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One bitterly cold, late December day, my brother Stephen and I trekked out to see the ice on a river near our house in St. Clair, Michigan. It had been pretty cold for the past couple of weeks and we were both anxious to lace up our hockey skates for the new season. The Pine River was about 60-80 feet wide and approximately 30-40 feet deep, with a strong current taken in from the St. Clair River – this was no little creek. But we thought it would make a perfect hockey rink. Stephen (10 years old) decided to skate around as we tested the ice, and I (14) decided to stay in my boots for this quick trial run.

We headed south down the center of the river about 200 yards and the ice seemed to be in pretty good shape. We weren’t sure how thick it was, but hey, it looked fine. So, with excitement we started heading back down the river toward the trail that would take us home to grab the rest of our hockey equipment. As we neared the shoreline I decided to give the ice one more test by jumping up and down on it a few times. I remember shouting out to my brother, “yeah Stephen, this ice looks great!” – Just at that moment a plunged through the ice and into some very cold, deep water. Yikes.

Sometimes the attractions of the world system are very appealing. It appears the glaze foundation is strong enough to old things together. “Hey, other people are doing it, and they look like their having fun,” we might say. It seems to look strong enough to holds things together. The questions about life away from the foundation of Jesus Christ tempt us to test, to question, to wonder, and to sometimes skate out on thin ice – completely unaware of the collapse or total disaster that lies ahead. We wonder: is following Christ like I’ve been taught really worth it? Can satisfaction and ease be found outside of doing this “Christian thing”? We might think that a job earning $100-200k a year might really give us what we want out of life. We question, “is the underpinning of the world all that bad?” Maybe some of you think having a beautiful, good-looking spouse and a snazzy family will do it for you. We think, “Yeah, that would be the life.” Maybe even some of us believe that having a flourishing, successful ministry will give us peace of mind. We so often use the world’s evaluation tools to judge the Christian life: Are you happy? Are you healthy? Are you at ease? Are you wealthy? And the more we use these gauges, the more we slide out onto a foundation that is destined to collapse…

So, my question for you and for me is this: What underpins your life? What underpinning will you trust in or stand on when you have more questions than answers? What’s Underpinning Your Life? What are you trusting in? Self? Your questions or intellect? Your Good Deeds? Money? Marriage? Material Gain? Or…

After calling and individually instructing the Twelve, Jesus taught from a mountain to a huge group of people who had been following Him and coming to Him for healing. In many ways, they wanted to receive health, ease, and physical well-being. Not necessarily bad things at all. Yet, they needed to understand (as we do) the key issue at stake. They had to face ONE QUESTION that would underpin their lives. Therefore, Jesus closed his sermon in Luke chapter 6, with an analogical story that will help us determine what must underpin our lives. So, please turn with me to Luke 6:46-49. Where we will come face to face with the words of Christ…

Listen to the full audio message entitled “Life’s Underpinning” by simply clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our iTunes podcast. This message was originally delivered on “Grad Night 2011” at Evangel Baptist Church on Sunday PM, May 22, 2011.

The Berlin Wall surrounding East Germany was the singular glaring obstacle to real freedom in Europe from August 1961 until November 1989. For almost 30 years the people of East Germany were locked behind a wall, a wall of communism – a regime that kept the populace bound in a life of fear, freedom-less-ness, and hopelessness. Some were imprisoned or even killed for merely attempting to escape the prison that had become their home. And so, the people of East Germany, eventually settled for what they thought would be the only life they would ever live. Perhaps some of them argued that life behind the Berlin Wall was great, easy, and moving towards a bright hope and future. That is certainly what the GDR (German Democratic Republic) tried to promote through various fliers and advertisements… and so most people settled behind The Wall.

But a wall surrounds us too. I believe the biggest obstacle or wall around most everyone who claims to be a Christ-follower in America is this: Life is great! Life seems easy. Our biggest obstacle between genuinely following Christ is not that life is hard or full of persecution or suffering for Jesus’ sake, but that life is great – and we think we don’t need anything. We are happy to settle for the American Dream and the easy life of evangelical religiosity. And we don’t even know what we’re missing. You and I settle for life in a limited world behind a wall of small doses of Christianity and a palatable amount of Jesus. And we don’t even know what we’re missing….

Imagine with me for a moment that we live in East Germany, and we hear that President Ronald Reagan has shouted out those infamous words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” And yet, you and I think life is as good as it gets back in East Germany, behind the Berlin Wall. And so we settle into apathy, complacency, as if we don’t care.

We hear news that there’s something more to life than going through religious motions, saying the “sinner’s prayer,” and going to church like nice people should do. Yet we think life is great as it is. No need to change. And we settle. We think we have need of nothing more… really. I believe this is the biggest obstacle, the biggest wall between young people (and older people for that matter) in America and Jesus.

So, how are we supposed to respond to Jesus when life is great?

We are not the only Christ-followers who have faced this obstacle of complacency or apathy. We are not the only ones who have lived in a place of abundance where it is so easy to think life is as good as it gets, and that we don’t need anything. In the Revelation of Jesus Christ, John was inspired by the Spirit to pen a message to a church in the ancient, wealthy city of Laodicea, and the words are shockingly relevant to us today. So let’s turn to Revelation 3:14-22…

Listen to the full audio message entitled “Jesus vs. Easy-Life Religiosity” by simply clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our iTunes podcast. This message was originally delivered at Evangel Baptist Church on Sunday, November 18th, 2012.

When Jesus walked the roads of Israel He was on a mission with a consuming sense of urgency for the lost sheep, first for the house of Israel, but also for anyone who was spiritual lost and apart from God. Jesus came to seek out and save the lost…

If this was and is the heartbeat of Jesus Christ – to be on the rescue mission of the Father – are we honestly being His followers? Somehow I find myself acting in apathy when it comes to the rescue mission of God. We are really good at rationalizing our way out of a sense of urgency when it comes to pursuing the lost. We forget that we were once that “lost cause,” that we were once that “outcast.”

We so easily forget how messed up we really were before Christ changed our lives. We forget that the reality of eternity is hanging in the balance with every individual we pass every single day. Yet all the while we call ourselves Christians, followers of Christ. Yet do our lives really look like His? Are we really on God’s mission? There seems to be something that holds us back – something that sidelines us from the mission…

So seriously, what do you think sidelines us from passionately and consistently living out God’s search and rescue mission?  What does it really mean to look like Jesus? Well, in concrete terms, it means our lives actually begin to look like Jesus – the One who received sinners, ate with them, and actively sought out the lost sheep to bring them home.

The Twelve disciples who followed Jesus everywhere struggled with this same question – they kept getting sidelined, I believe, by the same issue that we deal with. It was also the same issue the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the day were trapped in. And in a subtle yet striking way, Jesus clears the table for both of these groups (and for us) and points out our central problem and the heartbeat of God’s mission that is required for all who follow Him. Let’s pick up the story in Matthew 18:10-14…

Listen to the full audio message entitled “Search and Rescue” by simply clicking on the play button below or by subscribing to our iTunes podcast. This message was originally delivered at Evangel Baptist Church on Sunday, August 12, 2012.

We often face walls in our lives that may drive us to unbelief. The wall seems insurmountable. It seems as though we can’t go on. Perhaps we are faced with doubts because of a skeptical, atheistic professor or teacher. Or maybe you are being barraged by friends at school who think your belief in Christ is making you a “stick in the mud.”

Maybe it seems easier to revert back to the old way of doing things – to figure out life on our own. Perhaps it seems as though God just hasn’t come through and life is only getting harder, not easier.

What should we do when we are faced with “the wall?” How should we live in the face of doubts or the temptation to “do it our way?”

The Christ-followers who received the epistle to the Hebrews in the first century A.D. were facing a very similar situation. The pressure to turn back from their profession of faith in Christ was very strong, and the social and economic rewards for doing so would have been tremendous. Life wasn’t easy being a follower of “the Way.” However, the book of Hebrews specifically addresses just what they – and we – are to do when faced with this kind of pressure, this kind of “wall” in the “run” of the Christian life. So let’s take a look at Hebrews 10:35 and the following context. We are going to see this passage will help answer our question of what we should do when we are faced with the temptation to fall back – to give into “the wall”….

Listen to the full audio message entitled “The Run of Your Life” by simply clicking on the player below. I delivered this sermon during our Winter Camp Report Night at Evangel Baptist Church in February 2011.

Identification with “status” is all around us. We are daily inundated with the world’s system and orientation – which screams for more attention, more fame, and more prestige. Unfortunately, we also live in a way that all too often abides according to the world’s system of social status and “professional” association. This way of thinking creates arrogant divisions and prideful discord among the Body of Christ. Churches have been torn apart, leaders have fallen, and ministries have hit the dust as a result of this pervasive sin.

In a world of status symbols, self-adulation, and independent thinking; how can you and I build-up unity within the Body of Christ, rather than tear it apart with our own pride? As followers of Christ and those being followed as leaders in the Body of Christ, how can we avoid the devastating effects of division and disunity?

Our penchant for pride runs deep. I know mine does. We can be driven to want the world’s style and status of success. In many ways this mentality is not any different than the believers’ in ancient Corinth. You see, they also were enamored with personalities and worldly prowess. And, as a result, the church there was also riddled with horrendous division and disunity. Why? They were finding their headship in a personality rather than the Person: Jesus Christ. So, let’s take a look at 1 Corinthians 1:10-17…

In Christ Alone,

    Michael J. Breznau 

Click on the player below or subscribe to our iTunes station to listen to my full message entitled, “The Cross as our Compass” [1 Corinthians 1:10-31], delivered at Evangel Baptist Church in Taylor, MI.

People, situations, or even the circumstances of life are not always as they seem. Such was the case for a young, charming woman – a woman who happens to be the personal hero of my wife. This youthful, smart, and witty young girl had a bright future. All seemed refreshingly exciting.

She grew up in a supportive family in the good old Midwestern town of Boone, Iowa. At just ten years of age she was prompted by the Lord to serve Him on the mission field and this desire never left her. Early in her college years she met her would be husband who also had the same desire for ministry. After language studies, Darlene Diebler-Rose and her dear Russell headed off to Papua New Guinea. And they, along with several other families set up a thriving outpost for ministry in the surrounding villages around the small island of Celebes. She was overjoyed with being a part of Christ’s mission.

However, in one short day her life changed drastically for the worst. The dawn of the Japanese invasion of WWII had come to the West Indies. Swiping down island, village, and jungle, the Japanese cleared all that stood in their path – along with the isle of Celebes.

Darlene hurriedly threw some basic necessities into a pillowcase and ran out the door. Her husband was already carted up in a truck headed for a concentration “work” camp. As she reached up to give the pillowcase to her dear Russell, he leaned over and whispered, “Remember one thing dear: God said that He would never leave us nor forsake us.” As the truck drove away only one thing coursed through Darlene’s mind, “What about now, Lord?”

All she felt was abandonment. She would never see her husband again.

She and all the other ladies ended up in a prison camp in Kampili. Over and over Darlene questioned the Lord about her suffering and agony. About one year after she and her husband said their goodbyes, she received notice he had died from dysentery in a labor camp. At 26 she was now a widow. Again she cried out in utter frustration, “But what about now, Lord!?”

When the Bottom Falls Out… 

As much as Darlene strained through the frustration, she still could not clearly see how God could place her in such a position of suffering. She could not understand how this suffering that she was going through could be a part of Christ’s mission. In a similar way, you and I may have an incomplete or blurred picture of our Messiah’s true Mission. When the bottom falls out, when the preacher down the road is driving a Mercedes-Benz and you instead are being ridiculed for preaching the clear message of God’s Word, when the stressors of life are overwhelming: who is Christ to you?

Is He your present, earthly savior who you expect will come to rescue, save, and guard you from the suffering of this life? You and I may think we understand what it means to follow in the mission of Christ. But the stark truth and the testimony of most believers tells a different story. Following in the Mission of our Messiah does not offer the “best life now,” or grant us seven keys for success. Following in His mission does not even offer or guarantee the simplest of earthly comforts. If this were the case then Jesus Himself would have lived a very different kind of life.

However, mature followers of the Messiah must clearly understand His mission. We must Clearly See the Mission of our Messiah. Furthermore, we must understand that the Messiah’s mission is one of Suffering before Glory….

This is precisely what Christ unveils for us in Mark 8:22-33. Here in Mark 8:22-33 we find that those who had been following Jesus for quite some time and witnessed many powerful miracles still had an incomplete understanding of their Master and His Mission. However, Jesus would not let them remain in blurry understanding. Thus He unveils for them and us, just how one is to clearly see His true mission and wholeheartedly follow Him. So now turn with me to Mark 8:22-33….

Simply click on the audio player below to listen to the full message from Mark 8:22-23, entitled “Following the Mission of Our Messiah.” I delivered this message at Grad Night 2010 at Evangel Baptist Church, Taylor MI. 

:: The Beauty of Grace :: 

“The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair…” ~ Dr. Glenn Kreider

The evening before I headed back from Dallas after my last seminary class on “last things” (how ironic, yet wonderful), I prayed a simple pray that God would be pleased to bring me an opportunity to share the Gospel of grace with someone during my journey back home. Little did I know what would transpire…

When my flight arrived in Chicago for a short stopover, most of the passengers exited the plane, making way for dozens of new passengers for the short flight to Detroit. As I sat pondering the recent discussion I had during the prior flight with a rather liberal professor from Eden Seminary, a young woman with a big smile sat down next to me. I returned her smile, politely said hello, and thought about getting back into a text I was reading on interpreting the book of Revelation.

However, in short order, she asked me how I was doing, where I had come from, why I was going to Detroit – which led to a half a dozen more questions. In return I asked her where she was from, her background, etc… and this is where it just became astounding. It just so happened that she was raised in the small city of St. Clair (just south of Port Huron, MI), where my family lived for several years. She was also a friend of some of my best friends from childhood there. Still more amazing, I realized I had played pick-up football with her brother when he occasionally joined in with some of my good friends when I was just 11 and 12 years old. And one more thing: she turned out to be the exact same age as me. I probably competed with her in the junior track and field competition when I was a kid. It truly is a small world. Or do we, perhaps, serve a big and amazing God?

As we discussed life and these crazy connections, I kept noticing her glance over to my Bible that I had placed on top of my laptop case. I silently prayed there would be a chance to share the Gospel with her. She went on to tell me she had left St. Clair after finishing up college, had decided to be a nanny for a year in London, met an Italian guy – whom she then ended up living with for six years. They traveled and lived in various places in Europe and Australia, and eventually wound up in California where they planned on getting more graduate-level education and “settling down”. Yet life did not quite go as planned. She went on to explain how their relationship ended, how she then transitioned to a new job in Chicago, and how she was currently going through a rough time emotionally because of several “let down” experiences.

The Karma Equation

As I sat quietly listening to her story, she suddenly interjected with a question, “So, what do you think about God and stuff? You know, since that’s what you’re studying at the seminary thing.” I briefly explained the hope of Christ and the Gospel, and then asked her, “So, what do you think about all that?” She responded, “Well, I basically believe in Karma… you know what goes around, comes around. Like, when you do a nice thing for someone, you will eventually get a return “nice thing” too… and when you doing something uncaring or unkind, that will eventually come back around, too.” She then went on to tell my a detailed story about how she had recently experienced her version of Karma, in relation to not helping a friend through a break-up experience, and then finding the same treatment when she found herself in a similar situation….

Then it hit me, this is the biggest difference between the Gospel of grace and the message of any other religion or “belief system” like Karma! Grace does not operate on a “fair scale”! If we got what was fair, we would all be facing death and eternal punishment right now. I then asked her, “So, with this idea of Karma, what hope is there if you do something really bad?”

Her response, “Well, I don’t know, I guess you would get a really bad return?”

Crazy Amazing Grace

And then it hit me again, the Gospel is a message of hope because it offers TOTALLY underserved, unmerited, kindness – grace to anyone who receives this gift of God. I then asked her, “So, what about the guy I met in the Huntsville prison complex in Texas, who was just a few years older than me, and had been sentenced to 325 years in prison for murdering two people and involvement in narcotic sales? Is there any hope for him? Or is there just one big, whopping “bad Karma” waiting for him?”

You see, as I was then able to share with Jessica that morning on a flight back to Detroit, the message of the Gospel is different than any other religious offer because it is a message of grace. As my teacher, Glenn Kreider says, “The beauty of God’s grace is that it makes life not fair.” No other religion offers undeserved, unmerited, unearned, divine favor. So, even for a guy who has committed the most grievous offense – there is hope. Even for a young woman who has messed up her life and knowingly rejected what she knows to be “right” – there is hope in the Gospel of grace. We are not bound to a vicious cycle of duty. For the believer in Christ, what goes around doesn’t come around, because the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ has circumvented the vicious cycle of our sin and says, “no more!” And when the Father looks at us He says, “What sin? What sin? It is as far away as the east is from the west.”

This unbelievable and beautiful grace has been offered simply because of God’s great love. You see, as I shared with Jessica that morning, God doesn’t expect us to be like a selfish guy who buys a dozen roses, an expensive bottle of perfume, a box of fancy chocolates, and a five-star dinner for his woman, only in order that he might get a good “return on his investment” later on. Nothing is more irritating to women than when a man simply lives for a good return, instead out of pure love.

God loves us because He loves us. Pure and simple. He doesn’t love us because we can do nice things for Him. He doesn’t love us because of anything we can do. He loves us so much that He died for you and for me. That is grace. We can’t earn it and we can’t buy it. We simply must believe that it is really true. Believe in grace instead of Karma. Live in grace instead of duty. Administer grace instead of legalism. Grace is not a good return on investment. It is a gift of God’s love. In this Gospel of grace anyone can find hope.

The prophet Nathan understood this grace (see 2 Samuel 7:1). King David understood this grace (2 Samuel 12:1, 11-13). Paul understood this grace – maybe that’s why he couldn’t stop talking about it and living in light of it – he mentioned the grace of God more than 150 times (see Acts 7:54-8:3; 9:1-8; 19b-30)!

If God’s blessings are earned through our actions, then they are not blessings but wages. God gives blessings by His grace.

There is a huge difference between being motivated by love and being motivated by fear or duty. The Gospel is a Gospel of grace, not fear. It’s a gift, not a laundry list! Let’s rejoice in the shocking and radical grace of our great God and thank Him that life in Christ is not fair.

In Christ Alone,

Michael Breznau

Listen here to the Podcast “The Beauty of Grace” for the full message. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Imagine with me for one moment… that you cannot speak. 

You have completely lost your ability to sing, speak, or even utter one audible sound. Through a strange and irreversible virus, you have totally become mute. This crazy virus, weirdly enough, only attacked your vocal chords, numbing the nerves that control your voice box, and you’ve been left with only an indiscernible whisper.

It was a great and tragic shock to my system when a vocal specialist, from the U of M medical complex, told me that I had contracted a virus similar to the one described above. During my time in India, a virus infected my body and left me with a semi-paresis of my upper-superior laryngeal nerve. That’s just fancy medical language for this: a nerve that helped control my left vocal chord was semi-paralyzed or numb.

Croaking sounds that resembled a bullfrog seemed more common out of my mouth than normal human sounds, let alone my previous 2.5 octave range. For more than 8 months, tears streamed down my face on a regularly basis, as I wondered if I would ever be able to speak or sing normally again.

But What If…? 

By God’s grace my condition did not last forever, nor was it ever as far-reaching as our moment of imagination above. I never completely lost my ability to speak, although my voice was severely limited for quite some time. But think about this: what if I had become entirely mute? What if I lost complete control of my voice box? What if I had been left with only an indiscernible whisper?

What if you and I became entirely mute, unable to speak? Would we be unable to ever again share the Gospel of grace with the lost? How could they hear the Good News from you, if you could not be heard?  Remember, in Romans 10:13-14 the apostle Paul wrote, “For ‘whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” So it would seem the Gospel has to be audibly heard in order for someone to be saved. And this would be an accurate supposition from this text. The lost must hear, understand, and believe in the truth of God in Christ in order to be saved.

Shouting without Words…

But I wonder if there is another way to shout out the Gospel… without using words. Certainly, the special revelation of God, the Bible, is necessary for saving faith in Jesus Christ. Yet we would all agree that we could betray the amazing value and worth of Christ by the way we live. We can choose to put ourselves first, live for our desires, and run after our passions instead of God’s will. Yet on the flip side, we can display the amazing value and worth of Christ by the way we live as well! In this way, you and I can shout out Christ through beautiful “good” works.

We can proclaim the immense worth and power of Christ without using words. In fact, the myriad lost people across our country seem to most often “hear” more loudly through what they see, rather than through what they catch in their eardrums.

I believe this is exactly what Peter was getting at when he wrote to believers scattered throughout a hostile environment:

“Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good [kalos – “beautiful” or “excellent”] deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (1 Peter 2:11-12)

The dozens of on-lookers who watch you from next door, across the classroom, or in the neighboring cubicle may actually come to recognize God as God (“glorify God…”) through the way you and I live. Wow. Certainly, we are saved through the Gospel of grace, not good works; however, good works show that the Gospel of grace is at work in us. So let’s take the challenge from God’s Word to not betray the amazing worth of Christ, but instead shout out Jesus Christ through what we do with our hands and feet, and not just with our mouths. 

Most people are “sick of hearing it.” For far too long, people who claim the name of Jesus have been all talk with little action. So let’s give them something to “hear” with their eyes. The impact of shouting the Gospel without words might leave you and I quite amazed… and make God known in this world.

How will you shout out the worth of Christ with attractive actions?

In Christ Alone, 

   Michael Breznau 

Click below to listen to the full message entitled “Shout out Christ with Attractive Actions” (1 Peter 2:11-12) from the series First Peter: Radical Living in the Hope of Christ. I delivered this message to the 7-12th graders of Evangel Baptist Church on 4/4/12.