Thursday, September 29, 2011

Elated, Exalting and Triumphant

Ray Ortlund post:  That is Christianity


“A Christianity which does not make you happy is not worthy of the name.  But as long as you are just moral you will never be happy; you will never know the joy of the Holy Spirit.  But the kingdom of God, the faith of the New Testament, is vibrant with joy.  Look at the people on the day of Pentecost. . . . They were elated, exalting and triumphant.; they were glorying in Him.  That is Christianity.”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Kingdom of God (Wheaton, 1992), page 83.

As Long As It Takes

Mark Batterson post:  Prayerstorming


I love making up words. One of my new favorites is prayerstorming.  It’s a derivative of brainstorming, but it adds a spiritual dimension that goes beyond the intellectual constraints of cerebral cortex.  I have this growing sense that our emphasis in 2012 will be strategic prayer.  We’ll kick off 2012 with a four-part series on prayer based off my next book, The Circle Maker.  We’ll do a 21-day prayer challenge in January.

I believe in the importance of praying and planning.  It’s not either/or. It’s both/and.  I think the best plans are conceived in prayer.  It’s the difference between good ideas and God ideas.  That is what prayerstorming is all about. It’s getting into God’s presence so you get God’s heartbeat.  Prayer isn’t about outlining your agenda for God. It’s about discovering His agenda for you.  And the only way you download it is prayer.

I used to attach an ASAP to every prayer.  I wanted God to answer as soon as possible. My paradigm has shifted to ALATas long as it takes.   I believe 2012 is going to be a break through year at NCC for one reason: when you PRAY THROUGH you will inevitably experience a BREAK TROUGH.  If we believe that, then let’s pray like it.

I’ll be honest, I’m tired of the latest trends and newest ideas.  There’s no school like the old school.  I think we need to keep on top of those latest trends and newest ideas, but it’s meaningless if we aren’t praying like it depends on God.  Think of it as prayerstorming.


Balance and Priorities

Excerpts from Kevin DeYoung post:  Still a Place for Priorities

I like Russell Moore. He is a powerful preacher and an elegant writer. In particular, I’m thankful for his work on orphans, adoption, and abortion. I like him so much I asked him to write the chapter on “Kingdom” in Don’t Call it a Comeback. We are on the same team.

But I want to make a few comments on his recent blog post “Gospel or Justice, Which?” Instead of repeating a number of points I make with Greg Gilbert in our book What is the Mission of the Church?, I’ll simply add some brief thoughts to the mix.

...


4. While Jesus clearly attended to physical needs in his earthly ministry, we nevertheless see that he placed a priority on verbal proclamation. Take Mark 1:38, for example. Jesus was up late the previous night healing sick people and casting out demons (32-34).  Then he got up early in the morning to be alone and pray. But before long, Peter comes along, saying, “Jesus, everyone is looking for you.” In other words: “Here you are all alone, and everyone wants to see you. There are more sick people, more demon-possessed. The folks in Capernaum want you to bring more people to you.” But look what Jesus says in verse 38: “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” “Came out” means “came out in public.” Jesus is giving the purpose for his ministry. Verse 39 makes clear that he wasn’t done casting out demons. But that is not why he came out. There is not a single example of Jesus going into a town with the purpose of healing or casting out demons. He never ventures out on a healing and exorcism tour. He certainly does a lot of this along the way. He is moved with pity at human need. But the reason he “came out” was “that [he] may preach” (1:38).

I just finished a two year sermon series on Mark. I know that Jesus often healed and cast out demons. He cared about physical need and relieved suffering. So should we. I also know from preaching through the gospel that everything in the gospel points to the identity of Jesus (Mark 1:1). The miracles, the healings, the exorcisms all serve a larger purpose–to demonstrate, clarify, and prove that Jesus is the Son of God. Did Jesus minister in a holistic way? Yes. Was his priority proclamation? Also yes. The whole structure of Mark’s gospel and the shape of Jesus’ ministry aims at the goal that those with ears to hear might see Jesus’ true identity and follow him in faith. This is the same goal we see being aimed for by the early church in Acts. Their mission was to bear witness to all that Jesus Christ accomplished in his mission.

No Christian should ever side with gospel instead of justice or justice instead of gospel. The either/or will condemn us all. But just because we gladly say yes to gospel and justice does not mean we have answered the question “What is the mission of the church?” Some churches may need “balance.” But we also need priorities.

Right Time


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In year four, we tried to slowly move our congregation to a plurality of elders.  After, eighteen months of teaching through 1 Timothy and several in-depth discussions on the matter, I found myself with a congregation split in support and revolt over this issue. As I saw I was about to split the church, I stopped. I spent the next nine months saying nothing publicly, but used that time to ask those in opposition why they struggled so much with this clear biblical direction.  It turns out there was a hang up on two things:  The term “elder” (traditional SBC members did not understand) and a feeling I was pushing my own agenda, not God’s.  Nine months later I presented the same idea and it passed unanimously.  Why?

I made two changes based on the objections I learned.  I changed the term “elder” to “pastor.”  They identified a shepherd as a pastor.  The other thing the Lord used that I did not realize at the time, was I stopped moving forward nine months previous when I could have rammed it through.  I had the congregational votes.  Yet, in holding back, I apparently revealed to the skeptics I did love this church and cared more about keeping the church together than ramming my own agenda.

The Lord in his grace, taught me that not only should I still move slow when bringing change, but as their shepherd I am to watch and listen to the people to see when they are ready for the change.  Wait for the right time the Lord in his power and grace provides.

What are we to do while we wait?  We teach, pray and love the people.  When you sense yourself getting impatient for change in years 2-3 thinking this will never happen…you teach, pray and love the people.  We continue in this faithful task until the “right time” comes, or the Chief Shepherd returns.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

His Transforming Power

"Jesus I Am Resting Resting"

Jesus I am resting, resting
In the Joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,
And Thy beauty fills my soul,
For by Thy transforming power
Thou hast made me whole.

...


What's Next?

David Mathis post:  The Next Step: Disciple a Few

Maybe you attended a missions conference. Or read a book or article. Or heard a life-altering message. Or perhaps best of all, you were turned upside down by personal interaction with a fellow Christian. For the first time, you’re seeing that we are all “sent.” Every Christian is called to live on gospel mission. Whether God is lighting a new fire in you for “living sent” where you already are, or he’s calling you to cross a culture in missions, what’t next? Where do you go from here?

Here’s the guidance David Platt has for us in his book Radical:
I am concerned about a general vagueness that has existed in contemporary Christianity regarding the next step. We have seen that God blesses us so that his glory might be made known in all nations. But an all-important questions remains. How do we make God’s glory known in all nations? If God has given us his grace so that we might take his gospel to the ends of the earth, then how do we do that? Do we walk out into the streets and just start proclaiming the glory of God somehow? Should we all go to other nations? If we go, what do we do when we get there? What does all this look like in our day-to-day lives?
Jesus has much to teach us here. If we were left to ourselves with the task of taking the gospel to the world, we would immediately begin planning innovative strategies and plotting elaborate schemes. We would organize conventions, develop programs, and create foundations. We would get the biggest names to draw the biggest crowds to the biggest events. We would start megachurches and host megaconferences. We would do . . . well, we would do what we are doing today.
But Jesus is so different from us. With the task of taking the gospel to the world, he wandered through the streets and byways of Israel looking for a few men. Don’t misunderstand me — Jesus was anything but casual about his mission. He was initiating a revolution, but his revolution would not revolve around the masses or the multitudes.
Instead it would revolve around a few men. It would not revolving around garnering a certain position. Instead it would revolve around choosing a few people. He would intentionally shun titles, labels, plaudits, and popularity in his plan to turn the course of history upside down. All he wanted was a few men who would think as he did, love as he did, see as he did, teach as he did, and serve as he did. All he needed was to revolutionize the hearts of a few, and they would impact the world.
(Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, [Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2010], 87-88)

Desperate People Love Grace

Excerpts from Tullian Tchividjian post:  Mercy Always Comes Running

I know that illustrations always break down at some level but I still think the following one makes a good (albeit, not perfect) point.


A friend of mine recently told a silly story about a man standing at the gates of heaven waiting to be admitted. To the man’s utter shock, Peter said, “You have to have earned a thousands points to be admitted to heaven. What have you done to earn your points?”

“I’ve never heard that before: but I think I’ll do alright. I was raised in a Christian home and have always been a part of the church. I have Sunday school attendance pins that go down the floor. I went to a Christian college and graduate school and have probably led hundreds of people to Christ. I’m now an elder in my church and am quite supportive of what the people of God do. I have three children, two boys and a girl. My oldest boy is a pastor and the younger is a staff person with a ministry to the poor.

My daughter and her husband are missionaries. I have always tithed and am now giving well over 30% of my income to God’s work. I’m a bank executive and work with the poor in our city trying to get low income mortgages.”

“How am I doing so far”, he asked Peter.

“That’s one point,” Peter said. “What else have you done?”

“Good Lord…have mercy!” the man said in frustration.

“That’s it!” Peter said. “Welcome home.”

My friend who used this silly illustration ended it by saying, “Teach the law. The Psalmist called it perfect. Teach it until people recognize their inability to keep it and cry out for mercy…Mercy always comes running.”

 ...


After the law does its crushing work, however, we are then able (with Paul) to break out into the song of freedom–the laughter of the redeemed: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord…There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 7:25-8:1). It’s only when we come to the end of ourselves that we come to the beginning of God’s grace–which yields bona fide freedom! We will always be suspicious of grace until we realize our desperate need for it (“Wretched man that I am!”). Desperate people love grace. Deceived people (i.e., those who think they’re basically “making it”) fear it. Those who know (and I mean really know!) just how much they’ve been forgiven, love much (Luke 7:47).

The reason Paul breaks out into loud praise is because he knows that the determining factor in his relationship with God is not his obedience (the law showed him how bad he was at this) but Christ’s obedience for him. He finds great doxological freedom knowing that his standing with God is not based on his struggle for Jesus (he fought the law and the law won), but Jesus’ struggle for him–that God doesn’t relate to us based on our feats for Jesus but Jesus’ feats for us.

The law reveals how quick we are to run from God; the gospel reveals how quick God is to run after us.

So, “Cheer up; you’re a lot worse off than you think you are, but in Jesus you’re far more loved than you could have ever imagined.”

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Gives Clear Sight of Jesus

Ray Ortlund post:  Sobriety, glory


When Eric Clapton hit bottom, he instinctively reached out for something beyond himself:

“At that moment, almost of their own accord, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees.  In the privacy of my room I begged for help.  I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether, I had nothing left to fight with.  Then I remembered what I had heard about surrender, something I thought I could never do, my pride just wouldn’t allow it, but I knew that on my own I wasn’t going to make it, so I asked for help, and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered.

Within a few days I realized that something had happened for me.  An atheist would probably say it was just a change of attitude, and to a certain extent that’s true, but there was much more to it than that.  I had found a place to turn to, a place I’d always known was there but never really wanted, or needed, to believe in.  From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for my life and, most of all, for my sobriety.  I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and with my ego, this is the most I can do.”

Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography (New York, 2007), pages 235-236.

To me, this is touching, and I mean that respectfully.  And his prayers are humbler than some of mine, I am certain.  And in a way, I could wish that a breakthrough to God could be this vague and yet still somehow conclusive.

But what God gives to us broken sinners is better.  God gives a clear sight of Jesus through the gospel: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

It is one thing to despair of ourselves.  We must.  But it is something further to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus.  Startlingly honest experiences can help us.  But only a miraculous sight of Jesus can transform us.

Why settle for sobriety, when God gives glory?

Strengthened in Faith

Paul Tripp post:  God’s Will for Your Wait

In ministry there are often moments when you are propelled by a biblical vision but called by God to wait. Waiting can be discouraging and hard. So what does it look like to wait in a way that makes you a participant in what God is doing rather than someone who struggles against the wait? Let me suggest several things.

Remind Yourself You Are Not Alone

As you wait, tell yourself again and again that you have not been singled out. Remind yourself that you are part of a vast company of people who are being called to wait. Reflect on the biblical story. Abraham waited many years for his promised son. Israel waited 420 years for deliverance from Egypt, then another 40 years before they could enter the land God had promised them. God’s people waited generation after generation for the Messiah, and the church now waits for his return. The whole world groans as it waits for the final renewal of all things that God has promised. In ministry, it is vital to understand that waiting is not an interruption of God’s plan. It is his plan. And you can know this as well: the Lord who has called you to wait is with you in your wait. He hasn’t gone off to do something else, like the doctor you’re waiting to see. No, God is near, and he provides for you all that you need to be able to wait.

Realize That Waiting Is Active

Usually our view of waiting is the doctor’s office. We see it as a meaningless waste of time, like a man stuck in the reception area until he has nothing left to do but scan recipes in a two-year-old copy of Ladies’ Home Journal.

Our waiting on God must not be understood this way. The sort of waiting to which we are called is not inactivity. It is very positive, purposeful, and spiritual. To be called to wait is to be called to the activity of remembering: remembering who I am and who God is. To be called to wait is to be called to the activity of worship: worshiping God for his presence, wisdom, power, love, and grace. To be called to wait is to be called to the activity of serving: looking for ways to lovingly assist and encourage others who are also being called to wait. To be called to wait is to be called to the activity of praying: confessing the struggles of my heart and seeking the grace of the God who has called me to wait. We must rethink waiting and remind ourselves that waiting is itself a call to action.

Celebrate How Little Control You Have

Because the constant striving in ministry to be a little god over some corner of creation is draining and futile, waiting should actually be a relief. It’s a reminder that I don’t have as much power and control as I thought I had. When I am required to wait I realize again that I do not have to load my church onto my shoulders. I may have God-given responsibilities in a number of areas, but that is vastly different from pretending I have sovereignty in any area.

The church is being carried on the capable shoulders of the Savior Shepherd, King of kings. All I am responsible for is the job description of character and behavior that this King has called me to in his Word. The remainder I am free to entrust to him, and for that I am very, very thankful! He really does have the whole world in his hands.

Celebrate God’s Commitment to His Work of Grace

As you are waiting, reflect on how deeply broken the world that you live in actually is. Reflect on how pervasive your own struggle with sin really is. Then celebrate the fact that God is committed to the countless ways, large and small, in which his grace is at work to accomplish his purposes in you and in those to whom you minister.

When it comes to the ongoing work of grace, he is a dissatisfied Redeemer. He will not forsake the work of his hands until all has been fully restored. He will exercise his power in whatever way is necessary so that we can finally be fully redeemed from this broken world and delivered from the sin that has held us fast. Celebrate the fact that God will not forsake that process of grace in your life and ministry in order to deliver to you the momentary comfort, pleasure, and ease that you would rather have in your time of exhaustion, discouragement, and weakness. He simply loves you too much to exchange temporary gratification for eternal glory!

Let Your Waiting Strengthen Your Faith

As I think about waiting, I often remember what is said of Abraham in Romans 4:18-21. The passage tells us that as he waited, Abraham was strengthened in his faith. That’s not what we would expect, is it? We tend to think that, having been given a promise from God, a person might well begin to wait with vibrant faith. But as the wait drags on it seems like that faith would gradually weaken. So why did Abraham’s faith on the whole grow stronger and stronger? Because of what he did as he waited. During his wait, Abraham became a student of the character and power of God, and the more he saw God for who he is, the stronger his faith became. He meditated on the glory of God, not on the difficulty of his situation.

There are three ways in which, like Abraham, you can let your waiting strengthen your faith. You can recognize that waiting is an opportunity to know God better through spending time in his Word, thus developing a deeper sense of his character, wisdom, power, and plan. Second, you can recognize that waiting is an opportunity to know yourself better. As you wait, and as your heart is revealed, you have the precious opportunity to become a student of your own heart. What sins, weaknesses, and struggles has God revealed during the wait? Where has waiting exposed the lies and false gods that make waiting difficult? And third, you can recognize that waiting is an opportunity to know others better, as their hearts are similarly revealed. This can offer you precious opportunities for even more effective ministry to those in your care.

Determine to grow stronger, more effective, and more full of faith as you wait. It is, after all, a key part of God’s intention.

Count Your Blessings

Vital to productive waiting is a commitment to resist the grumbling and complaining that often kidnap us all. To fight this tendency, learn to number your blessings as you wait.

I once heard a missionary leader tell a story of how he was dreading an extremely long road trip. Then the thought came to him that this time of being imprisoned behind the wheel of his car was in fact an opportunity. He decided that as he drove he would thank God for every little detail of blessing and grace he could recall, beginning with his earliest memory. As he drove hour after hour, he recounted to God year after year and decade after decade of blessing upon blessing. By the end of his journey, he still had not come up to the present day. As a result, rather than ending his trip exhausted and bored, he ended it excited and changed. He saw his life through new eyes, with the presence and provision of God in his life taking on a clarity and comprehensiveness he had never before glimpsed.

By contrast, waiting often becomes for us an exercise in reminding ourselves of what we don’t have. How much better, how much more fruitful, how much more joyful, to take waiting as an opportunity to recount the many, many good things in our lives that we have been given—things we could have never earned, achieved, or deserved.

Long for Eternity

There is one other thing waiting is meant to do: God intends that waiting would make me long for home. When I consider this, I am often reminded of camping. I suspect the whole purpose of camping is to make you thankful for home. When you camp, everything is more difficult than it would be at home. In the beginning, that can be fun. But three or four days in, you begin to get tired of having to make a fire, having to hunt for drinkable water, and having to fish for supper. You quietly (or not so quietly) begin to long for home.

Waiting is meant to remind you that you live “between the already and the not yet.” Yes, there are many, many things for which to be thankful in this life, but this place is not your final home. You are in a temporary dwelling in a temporary location. In the life and ministry you experience here, there is one aspect or another that can remind you this is not home. The hardships of your present life and ministry speak clearly: this is not the final destination. Waiting is meant to produce in you a God-honoring dissatisfaction with the status quo. Waiting is meant to make you hungry, to produce in you a longing. For what? To be home—home with your Lord forever, home where sin is no more, home in a world that has been made completely new. As you wait, keep telling yourself, This is not my final destination.

Right now, right here, in your personal life or ministry, there is some way, perhaps many ways, in which God is calling you to wait. How well are you waiting? Has your waiting produced in you a faith that is stronger? Or weaker? Has the manner of your waiting drawn you closer to God? Or further away? Has your approach to waiting helped remind you of all the blessings you have been showered with? Or has it tempted you to continually rehearse your list of unmet wants? Has your waiting served to teach you truths about yourself? Or has it only made you more blind about yourself and angry about your circumstances? Has the way you wait enabled you to reach out and minister to others better, or has it simply drawn you deeper into the claustrophobic drama of your own waiting?

In each case, it’s your choice. Take hold of the grace that God makes available. All of these outcomes are contingent on whether you choose God or self, fruitfulness or futility, his powerful grace or your own feeble will. Always remember that God is never separate from your wait. He is the Lord of waiting. He is the liberal giver of grace for the wait. Because your wait is not outside of his plan, but a vital and necessary part of it, he is with you in your wait. And remember God is not so much after the success of your ministry, he’s after you. So as you wait, tell yourself again and again: Waiting is not just about what I get at the end of the wait, but about who I become as I wait.

Mittere

Excerpt from Ed Stetzer post: Missional and the Great Commission: Reflections on the Desiring God National Conference

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My assignment from John was clear: consider how we tie together the concepts of missional and missions. I treasure such an assignment because it should be obvious connection, but often these concepts are seen as competing. So, we walked through the concepts-- together.

I wrote a series of posts (linked below) on the relationship between missional and the Great Commission. In the intro to that series, I wrote:
Missional is a way of being that leads to a way of acting. The missional church is made up of Christians who are called through God's gracious redemption to live for Him and His great mission throughout the world and who are sent out to be co-laborers with God to accomplish His mission in the world. This is the mission that God sent His Son on, and it is the mission that He sends His people on. So, missional Christ-followers and missional churches are joining Jesus on mission. They care about the things that Jesus directed us to care about: serving the hurting and loving others (the Great Commandment), and seeking to proclaim the gospel to the lost (the Great Commission).

In my Desiring God talk, I walked through the commissions of Jesus and help up this goal: being a missional (John 20:21), mission minded (Mathhew 28:18-10), gospel centered (Luke 24:46-48), spirit empowered (Acts 1:8) church so that his name and his fame would be more widely known.

The John 20:21 passage included a longer focus on "sentness" and Mathew 28 was a longer focus on "nations." "Sentness" points us to "missional" and "nations" points us to "missions."

Several people asked, so here is the definition I used from Avery Willis clarifying "mission" (and its tie to "missional") and "missions."


By mission, I mean the total redemptive purpose of God to establish his kingdom. Missions, on the other hand, is the activity of God's people, the church, to proclaim and to demonstrate the kingdom of God to the world. The word mission comes from the Latin word mittere meaning to send. God is both the sender and the sent (in Christ). The church is sent by God on mission and cooperates with God to send missionaries. Missionaries are set apart by God and the church to cross natural or cultural barriers with the gospel.
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Monday, September 26, 2011

Mainly Loves Us By Giving Us Himself

Excerpt from John Piper:  Jesus Is the Resurrection and the Life

[John 11:17-44]


John’s Gospel told us last week that the reason Jesus did not go to heal Lazarus when he heard he was sick was because he loved him and his sisters Mary and Martha. He would stay where he was, and let Lazarus die, because he loved them. Verses 5–6: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So [therefore!], when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

And the explanation that Jesus gave for how letting him die was love came in verse 4: “This illness does not lead to death [though he will die, that’s not the goal or the point]. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” In other words, it was more loving to put Lazarus through death and his sisters through grief, if that would reveal more of God’s glory to them and more of the glory of Christ. Jesus loves us by showing us himself.

Receiving Grace in Seeing Jesus

This is absolutely fundamental to the main purpose of this Gospel—and the whole Bible. In John 1:14–16, John writes, “The Word [the eternal Son of God] became flesh [became human] and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Then in verse 16, he relates the demonstration of that divine glory to us. Verse 16: “And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” So the pattern is this: Jesus reveals his divine glory—glory as of the only Son from the Father—and we behold it, and from its fullness we receive grace.

So the incarnate revealing of the glory of God in Christ, climaxing with the cross and the resurrection, and our seeing it is the way we receive grace—that is, the way we are saved and receive all the promises of eternal life.

How Jesus Loves Us

So this whole Gospel is built around revelations of the glory of God in Jesus. And what we saw last week is this new emphasis that this is the way Jesus loves us. He does not mainly love us in this life by sparing us suffering and death. He mainly loves us by showing us and giving us himself and his glory. God loves us mainly by giving us himself and all that he is for us in Jesus. Jesus loves us mainly by giving us himself and all that God is for us in him.

Don’t measure the love of God for you by how much health and wealth and comfort he brings into your life. If that were the measure of God’s love, then he hated the apostle Paul. Measure God’s love for you by how much of himself he shows you. How much of himself he gives you to know and enjoy.

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Increasingly Precious

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer for Treasuring Jesus

For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him [Jesus] will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. 1 Pet. 2:6-7
Lord Jesus, when I hear the word precious, my first instinct is think about silver, gold, and platinum, all called “precious metals.” Or I think about “precious gemstones” like diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds. But if anything or anyone deserves the designation, “precious,” it is you. To know you and to be known by you; to consider your incalculable worth and your incomparable worthiness, compels me to sing…

“Jesus, priceless Treasure, fount of purest pleasure, truest Friend to me. Ah, how long in anguish shall my spirit languish, Yearning, Lord, for Thee? Thou art mine, O Lamb divine! I will suffer naught to hide Thee, naught I ask beside Thee.”  (Johann Franck, 1618-1677) May it be Lord, may it be.

For you are God’s chosen cornerstone and the precious capstone of our redemption. The combined worth of all precious metals and gemstones that have ever existed does not compare with the unsearchable riches that are found only in you. To trust in you, Jesus, is to be free from the burden of our guilt and the paralyzing power of our shame. I praise you for taking the guilt of our sin and the shame of our brokenness on the cross.

I cannot rehearse this too glorious promise too often; “the one who trusts in you will never be put to shame”, never. To believe the gospel—to boast in the gift of your righteousness, to rest in the constancy of your love, to wake up each day to your endless mercies, to hear you sing to us in the gospel… what else could we possibly long for in life and eternity?

You became sin for us that in you we might become righteousness of God. Because of you, judgment day holds no terror for us. The cross was our judgment day. We no longer fear the gaze of God because of the grace of God we have in you.

May you become increasingly precious to us, Jesus. May the gospel continue to change the price tags on everything in our world. May yesterday’s values be considered today’s loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing you. Fill our hearts to sing your praise and our hands to extend your compassion. So very Amen we pray, with humility and joy unspeakable.

Plant Seeds

Excerpt from Chris Castaldo post:  Ministry to the Partially Evangelized



...

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, there are more than 132 million Americans who identify with the mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions. We are told by sociologists of religion that three of every four of these individuals neglect church participation, meaning there are more than 99 million men and women in this category. While these people generally describe themselves as Christian, they are in fact only “partially evangelized,” as the person and work of Jesus remain absent or ancillary to their life.

Despite exposure to the Christian tradition, the gospel (and its effects of new life in Christ, respect for the authority of Scripture, and an active commitment to outreach) is conspicuously missing. This is precisely the need that evangelicals are poised to serve.


...

Reflecting upon my conversation with Rosa brings to mind a few principles for serving the partially evangelized with the gospel. The sequential ordering of these points is not essential beyond the first one.

The initial step must be to recognize that we ourselves, despite our theological pedigree or best intentions, are partially evangelized, and desperately so. Let me assure you, the word desperately is not for rhetorical affect. There is, even on our “best” days, a sizable disparity between the holiness, peace, and love of Christ and our pattern of life. We are entirely dependent upon God, and, therefore, we must proactively “evangelize” ourselves, remembering the old life that is now behind us and the new creation that has come.

Each morning when I awake, I must preach the gospel to myself (after pouring a cup of coffee, that is). It is a privilege, as God’s sons and daughters, to enter the Father’s presence in the name of Jesus and remind ourselves that we are no longer defined by sin and shame, but, rather, by the perfect righteousness of Christ—although our sins be as scarlet, they are now white as snow. We also remind ourselves that God has poured forth his Holy Spirit into our hearts for us to embody and proclaim the good news to the world. In short, we can’t effectively evangelize others until we have first evangelized ourselves.

Second, it’s also necessary for us to see the partially evangelized—to the extent that such people ignore new life in Christ, the Bible, and ministry—as eternally lost. In this vein, one of my favorite quotes comes from the French theologian Yves Congar, who said of the missionary statesman Angelo Roncalli, “Here was the secret of his personality: he loved people more than power.” Such men have a way of seeing others not as a means to an end, but as those for whom Christ died. I also think of Francis Schaeffer who, according to his student Lane Dennis, would shed tears when describing those outside of Christ. This is exactly right.

Third, the leading edge of our approach t should be gradual and relational. Sometimes when we think about evangelism, we limit it to a particular method. For many, it’s the crusade approach made popular by D. L. Moody or Billy Graham. Accordingly, we think of evangelism as a full-blown gospel presentation that begins by explaining the human problem of sin, necessarily culminating in an invitation for one to receive Christ.

I don’t know about you, but most of my gospel encounters don’t allow for a full-orbed sermon. In a crusade, the goal of the evangelist is to clearly present the entire message and urge someone to make a decision. (There is a reason why the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s magazine is named Decision.) However, if you define all evangelism encounters this way, what happens when you have two minutes to talk to a colleague beside the water cooler during break? How do you witness to the checkout person in the supermarket, or to a family member who knows what you believe and is utterly disinterested in hearing any more sermons? The answer is—you don’t. You don’t say a thing. We can’t share in that kind of way without completely alienating ourselves; therefore, we don’t share at all. The outcome is the same as hiding our lamp beneath the proverbial table.

This principle is especially relevant to the partially evangelized because, at least in my experience, embracing the gospel is usually a process. This is not for a moment to minimize the fact that conversion is based upon the regenerative work of God; but it is to acknowledge that God often leads people through an existential journey in which they travel from darkness into the light. What we need, therefore, is to learn how to plant seeds of gospel truth that help the partially evangelized move from the borders of Christian tradition to the center, one incremental step at a time.

Finally, and most fundamentally, pray for the partially evangelized. What is now only a trickle of Christian identity, God desires to make a raging river of faith (Ezekiel 47); what is a small cloud, God wishes to develop into a torrential rain (1 Kings 18:44); what is a modest-sized lunch, God will multiply a thousand times over into a feast (John 6). Indeed, this is our hope, according to the life-changing power of the gospel.

Focus

Perry Noble post:  10 Gut Check Ideas!


If I focus on my abilities, I will always feel overwhelmed and inadequate…if I focus on WHO God is and WHAT He has done, I will feel confident and secure.

If I focus on what others say about me, I will feel either pride or pain…if I focus on what God says about me, I will feel appreciative and thankful.

If I focus on what the world says, I will always change my mind to agree with culture…if I focus on what God says, I can life a live based on conviction rather than convenience.

If I focus on what the world says about money, I will most likely be broke…if I focus on what God says about money, I will be blessed!

If I focus on what the world says about relationships, then that part of my life will be marked with pain, frustration and regret…if I focus on what God says about relationships, then that part of my life will be marked by joy, life and victory.

If I focus on what the world says is valuable, I will waste my life in pursuit of meaningless things…if I focus on what God says is valuable, I will invest my life in things that matter for eternity.

If I focus on what the world says about the church, I will see it as either useless OR something I can use…if I focus on what God says about the church, I will honor His bride and treat her with honor and respect.

If I focus on what the world says about problems, I will be in a constant state of worry and stress…if I focus on what God says about problems, I will see they are nothing more than opportunities to know and see Him for how great He is.

If I focus on my past, I will live in defeat…if I focus on my potential in Christ, I will live in victory.

If I focus on this life, I will have zero urgency to share the Gospel…if I focus on the fact that eternity is reality for every person on the planet, I will do all that I can to share the Gospel with those I claim that I love and care for.

Jesus Crucified

Ray Ortlund post:  A Person


“Our faith is a person; the gospel that we have to preach is a person; and go wherever we may, we have something solid and tangible to preach, for our gospel is a person. If you had asked the twelve Apostles in their day, ‘What do you believe in?’ they would not have stopped to go round about with a long sermon, but they would have pointed to their Master and they would have said, ‘We believe him.’ ‘But what are your doctrines?’ ‘There they stand incarnate.’ ‘But what is your practice?’ ‘There stands our practice. He is our example.’ ‘What then do you believe?’ Hear the glorious answer of the Apostle Paul, ‘We preach Christ crucified.’ Our creed, our body of divinity, our whole theology is summed up in the person of Christ Jesus.”

C. H. Spurgeon, in Lectures Delivered before the Young Men’s Christian Association in Exeter Hall 1858-1859 (London, 1859), pages 159-160.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

God's Voice

Life TODAY Weekly Devotional

The Sacred Echo: Learning to Hear God’s Voice
by Margaret Feinberg

As I grow in my relationship with God, I find that he often uses the repetition of a phrase or word or idea represented in Scripture not only to get, but also to keep my attention. Like the parable of the persistent widow, God is a nudnik of sorts when it comes to drawing me back to himself. And I’m grateful. While a single whisper usually leaves me unsure, the repetitive nature of a sacred echo gives me confidence that God really is prompting, guiding, or leading. The sacred echo reminds me to pay close attention, something important may be going on here. The sacred echo challenges me to prayerfully consider how God is at work in my own life as well as the lives of those around me. The sacred echo is an invitation to spiritual awakening.

More and more, I’m finding that I need the sacred echo—the persistent voice of God—almost as if my life depended on it. The sacred echo reminds me he has not departed, he is steadfast, and he has not given up on me. If truth be told, as I grow older, I’m finding I need more certainty—not less—in responding to God’s prompting in my life. Faith is not just moving forward when God seems far off. Faith is sometimes waiting until he is near to take the first step.

My real fear is in prayer being laid bare. Prayer is the place where I’m invited to present the parts of myself that no one else sees to a God who already knows and loves me anyway. You see, for me, my relationship with God is one of the most personal things I have. The tenderness of his presence. The longing to linger with him. The love that grips my heart and won’t let go. I am in love—that I won’t deny. As in any serious love affair, some things are meant to be kept just between the two of you. The problem is that for months now I’ve been sensing this consistent nudge to share some of the things I’m discovering about God. This holy prodding has become so loud and clear through conversations, sermons, and books that even my husband, can hear it. Though I feel like I’m walking in obedience, I still can’t shake the fear of transparency, because the words God speaks to my heart expose me like no other. In his love, God doesn’t allow me to hide behind a handful of quickly plucked fig leaves. He wants to bring everything into the light.

My hope is that you, too, will begin recognizing the Sacred Echoes in your life. Through them I expect that the Spirit will further illuminate his presence in your life. You will hear his voice. You will feel his gentle prodding. You will find rest in the love he sings over you. My prayer is that you will begin to discover God’s voice in your life not just as a whisper but also as an echo, and that you’ll experience a contagious spiritual awakening that can only come from knowing God.

If you missed Margaret Feinberg on LIFE Today last week, watch the programs at lifetoday.org.Visit her website at www.margaretfeinberg.com, become a fan on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter @mafeinberg. Adapted from The Sacred Echo: Learning to Hear His Voice in Every Area of Your Life (Zondervan, 2008). All rights reserved.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Valuable In Himself

John Piper post:  How Do I Love Reformed Theology?


I am a lover of the Reformed faith — the legacy of the protestant Reformation expressed broadly in the writings of John Calvin and John Owen and Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards, and contemporaries like R. C. Sproul and J. I. Packer and John Frame.

I speak of love for this legacy the way I speak of loving a cherished photo of my wife. I say, “I love that picture.” You won’t surprise me if you point out, “But that’s not your wife, that’s a picture.” Yes. Yes. I know it’s only a picture. I don’t love the picture instead of her, I love the picture because of her. She is precious in herself.

The picture is precious not in itself, but because it reveals her. That’s the way theology is precious. God is valuable in himself. The theology is not valuable in itself. It is valuable as a picture. That’s what I mean when I say, “I love reformed theology.” It’s the best composite, Bible-distilled picture of God that I have (quoted from Bloodlines, 129-130).

Friday, September 23, 2011

Church Is Not In The Religion Business

Excerpt from Tullian Tchividjian post:  Christianity Is The End Of Religion

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But a couple years ago when I was considering preaching through the parables (which I never ended up doing, by the way) one of my former professors suggested that I pick up Robert Farrar Capon’s thick book Kingdom, Grace, Judgement: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. He warned me that I would not agree with some of what Capon wrote but insisted that it would nevertheless benefit my study of the parables greatly. It sat on my shelf for a while until my friend Mark Miller asked me if I owned the book. I didn’t think I did and so I ordered it. After I ordered it and went to stock it on my bookshelf, I realized I already had it (You ever done that? That’s the downside of having a large library).

Well, I picked it up and started reading. And while there were some sections that left me scratching my head (just as my prof told me), I discovered some deeply insightful nuggets of gospel truth. My friends over at Mockingbird (if you don’t read that blog, you’re probably not a Christian) posted one of my favorite sections from Capon’s book a couple days ago. This is good stuff.

Enjoy…
What role have I left for religion? None. And I have left none because the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ leaves none. Christianity is not a religion; it is the announcement of the end of religion.
Religion consists of all the things (believing, behaving, worshiping, sacrificing) the human race has ever thought it had to do to get right with God. About those things, Christianity has only two comments to make. The first is that none of them ever had the least chance of doing the trick: the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins (see the Epistle to the Hebrews) and no effort of ours to keep the law of God can ever finally succeed (see the Epistle to the Romans). The second is that everything religion tried (and failed) to do has been perfectly done, once and for all, by Jesus in his death and resurrection. For Christians, therefore, the entire religion shop has been closed, boarded up, and forgotten. The church is not in the religion business. It never has been and it never will be, in spite of all the ecclesiastical turkeys through two thousand years who have acted as if religion was their stock in trade. The church, instead, is in the Gospel-proclaiming business. It is not here to bring the world the bad news that God will think kindly about us only after we have gone through certain creedal, liturgical and ethical wickets; it is here to bring the world the Good News that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly.” It is here, in short, for no religious purpose at all, only to announce the Gospel of free grace.
Pg. 252-253

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Fresh Gospel Astonishment

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer for Churches Experiencing Intense Spiritual Warfare

“The dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.” Revelation 12:17
Heavenly Father, I’ve never been more aware of how much Satan hates the Bride of Jesus—your called out, beloved people. Having lost your sons and daughters for eternity, he will do anything and everything he can, overtly and covertly, to wage war against (and in) the church. We come to you today interceding for churches in the pernicious crosshairs and ugly vortex of Satan’s rage and schemes (2 Cor. 2:11).

Father, we praise you for what Satan knows. “He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short” (Rev. 12:12). He knows Jesus has already defeated him. He’s the mortally wounded dragon, whose head has been crushed (Gen 3:15), whose works have been destroyed (1 John 3:1-10) and whose destiny has been sealed (Rev 20:10). “Hallelujah!”, we shout with joy and confidence.
Though we “tremble not for him,” knowing that one word from Jesus “will fell him” (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God) nonetheless, we are aware that he is constantly threatening to “undo us”.

So hear our prayers for our church families: We pray for a fresh work of the Spirit in the hearts of our leaders—pastors, elders, deacons and staff. One of the most effective ways Satan attacks a church is by injecting the venom of distrust, divisiveness and disunity among its leaders. If leaders bite and devour one another, before long the whole church will follow suit.

Father, smite the hearts of our leaders with fresh gospel astonishment. Bring back convictability, humility, civility and charity. May the leaders of our church families be the ones most obviously committed to keeping and guarding “the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). May they be the ones most obviously committed to keeping God’s commands, especially the great commandment (Matt. 22:36-40) and the new commandment (John 13:34).

Father, we also pray for renewed gospel-centrality in every ministry of our local churches—in the children’s, youth, adult, preaching/teaching and worship ministries, in every ministry of the church. Because when a church ceases to “hold fast their testimony about Jesus” (Rev. 12:17)—cherishing, applying and defending the gospel of God’s grace, it becomes vulnerable to every scheme of Satan. No gospel? Then no center, no heart, no love, no sanity, no God-honoring witness to the community. Rescue our churches from pettiness and petulance.

Bring our churches back to the life-giving lyric and the heart-transforming the music of the gospel, Father. A hypothetical gospel only works for hypothetical sinners. Let us once again know that we are much more broken and in need of your grace than we presently realize. And also convince us that we are much more accepted and loved by you, than we ever dreamed or imagined. For the glory of your name, Father, be swift and sure in answering our cry. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ exalted and triumphant name.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Be Quick to Encourage

Kevin DeYoung post:  Are You Sunshine or a Cloud?

There are a lot of interesting conclusions to be gleaned from the laundry list of names in Romans 16. But the one I appreciate most is Paul’s example of offering divinely inspired encouragement.

According to my biblically informed definition, encouragement means highlighting the evidences of God’s grace in the gospel or in a gospel-centered person to the glory of God. Each part of that definition is important. Encouragement is not spotlighting a person, but underlining God’s grace. It is not about simply commending nice people to make them feel good, but about commending the work of the gospel in others to glory of God.

The definition above can help differentiate encouragement from flattery. Encouragement is based on what is true about a person. Flattery affirms through exaggeration or falsehood. Encouragement keeps human praise in proportion, lifting everything up for God’s praise. Flattery gives too much influence to human agency. Encouragement blesses for the sake of the blessed and the Blessed One. Flattery harbors ulterior motives and looks for favors or reciprocal affirmation. While God despises flattery, he delights to see Christians encourage each other.

One reason we know this to be true is because he inspired Paul to record his encouragements in Romans 16. Notice four characteristics of Paul’s encouragement.

First, he recognized others publicly. Paul had never been to the church at Rome. But he knew some of the members through his travels. Others he had heard about. And he likes what he’s seen and heard. So he tells the whole church, in front of everyone. He does this in all his letters. He holds up Tychicus as a faithful minister in the Lord (Eph. 6:21) and Epaphroditus as a fellow worker and fellow soldier (Phil. 2:25). He goes out of his way to encourage, speaking of “Luke the beloved physician” when plain old “Luke” would have sufficed. We probably don’t think of Paul has a great encourager, more of a champion of the gospel or defender of the faith, but the only reason we don’t see him encouraging others is because it happens so frequently.

Second, Paul was tender in expressing his affections. Epaenetus, Ampliatus, Stachys, and Persis are all beloved to him. Rufus’ mother could have been his own mother their bond was so close (Rom. 16:13). Elsewhere, Paul tells the Philippians he holds them in his heart and yearns for them with the affection of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:7). He has abundant love for the Corinthians (the Corinthians!) and is happy to live and die with them (2 Cor. 2:4; 11:11). Perhaps people find us discouraging or intimidating because they sense no warmth. Our praise is always perfunctory, never tender. There’s a difference between saying “you’re in my thoughts” and telling someone “I hold you in my heart.”

Third, Paul’s encouragement was rooted in his love for the gospel. He doesn’t simply commend people for being really good at something.  He honors them for the work of God he sees in and through them. These are fellow workers, fellow servants, fellow saints. Paul’s heart beats with gratitude because God saved these men and women and now uses them to bless others. The strongest bonds of friendship should be gospel bonds.  The deepest affections ought to be stirred in us, not because we like the same movies and music or come from the same place and root for the same teams, but because we share the same passion for, an identity in, the gospel. These “greetings” are more than secular “hellos.” They are signs of church-wide solidarity growing out of our communion together through our union with Christ.

Fourth, Paul didn’t just encourage his friends and co-laborers, he cultivated an atmosphere of appreciation and affection in the whole church. He greets them, but then tells them to greet each other. Go meet Philologus. Stop by and see Julia. Give my regards to Nereus. Paul is fostering community. He even encourages signs of physical affection. The sign is not as important as the thing signified. Whether it’s a kiss, a hug, a hearty handshake, or a super sweet fist bump, Paul understood that God gave us bodies and wants us to use them appropriately to encourage others.

Paul wanted the church to be quick to encourage, not quick to condemn.  He wanted them overflowing in praise, instead of overflowing in criticism.  He wanted the church to be warm and invigorating, not cold and life quenching.  He didn’t want a church of boasters or flatterers.  But he wanted a congregation where the members sought to honor one another above themselves, a place where God’s grace was noticed and lifted up for the glory of God. He wanted more sunshine, fewer clouds.

Paul’s love for encouragement makes sense because God is the great encourager. He is always rejoicing in the truth. He loves to highlight his own grace and glory. He called Jesus his beloved Son and speaks just as kindly to us–beloved, little children, new creations, holy ones. Because of the work of Christ, God accepts us when he would otherwise reject us, which means he can encourage instead of condemn. And by this same work of Christ, we can encourage all those who belong to Christ.

A version of this article also appeared in the September issue of Tabletalk magazine.

Backwards

Mark Batterson post:  Guard the Margins = Guarding your Heart


I’m trying to guard the margins in my life these days, and it’s not easy.  In some ways, I feel guilty if I’m not busy.  I feel guilty if I can’t meet with everybody or meet every deadline.  But that attempt to be all things to all people is really a form of pride.  If you try to be all things to all people then you’ll end up being nothing to nobody.  Why?  You’ve got nothing left to give. No margin = no grace, no creativity, no vision.  By trying to do more we become less.

In the words of II Thessalonians 3:11, we become “busybodies.”

Guarding the margins of your life–in other words, managing your schedule in a way that you have time to read, time to pray, time to dream–is really guarding your heart.  Your heart needs room to grow!  If you lose your margin, you’ll lose your spiritual edge.  The first thing to go is a sensitivity to the prompting to the Holy Spirit.  You don’t have time to obey those promptings because you’ve got places to go and things to do. The next thing you know you’ve got an inverse relationship with God. Instead of living a Spirit led life, you want God to follow you’re lead.  You’re no longer serving God’s purposes. You want Him to serve your purposes. You’re no longer following Christ. You want him to follow you.

When we lose our margin we get it backwards.

Trust

Ray Ortlund post:  The chief form of zealotry


“The state was the great gainer of the twentieth century, and the central failure.  Up to 1914, it was rare for the public sector to embrace more than 10 per cent of the economy; by the 1970s, even in liberal countries, the state took up to 45 per cent of the GNP. . . . The state had proved itself an insatiable spender, an unrivalled waster. . . . By the turn of the century politics was replacing religion as the chief form of zealotry.  To archetypes of the new class, . . . politics — by which they meant the engineering of society for lofty purposes — was the one legitimate form of moral activity, the only sure means of improving humanity.  This view, which would have struck an earlier age as fantastic, became to some extent the orthodoxy everywhere.”

Paul Johnson, A History of the Modern World from 1917 to the 1980s (London, 1983), page 729.

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.  Psalm 146:3

Monday, September 19, 2011

Hope Now. Hope Always.

1God, I'm not trying to rule the roost, I don't want to be king of the mountain.
   I haven't meddled where I have no business
      or fantasized grandiose plans.

 2 I've kept my feet on the ground,
      I've cultivated a quiet heart.
   Like a baby content in its mother's arms,
      my soul is a baby content.

 3 Wait, Israel, for God. Wait with hope.
      Hope now; hope always! 


Psalm 131 [Message]

Serving Not Directing

Excerpt from John Dickson post:  Pastors and 'Authority'

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Obviously, pastors exercise their abilities (and gifts of the Spirit), godly character and biblical persuasion. But it seems to me we are given very little by way of structural authority. As I look through the Pastoral Epistles (1-2 Timothy and Titus), the only section of Scripture written specifically for church leaders, it seems to me that ministers have very limited powers. They have responsibility for preaching God’s word and for appointing (and presumably removing) others to (and from) various ministries. Beyond that, I’m not sure the New Testament gives ministers any ‘structural authority’ over the church.

This is completely unlike leadership in sport, politics, business or academia, where the ‘boss’ can issue directives which people must follow or suffer consequences. This has no analogy in Christian leadership, so far as I can tell.

This isn’t to say that congregations don’t have a Christian duty to submit to their ministers’ biblical counsel. They do. We find such an obligation in 1 Peter 5:5 and 1 Thessalonians 5:12. But, even here, the instruction is not directed to the leaders, urging them to make their people submit. It is directed to the congregations themselves, asking them to submit. Churches have a responsibility to listen to their leaders in godly humility but pastors don’t make their congregations do anything. We advise, we admonish, we warn, but we don’t direct in the way a coach might order a player around or a CEO might change a job description or a professor might overrule a student. Pastors don’t even excommunicate anyone. According to the New Testament, church discipline is a congregational function not a minister’s role (1 Cor 5:4-5, 13; Matt 18:16-17).

In the end, Christian leadership is characterized by serving not directing. Peter puts it particularly, and uncomfortably, well:
    To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock (1 Peter 5:1-3).
Christian leadership relies on three of the four tools of leadership: ability, persuasion and, crucially, character or example (all empowered by the Spirit and grounded in prayer).

Any ‘authority’ I have as a Senior Pastor is granted to me by the congregation, in as much as they recognize God’s call on me to serve in his name. It is an authority people can ignore without structural consequences. People might fall under divine discipline or even judgment for disobeying our teaching of the Scriptures, but they don’t suffer organizational penalties for refusing our counsel.
Christian leadership doesn’t ‘lord it over’ anyone. Instead, it takes off the robe of dignity, kneels down and washes feet—through friendship, through teaching, through example, and through prayer.

In other words, Christian leadership is about humility. It is risky and exciting all at the same time.

Identity Anchored in Christ's Accomplishment

Excerpt from Tullian Tchividjian post:  Our New And Exalted Identity

When most of us stop long enough to consider what establishes our identity, what really makes us who we are, many of us act as if the answer to this consideration is “our performance.” In Who Will Deliver Us, Paul Zahl expands on this:
If I can do enough of the right things, I will have established my worth. Identity is the sum of my achievements. Hence, if I can satisfy the boss, meet the needs of my spouse and children, and still do justice to my inner aspirations, then I will have proven my worth. There are infinite ways to prove our worth along these lines. The basic equation is this: I am what I do. It is a religious position in life because it tries to answer in practical terms the question, Who am I and what is my niche in the universe? On this reading, my niche is in proportion to my deeds. In Christian theology, such a position is called justification by works. It assumes that my worth is measured by my performance. Conversely, it conceals, thinly, a dark and ghastly fear: If I do not perform, I will be judged unworthy. To myself I will cease to exist.
The gospel frees us from this obsessive pressure to perform, this slavish demand to “become.” The gospel liberatingly declares that in Christ “we already are.” While the world, the flesh, and the Devil constantly tempt us to locate our identity in something or someone smaller than Jesus, the gospel liberates us by revealing that our true identity is locked in Christ. Our connection in and with Christ is the truest definition of who we are.

If you’re a Christian, here’s the good news: Who you really are has nothing to do with you—how much you can accomplish, who you can become, your behavior (good or bad), your strengths, your weaknesses, your sordid past, your family background, your education, your looks, and so on. Your identity is firmly anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not yours; his strength, not yours; his performance, not yours; his victory, not yours. Your identity is steadfastly established in his substitution, not your sin. As my friend Justin Buzzard recently wrote, “The gospel doesn’t just free you from what other people think about you, it frees you from what you think about yourself.”

You’re free!

...

Daily Work As A Good Work

Excerpts from Matt Perman post:  Your Job is a Good Work! 


When most of us think of good works, we tend to think of things like giving money to those in need, encouraging a friend who is discouraged, or going on a short-term mission trip.

All of those things are critical and important, and definitely are good works.

However, it’s easy to think that these types of things are the only things that God considers good works. That good works are something relatively rare and infrequent. If you go on a mission trip, you are engaging in good works. But when you go to your job each day you are doing … what, exactly?

...


Most of us are familiar with Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

We aren’t saved by good works, but for good works. And living a life of good works is part of the purpose of the Christian life.

Now, if you head over to Ephesians 6:5-8, you find Paul speaking to the issue of our daily work — and you find a parallel that I don’t think a lot of people have picked up on. You see this in verse 8, where he says that we are to do our work “knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.”

Here’s what’s interesting: In 2:10, Paul said that God created us in Christ “for good works.” Now, here in 6:8, he refers to our daily work as “good” (or, as some translations put it, a “good thing”). This is a clear allusion back to 2:10, where Paul spoke of “good works” as part of the purpose for which God created us anew in Christ.

In other words, Paul is referring to our daily work as a “good work.” The things we do in our jobs are not simply neutral things, but rather are among the good works that God prepared beforehand for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). They are not just things we have to do; they are good works that are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ.

This gives new significance to the things we do every day. It means that when we are answering emails, we aren’t just answering emails–we are doing good works. When we go to meetings, we aren’t just going to meetings–we are doing good works. When we make dinner for the family and put the kids to bed, we aren’t just making dinner and putting the kids to bed–we are doing good works.

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Raw Praying

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer When Feeling Spiritually Distressed

O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; everyone mocks me. Jer. 20:7
Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow and spend my days in shame? Jer. 20:18
Gracious Father, this is some pretty raw praying by one of your beloved sons and prophets. Jeremiah’s lament makes me thankful today for the freedom you give us to bring our unfiltered and unfettered feelings to you. If we don’t bring our painful emotions to you, we will take them somewhere. Others will feel the brunt of our anguish and anger, our faith struggle and fear, our disconnect and distress. We’re also prone to medicate in ways which only make things worse.

But only you have the big enough heart and broad enough shoulders to walk with us through moments—even seasons of spiritual chaos and confusion. I praise you for the constancy of your welcome and the refuge of your heart. If you weren’t put off by Jeremiah’s struggle, surely you’ll take on ours.

It’s comforting to know the same prophet who assured others of your gracious promise and good plan—a plan for prosperity, not harm (Jer. 29:11); the same prophet who gave us a vision of the glory and the grace of the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34); this same prophet, like us, experienced seasons in which he felt deceived, betrayed, and abandoned, even grieving the day he was born. We’re all weak and broken. We all need the gospel daily, no exceptions.

This gives me courage as I seek to steward my own feelings before you. But today it gives me compassion as I pray for a couple of friends who are echoing Jeremiah’s cry.

For the friend I chatted with yesterday who’s feeling set up, chewed up, and spit out by you, bring your centering presence to bear. He loves you, but feels abandoned by you. He knows better, but he’s becoming bitter. My instinct is to “fix” him, but the way of the gospel is to listen and love, not launch with a theological treatise. Give me patience and kindness for my friend.

For another friend whose spiritual melancholia seems to be heading to an even darker place, Father, give me wisdom to know what kind of care he really needs. What part of his struggle is simply a physical/medical issue? What’s to some degree demonic? What’s just plane ole’ pity party or the consequences of foolish choices? Bring the grace and truth of the gospel to bear in unmistakable ways.

Help me, Lord, and heal my friends. Meet each of us as you met Jeremiah. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ strong and loving name. Amen.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Intensify Our Thirst

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer for an Intensified Thirst for Jesus

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Ps. 42:1-2
Lord Jesus, there’s no craving more demanding than thirst. It’s neither patient nor polite. When we get thirsty, we’re quick to slake its unrelenting demand, one way or another. Thirst will not be denied. We’ll do almost anything to satisfy our thirst.

Because this is true, we join the psalmist in crying out: Jesus, intensify our thirst for you. So ignite our craving for fellowship with you nothing else will gratify us. Keep us panting like the deer which pants after streams of water—the unpolluted, undistilled, never-ending brooks of your bounty.

Don’t let us be even momentarily satisfied with any other beverage than the draft you draw, the potion you pour, the life-giving libation you alone can give. May every broken cistern to which we turn for relief become repugnant to our taste (Jeremiah 2:13). Don’t let a change from difficult circumstances to more favorable ones; or a temporary diminishing of our pain and sadness; or some windfall profit, financial or otherwise, decrease our longing to connect and commune with you.

If we take up King David’s lament, “When can I go and meet with God?” you answer back without delay, “Right now, my beloved; do not wait. If you’re thirsty, come to me and drink.” “Whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38 NIV).

If we should say, “But Jesus, where can we find you?” you answer back even quicker, “Not in the law; not in your strivings; not in your labors; not in your earnestness; not in your self-loathings; not in your vain promises; but only in the gospel. Come and fall into the rivers of my love. Stand under the cascading waterfalls of my grace. Open your heart wide to my supply, and I will fill you to overflowing with everything you need and more than you want.”

Even so and evermore, Jesus, school us well in pant-theology. In the coming hours, cause our cry to become, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” Psalm 73:25. So very Amen we pray, in your all-glorious and all-generous name.

Delight Yourself

Jon Bloom post:  Pleasure Is the Measure of Your Pleasure


No one puts it as bluntly as Blaise Pascal in his Pensées:
All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
There you are. Warrior, pacifist, suicide, sluggard, workaholic; if you’re a human, you’re a hedonist. You can try to deny it, but you can’t change it.

If you want to try your hand at stoicism, forget the Bible. It has little for you. Scripture does not support the idea that our motives are more pure the less we are pursuing our own joy. Nope. In fact, according to the Bible, unless we are pursuing our happiness we cannot even come to God: “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

God blatantly entices us to seek happiness, joy, pleasure (whatever you want to call it) in him with verses like this: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4), and “in his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). We’re supposed to want pleasure.

Why does God want us to want pleasure? Because it is a crucial indicator. Pleasure is the meter in your heart that measures how valuable, how precious someone or something is to you. Pleasure is the measure of your treasure.

Your treasure is what you love. Your greatest treasure is what you love the most. “For where your treasure is, there your heart [what you love] will be also” (Matthew 6:21). You will never be a true stoic because you can’t help experiencing pleasure in what you treasure. God wired you that way.
Pleasure is the whistleblower of your heart. More than anything else it exposes what you really love.

If something sinful gives you pleasure, it’s not a pleasure problem. It’s a treasure problem. Your pleasure mechanism is likely functioning just fine. It’s what you love that’s out of whack. And pleasure is outing you. It’s revealing that, despite what your mouth says and the image you try to project to others, something evil is precious to you. 

That’s what sin is at the root: treasuring evil. Which makes the fight of faith in the Christian life a fight for delight. It’s a fight to believe God’s promises of happiness over the false promises of happiness we hear from the world, our fallen flesh, and the devil. And yes, it often involves denying ourselves pleasure, but only denying ourselves a lesser, viler pleasure in order to have a much higher pleasure (Luke 9:23-25).

So be a full, unashamed, bold Christian Hedonist! Pursue your pleasure in God, the greatest Treasure, with all your heart (Matthew 22:37). “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Build Routine Around Him

Ray Ortlund post:  Sunday is not a second Saturday


If we would stop treating Sunday as a second Saturday, one more day to run to Home Depot, one more day for the kids’ soccer games, another day for getting ready for Monday, if we would rediscover Sunday as The Lord’s Day, focusing on him for just one day each week, what would be the immediate impact between today and one year from today?

By one year from today, we will have spent 52 whole days given over to Jesus.  Seven and a half weeks of paid vacation with Jesus.

He’s a good King.  Maybe we should put him first in our weekly schedules.  Not fit him into the margins of our busy weekends, but build our whole weekly routine around him.

Just a thought.

Worship

Excerpt from Kevin DeYoung post:  Why We Worship the Way We Do

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Why We Worship the Way We Do
There is nothing more important in life than worship. We all worship something or someone. The only question is whether we will worship the right One in the right way. At URC we want all of life to be worship to God (Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 10:31). He is worthy to receive glory and honor and power (Rev. 4:11). In particular, we want our worship services on Sunday to be pleasing to Him. To gather with God’s people on the Lord’s Day to worship at God’s throne under the authority of God’s word is our solemn duty and joyful privilege.

It’s with that supreme goal in mind that we hold to a number of values when it comes to corporate worship.

1. Glory to God – Worship is ultimately for Him. He is the most important audience at every service.

2. Edifying to God’s people – Corporate worship must build up the body of Christ. Believers should be equipped, comforted, and exhorted.

3. Understandable – New words and concepts may be introduced, but the service should be intelligible to both Christians and non-Christians.

4. Biblical – The whole service teaches God’s people, so everything—the prayers, the songs, the preaching—must be biblical. We like the saying: in worship we read the Bible, preach the Bible, pray the Bible, sing the Bible, and see the Bible in the sacraments.

5. Emphasizing the ordinary means of grace – God can work in many ways, but he has committed to being with us and transforming us through certain “means of grace.” He communes with us through prayer, through the word, and through the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. Our services emphasize these ordinary means whereby God promises to give us more grace.

6. Expositional preaching – The central act in the worship service is the preaching of God’s word. We believe this is best accomplished through the careful, Spirit-filled exposition of Scripture. Normally, this means we work systematically through a book of the Bible, verse by verse. No matter the approach, every sermon should flow from Scripture and proclaim the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection.

7. Thoughtful – Every church has a liturgy (an order of service). Our service has four parts: praise, renewal, proclamation, response. We see this pattern in the covenant renewal ceremonies of Scripture and in various divine encounters. In Isaiah 6, for example, Isaiah comes before God and praises him; then he confesses sin and seeks renewal; God then speaks his word to Isaiah; and finally Isaiah responds with commitment to God. This is also a gospel pattern: approach God in awe, see our sin, hear the good news, respond in faith and obedience.

8. Historical – The Church has been thinking about how to worship for centuries. We want to learn from our spiritual ancestors and build on their models. To that end, we regularly employ creeds, confessions, catechisms, responsive readings, and other forms that have been common in church history.

9. Mixing old and new – We believe there are new songs to be sung to Jesus. We also believe there is a great heritage of church music that we should embrace. You’ll find that our services use music from different genres and different centuries. It can be fast, loud, slow, or soft. We use a variety of instruments, everything from guitars and drums to the organ. In all this, the most important sound is that of the congregation singing.

10. Prayerful – Our services include many different prayers. Often you will find a prayer of confession because we sin every week and need gospel mercy every week. We usually have a longer congregational prayer, which is an important time to pray for the needs of our church family and for the world.

Believing in Jesus

Tim Keller post:  Keller on Salvation Outside of Christ

Editor’s note: Last week Justin Taylor featured a 2008 interview Tim Keller gave Martin Bashir related to the release of The Reason for God. Keller clarifies and corrects one of his responses in this article. If you’d like to learn more from Keller about the need to believe in Jesus Christ for salvation, watch this brief clip (also embedded below) and listen to his sermon “Exclusivity: How Can There Be Just One True Religion?” preached at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York.

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This interview from three and a half years ago was the first public event like this I had ever done, and a number of my responses were less than skillful. One in particular—the one about whether there is any way of salvation outside of faith in Christ—was misleading and unhelpful.

Then and now, when people struggle with something the Bible says, I sometimes invoke the principle of Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.The thought that God doesn’t tell us everything there is to know, and that if he doesn’t we don’t need to know it, is helpful at a number of points in life. It’s helpful when people are struggling with the difficult doctrines—of the Trinity, or how God can be sovereign and yet human beings be responsible for their decisions, or over why God allows suffering to continue. At those points it’s helpful to say, “There is more truth than God has told us, and maybe when we get to heaven he’ll show it to us. That may shed new light on things that we find difficult. Till then, we go with what we are told. That’s all we need.”

What I did that night, however, was to bring up that Deuteronomy 29:29 principle (though not quoting the text) when I felt people struggling with the teaching that all are lost if they don’t believe in Christ. I said, “This is what the Bible says, but I and we don’t know everything there is to know about this.” Almost immediately I sensed that was a wrong thing to do. And afterward my whole team, including my wife, said the same. By saying, “Maybe there’s more to it than we can see now—but this is all we are told,” I was giving people the impression that I thought maybe there is another way of salvation.

I hope this clarifies things for those of you who have rightly been concerned. Some commenters said I should correct and renounce what I said. But they assume I didn’t—actually I did, immediately, several years ago.

I admitted my mistake and haven’t answered in that muddy way again. For the record, I didn’t know the interview was being recorded. When it pops up on the internet it’s a humbling reminder that I don’t always get things right. Nevertheless, I was on a study week when Justin Taylor put it up on our TGC website, and I should have seen it sooner to tell him that my answer at that point was a mistake and didn’t at all represent my teaching on that subject over the years.

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Tim Keller is the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Manhattan, New York. He is also co-founder and vice president of The Gospel Coalition. For more resources by Tim Keller visit Redeemer City to City.