his Lord. Each one of us may face times in life when we are tempted to deny Jesus out of fear, or pride, or doubt. In such times, tortuous and depressing as they are, there is still hope.

It is the heart of unbelief, however, for which there is no hope at all. In contrast to Peter and the others who wavered on the edge of faith, and who experienced a night of agonizing weakness of spirit, a man like Judas plunged straight into damnation because of his unbelief. Judas loved religion. He loved his country, and he loved Jesus so long as he thought he could use Jesus to advance his agenda. But he never surrendered his heart to the Lord as had the others. He went to his death regretting what he did, but there was no faith in his heart to call upon in those dark hours as there was for Peter.

What about you?

Is yours a heart that makes room for Jesus? Do you believe in Him on His terms and conditions, not your own? All He asks is that you follow Him in faith, and if you do, then you can be sure of His love in the darkest of hours. Even if your courage fails on some dark night of the soul, remember what the sunrise on resurrection Sunday morning brought for Peter. It brought him hope, and it brought him the power to move beyond denial.

It can do the same for you.

Let This Cup Pass

When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, "Father, if it be Your will, let this cup pass from Me," most people think that He was referring to death on a cross. They think that this prayer was an expression of the human side of Jesus recoiling from the horrors of crucifixion. However, there is a better view that fits the facts of Scripture and which gives a richer picture of what really happened to our Savior so long ago.

What happened to Jesus in the garden that night is that death came to Him prematurely and overwhelmingly. He was in agony and suffering to the point of sweating drops of blood. He was about to perish and He knew it, which is why He begged three times for His disciples to pray with Him. And unless an angel had come and ministered to Him, He would have died a lonely death in a garden rather than a substitutionary death on a cross. If He had died there in the garden, all the plans for the salvation of the world through the cross would have been forfeited. A Jesus who died in the garden would have been a tragic figure rather than the Savior of the world. Let's look at the facts about what happened that night in the garden of Gethsemane.

First, we know that Jesus was in need of support during a great time of stress. He asked His disciples to pray with Him, not just once, but He asked them three times. His burden had grown so heavy that He sought the company of friends to help Him get through this trial. He wanted their prayers, but as we know, they failed Him when they fell asleep in sorrow.

Second, we know that Jesus was in the midst of a great internal struggle as He approached the hour when He would bear the sins of the world on the cross. There in the garden, Jesus was already beginning to feel the weight of mankind's sins, and it was crushing Him even before a hand of violence was ever laid on Him. Luke said that "He was in anguish and his sweat was like drops of blood" (22:44), and Matthew records Jesus as saying, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death" (26:38).

Third, we know that an angel came from heaven and "strengthened Him" (Luke 22:43). The ministry of angels in the life of Jesus is interesting. They announced His birth; they strengthened Him after His forty day ordeal in the desert when the devil tempted Him; and in the final days of His life, an angel was with Him in the garden strengthening Him so that He would not die prematurely when the agony of sin began to descend upon Him.

Fourth, we know that Jesus prayed in the garden for the Father in heaven save Him from death, a death that was about to swallow Him at any moment: "Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me." Yes, the cup was the cup of death, but it was not a death on the cross that Jesus had in mind when He prayed those words. Rather, Jesus was asking the Father to let Him live long enough to go to the cross and bear the punishment for the sins of mankind. He was asking God to allow Him to fulfill His purpose for coming to earth in the first place, rather than perish one day too soon. The plan of salvation through the cross had been established long before the world was even created (Ephesians 1:4), and Jesus knew that He was about to fall short of carrying out that plan because He was on the point of death there in Gethsemane.

Fifth, we know that Jesus never wavered from the prospect of death on a cross. He had repeatedly told His disciples that it was always His intention to go to Jerusalem in order to be crucified for the sins of the world: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day” (Luke 9:22, see also Matthew 16:21 and Mark 10:45). The disciples were slow to understand this idea, and in fact, rejected it completely. Peter even “rebuked” Jesus to His face for insisting that He would end up on a cross someday soon (Mark 8:31-32).

Sixth, we know that Jesus specifically rejected the idea that He would ask the Father to release Him from the plan to die on the cross: "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:27-28).

Thus, if Jesus, in the garden, were asking to be released from the prospect of death on a cross, then He would be undoing everything that He said He had come to earth to do. Jesus knew that His death on a cross for the sins of mankind was a fulfillment of Scripture, and He was not only willing to be crucified, but He was adamant about it. Jesus did not change His mind about dying for mankind when He asked for the cup to pass from Him - to do so would have been a self-betrayal of all He had ever said and done.

Finally, we know that Jesus survived His ordeal in the garden and that He gave His life on the cross for the sins of the world. The author of Hebrews referenced this in chapter 5:7 "In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety." Here, the Bible tells us that God the Father answered the cry of Jesus from the garden, and with the help of an angel, the cup did indeed pass by Jesus that night.

What a Savior!

Adult Bible Study Kickoff Sunday - CELEBRATION!

It’s that time when the Bible Studies get started. Our Adult Bible Fellowship class lineup is excellent and 5 January we hear from the teachers for the session starting 11 January.

9:00 a.m. Fellowship With Our Family - Room 104
...............Discover The Classess Being Offered - FLC
...............Feast On The Lord's Provision!

I pass this along as a note of encouragement and exhortation to be strong in the Lord.
More details soon .....

New Website

Our new church website is now under construction, with the hopes of going "live" sometime soon. And in the hope of making this a more dynamic site, I am recruiting folks to help create and/or maintain a variety of web pages for this site. The possibilities are endless as to which ministry can have a page! Rather than having the website administrator (me) be a bottleneck for the growth of our website, we can give permissions to create pages to as many people as we want!

So, let's get the ball rolling, and if you are inclined to make our website more robust and dynamic, please shoot me an e-mail. I need all the help I can get! Thanks, Andy Richardson (arichardson@barcroft.org)

UPDATE FROM GEORGE IN TURKEY

Am taking advantage of the generosity of another one of the attendees who has lent me his laptop to type up a short message to home. Today was an exciting day although our daily 6;30 am walk on the Mediterranean beach was interrupted by scattered showers. Since the wet sand was not going to be any fun, we opted to walk around the property where nicely paved sidewalks lined the outer walls. Then we noticed that the mountains that sorround the east and west sides of this port city of Antalya were far more visible from this vantage point despite the low hanging clouds of this morning. It was also somewhat a sad morning as two of the people we have been prayer-walking with every morning are planning to head home tomorrow. One a is senior pastor at a church in NC and the other is guest lecturer from FL. Speaking of these guys, one of them just had to have his picture taken while taking a swim in the Mediterranean and he sure picked the coldest day to do it. Anyway he did not chicken out and the huge waves did not deter him either. I can’t wait for my copy of his photos. We must have struck it out so well because one of the guys was an Awana kid all the way from Cubbies and he appreciated that I would serve in that ministry. Today was a half-day of actual child care work as we joined a busload of folks for a short trip to Antalya city, the port, the grand bazaar, the tourist spots, and to see what a modern Turkish shopping mall was like. It was nice to walk around and to give you an idea, according to Milt’s pedometer, we walked 15,000 steps (or 6.9 miles). This is not atypical either as we’ve been probably averaging walking 6 miles a day since we got here. Tomorrow, we get a break from a rather hectic week with the kids. It is not easy20managing a room of 14 kids with ages ranging from 6-14. Prayers have really been answered as we the Lord has been able to instruct us how to construct a childrens program that would hold the interest of the youngest and the oldest of the group. Mind you these 14 kids speak different languages, in fact we opened yesterday and today in prayers of 6 different languages with Dick ending it in English. All the lessons, games, crafts, bible stories, missionary stories are being done with the help of three translators. Oh yes, a prayer of thanksgiving for the Lord melding together this group of 5 child workers so that we could be of one mind and one heart as we deliver the program. Because many of them do not have the benefit of Sunday school or any type of bible lessons in their place of ministry, all of us workers are acutely aware that what is at stake is that the children gain a positive impression of Christ, how much He loves them, and how Christian kids also know how to have good clean fun. Our days are quite full. We start around 6AM and get ready for a 6:30 beach walk. Then we shower, get breakfast and get ready for daily 9AM worship. Childrens program starts 9:30, lunch at 1:00, then resume at 4pm and close at 7PM. We then have booked meals with the parents of the children during the lunch and dinner hours so that we get a chance to meet them in person and talk about their ministries. We try to get an internet connection around 10pm and try to get to bed by 12:00. Every day is a full day. But thanks to your contuinuing prayers, we are renewed every morning.

*** Barcroft ABF Update****

Discover The Class God Has For You
Fellowship With Our Family
Feast On The Lord’s Provision!

Please Join Us For Bible Study Classes - starting at 9:00 a.m.
1 - New class starting on 19 October - "Living Proof Evangelism" - John Kuspa/Wayne Shaffer (Room 125)

2 - Men & Women of the New Testament - Pastor Andy Richardson/Curt Marsh (Room 119A) (Choir Room)

3 - Survey of End Times - Wolverton - Kim Woodward, Douglas James, Woody Long ( Room 123)

4 - New Discovery Class - What We Teach, Vision, Peace Maker - Pastor Vic/ Chet Arnold (Room 119B)

Fellowship w/food at 10:00 a.m. in the Church Office Conference Room (Room 104).

Adult Bible Fellowship (ABF) UPdate

Come let's fellowship together and see what Bible Studies are provided!

Sunday 5 October 2008 ............ 9:00AM ............. Room 125

Teachers Introducing Bible Lesson Plans
A Time To…..

Discover The Classes Being Offered

Fellowship With Our Family

Feast On The Lord’s Provision!

Will you join us? God Bless!

STUDENT MINISTRIES DIRECTOR

12 September 2008
Brothers and sisters,
The search for a Student Ministries Director is on! The search committee met Thursday 11 September to review the new position description provided by the Elders and has begun to solicit resumes from various sources. You may view the position description at http://www.barcroft.org/jobs. This new position will eventually become part of the Family Ministries envisioned for Barcroft in the coming years. We look forward to meeting God’s provision for this position in the not too distant future.
The community in which we serve and worship is largely middle-class, multi-lingual, highly educated, and technically sophisticated and characterized by relationships stressed to the breaking point in a society seemingly bent on separating families and groups by age and culture. Many nations and cultures already attend our church, meet in the facility, or are our neighbors. The most internationally diverse university in our country is within minutes of our church campus. God would have us Proclaim Jesus to the Nations by working against the societal trends that separate us and would have us strengthen relationships in the family, the church body and by extension our community as we build godly families that will serve Him by reaching across generations and culture.
The task appears daunting and overwhelming, nevertheless, we believe God has brought us together in this church for this purpose and He will do through us what we would otherwise be unable to do. He places us in this strategic position and gives to us the people and resources to accomplish His plans. We must grasp this vision and move ahead for His glory. We trust He will provide just the man to help move the Student Ministries of this church forward to become what He envisions for us.
Thank you for your prayers.
In Christ,
The Student Ministries Director search committee

YOUTH MINISTRIES UPDATE

Brothers and sisters,

After many months of prayer and diligent work the search for the man who will lead our youth ministry has produced no viable candidates. The committee has meticulously combed through more than 100 resumes and closely examined several potential candidates, so far to no avail. Before the search begins anew, the Elders are reviewing the process including the position description, the doctrinal review questions and ways to improve Elder involvement in the process. We are encouraged that this circumstance has provided an opportunity for the Elders and the search committee to prayerfully work together in discerning God’s will. We believe God is providing an opportunity to further explore how children, youth and adult ministries will serve as community portals to a broader Family Ministry in the future. As we move forward to what we believe God has in mind for our church we covet your prayers.

The search process will continue and in the interim planning has begun to ensure the youth ministry continues with excellence. We are again encouraged as many who are integral to the success of Riptide are still with us and new families are interested as their children become a part of the ministry. A coordination meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 12 August at the church where we will discuss plans to continue the excellent teaching and fellowship that are a Sunday morning and Wednesday night Riptide tradition.

We will keep you informed and ask for your continued prayers as we seek God's man in His time.


In His service,
Chet Arnold
For the Elders

Replica Curtiss JN-4D "Jenny" Slideshow from Sunday, July 6, 2008

AIG dinner

Last night, we went to dinner with Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, at the Marco Polo restaurant in Vienna. We weren't the only ones from Barcroft there... Sharon and Steve Ong, Chet and Michelle Arnold, and Dick Fitts as well. A room full of excited Christian people made for an enjoyable evening as Ken Ham encouraged us to stand strong for the truth of creation as told in the Bible. His description of the new Creation Museum in Kentucky made me want to grab my kids and take off right away for a field trip! We should charter a few buses for Barcroft and get going!

Take a look at their web site and you will see some great stuff... www.answersingenesis.org

Thanks for the support

Thank you for your positive support last week as you agreed for me to become the Ministries Pastor at Barcroft. Diane and I are very grateful for the encouragement we received from so many of you. Our immediate plans include my finishing out my duties at my current place of employment, as well as some travel to Texas, Kansas, and Guatemala. My official start date at the church is Monday, July 14th.

Until then, we have already begun meeting with ministry leaders and others in order to get a better picture of the current situation at the church. We are in the listening mode right now and will move into a more active implementation mode once we get up to full speed this summer. There are so many good things that God is doing in our church already, and I know that He has even greater things in store for us in the near future.

Please keep us in prayer as we make this transition into our new ministry with you, and thank you again for giving us this opportunity to serve Jesus.

Barcroft Men Aiming Higher

To get the word out about Barcroft's Flight School (VBS 2008), the men of the church are building an airplane to enter in the Fairfax City 4th of July parade. Milt Clary's garage will be open the next three Saturdays. Many hands are needed as well as two 12-14 inch spoked wheels (maybe from a jogging stroller?) Comments can be made by clicking at the bottom of this post.
Here's a project update from Milt:

We made good progress [this past Saturday] though there is a long way to go but I'm trusting the finished product will come to pass. I was very gratified to see so many guys working as a team, some with their sons to do something rooted in eternity. We'll have the main part ready to turn over to the paint crews by the end of the 14th. We should be well on our way with the wings as well by then. The big deal from yesterday is that almost all the parts we need were finished yesterday.