The Church...In Less Than Three Minutes

(HT: Scott Sauls)

The Selfless Love of a Brother

Perhaps it's because I I've been thinking a lot lately about how we are to relate to one another within the church, but when I watched this video, I couldn't help but think the following:

How beautiful would it be if I loved my brothers and sisters in Christ as selflessly as Conner loves his brother?

Yesterday's Sermon: Glorious Humility

Yesterday's sermon was from Philippians 2:1-11 and dealt with fact that pride is often a stumbling block to the unity which Christ expects from His Church. But if we are to call ourselves followers of Him who went to the cross, we have no other option than to humbly love one another.

It wasn’t just the painful, physical humiliation. It wasn’t just the degrading, emotional humiliation. It was the fact that Christ Jesus became a curse for us, taking upon himself the sins of the world. Paul says (quoting Deutoronomy 21:23), "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). On the cross, Jesus Christ not only bore the curse for us, he became a curse for us. And that’s what makes it all the more incredible that Paul can say, ”far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).

He can boast in the cross, because at the cross, Christ didn’t just endure suffering, he didn’t just endure ignomy, he didn’t just endure the curse. Acts 20:28 tells us that at the cross he also purchased the church for his own possession with his own blood. So we have nothing to commend ourselves to God – we only have faith (as a gift from him) that Christ Jesus paid for our sins. So we trust in him.

And a second application is this: If Christ Jesus so loved the church so much that he not only took on human flesh, but he went to the cross for her -- if he loved the church that much -- then we must love the church as well.

Click here for audio of the sermon.

Don't Take Anything for Granted

Yesterday Kevin DeYoung had a great post entitled Things People Should Never Say They Never Heard at Your Church. In it he highlighted ten items that we often (wrongly) take for granted that people in the church know:

1. “Being a Christian is more than going to church and being a good person.”
2. “We must be born again.”
3. “We need to develop a personal relationship with Christ.”
4. “Mature Christians develop lifelong habits of Bible reading and prayer.”
5. “Christians suffer.”
6. “God can be pleased with me.”
7. “Beware of false teachers.”
8. “There is one God in three Persons.”
9. “There are many people in the world who don’t think Christianity is true and some of them are very nice and very smart.”
10. “There is a reason we worship the way we do.”

Click here and read the whole post. If you're a pastor, a church leader, a Sunday school teacher or a parent it will be well worth your time

Sunday's Sermon: Discerning the Body

This Sunday I preached from 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 on "Discerning the Body." The following is a brief excerpt from my sermon:

On the night when Jesus was betrayed--literally, on the night “he was being betrayed”--even in the midst of being betrayed, Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper. And it calls our attention to what the Gospels say about that night. What else did Jesus do on that night...in that room...with his disciples? He took a towel and put it around his waist and then he got down on his knees with a basin of water and he washed his disciples' feet, each and every one of them. 

• He washed the feet of Thomas, who would doubt his resurrection. 
• He washed the feet of Peter, who would three times would deny him. 
• He even washed the feet of Judas, who would betray him. 

That is the example of our Lord; that is the kind of love he showed us. And it is the kind of love we are required to show one another. And after washing their feet he issued to them a command…“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35) This should always be the case; we should always have love for one another, but especially when we come to the Lord's table, it is necessary that we have love for one another.

 Click here to listen to this week's entire sermon as well as past sermons I've preached.

Sinclair Ferguson on the Praying Church

The other day Ligonier posted a portion of a 2008 interview with Sinclair Ferguson. In it Ferguson discussed what most troubled him about the Church in our day. I found his words instructive and convicting.

Again there is the lack of prayer and of the Church praying. This is to me the most alarming, for this reason: we have built apparently strong, large, successful, active churches. But many of our churches never meet as a congregation for prayer. I mean never! What does that indicate we are saying about the life of the Church as a fellowship? By contrast, the mark of a truly apostolic spirit in the church is that that we give ourselves to prayer and the Word together (Acts 6:4). No wonder “the Word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied” (Acts 6:7). If this is so, it should not surprise us that while many churches see growth, it is often simply reconfiguration of numbers, not of conversion. I greatly wish that our churches would learn to keep the main things central, that we would learn to be true Churches, vibrant fellowships of prayer, Gospel ministry and teaching, genuine mutual love. At the end of the day, such a Church simply needs to “be” for visitors who come to sense that this is a new order of reality altogether and are drawn to Christ.

Don't Be Too Quick To Abandon Traditions

While it may be debatable as to whether or not it is a good thing, it is undeniable that we are in the midst of an age when many within the Church have deemed it either wise or expedient to abandon much of the Church's heritage and many of her traditions.  Trevin Wax has some good observations dealing with this fact in a great blog post originally posted in 2007, and re-posted at his blog this morning. Early on, he makes a concession:

Before we go on, we must admit – yes, our Christian traditions can become dry and lifeless. In many churches, they are ritualistic and cold. Most of the time, though, rigor mortis sets in when traditions are not understood or explained. When rituals become dry and empty of significance, the answer is not to throw them out, but to rediscover their purpose.

This extends not only to the shape of our liturgy and the parts that make up a worship service. It includes even the language we use. Wax points out the eschewing within the church of such theological terms as "justification," "redemption" and "propitiation," in an effort to be "seeker-friendly."

Christian leaders cop out by dismissing such terminology because “the lost don’t understand.” The greater danger is “the saved don’t understand.” If our preachers, teachers and writers would reconnect the church with the depth and majesty of the theological terms so many want to throw away, perhaps the cry against hard words would fall silent.

Words are more than just definitions in a lexicon. They remind us who we are – citizens of God’s Kingdom.

Click here to read the whole post.

Mike Horton on "Masculine Christianity"

Within the New Calvinist movement, and evangelicalism in general, there are many who would advocate for a more "masculine" Christianity. Mike Horton responds in this recent article from Modern Reformation magazine. In it he gives an interesting take on gender stereotyping within the church, and the need for our ideas to be more grounded in the Scriptures.

It is well worth reading the whole thing, and I recommend you do so. But if you want just a summation, here is where he ends up:

My point is that the larger goal here shouldn't be to trot out more gender stereotypes from our culture, whether feminist or neo-Victorian, but rather to rediscover the ministry that Christ has ordained for making disciples of all nations, all generations, and both genders. We need less niche marketing and more meat-and-potatoes service to the whole body of Christ. There, men and women, the young and the old and the middle aged, black, white, Latino, Asian, rich and poor hear God's Word together, pray and sing God's Word together, and are made one body by receiving Christ's body and blood together: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." In that place, at least, there are no women's Bible studies and men's Bible studies, distracted youth groups and child-free golden oldies clubs, but brothers and sisters on pilgrimage to a better homeland than those that have been fashioned for us by this passing evil age.

The Virtue of Ordinary Faithfulness

A few years back, Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck co-authored Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion. I was reminded of what a helpful book that is this morning when I saw a number of friends on Facebook linking to this post at Ligonier.com by Kevin (which is an adaptation of the book's epilogue). In it he calls us to the following:

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

It's well worth reading the whole post -- or the whole book for that matter! I know I need to remind myself often that God doesn't necessarily call me to turn the world upside down, but he does call me to be faithful. This is a good word for us all, but especially essential for pastors to remember.

Another must-read for pastors that helps remind us of this fact is D.A. Carson's Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson. In the book, Carson weaves together his father's journal entries with biographical information to give a sketch of a man he profoundly respects and admires, even though the depth of his own direct impact and the level of his own fame have far outreached those of his father, who spent the vast majority of his life pastoring rather small churches. Carson notes in the book's preface:

(F)ew assessments of Dad's journals are likely to prove more penetrating than that of Michael Thate, my administrative assistant. Michael cheerfully transcribed the English parts of the journals. When he sent me the last digital files, he accompanied them with an e-mail that said in part, "I used to aspire to be the next Henry Martyn [heroic British Bible translator and missionary to the Muslim peoples of India and Persia]. However, after reading your dad's diaries, the Lord has given my heart a far loftier goal: simply to be faithful. I know we men are but dust, but what dust the man I read about in these diaries was!" And after proofing the manuscript he sent me a note telling me he was reminded of Tolkien's lines about Strider:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

All true. And yet Tom was a most ordinary pastor.

Some of us are indeed called to wield massive influence. The vast majority of us are called to more ordinary things. Instead of seeking to revolutionize the world, let us simply seek the far loftier goal of being faithful. If God desires to use our faithfulness in ways that are beyond our wildest imagination, then so be it. May he receive all the glory. And if he should choose to use us only in the smallest of ways, then so be it. May he be glorified just as much.

Ministry Transitions

Many woke up this morning to news of two transitions involving among prominent church leaders:

1) The elders of Bethlehem Baptist Church are presenting Jason Meyer to the congregation their candidate for Associate Pastor for Preaching and Vision. The expectation that Meyer will become John Piper's eventual successor as the church's senior pastor. Click here for an update on Piper's transition which was posted at Desiring God.

2) In other news, Mark Driscoll announced that he will be replaced as the president of the Acts 29 church planting network by Matt Chandler. As part of this transition, Acts 29 will be moving its headquarters from Seattle to Dallas. Driscoll's Mars Hill Church will remain a part of the Acts 29 network.

You Are Not the Lone Ranger!

As Americans, our default tendency is to be fiercely independent.  Our history has essentially written it into our DNA.

Dr. James White has some interesting thoughts below though, on how this can not only be detrimental to our ministries, but is actually downright unbiblical.  Listen as Dr. White contends that apologists (and all of us, for that matter) need to be in the local church, and under its authority, as opposed to making our ministry simply about "Jesus and me."



(HT: Blogergism)

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

"What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort. Christians come together because they have all been loved by Jesus himself. They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake"

D.A. Carson

You Are the Salt of the Earth

In 2011 I've had the pleasure of teaching an adult Sunday School class on The Sermon on the Mount.  One of my favorite parts of teaching is all the learning that I get to do.  In my preparations for class, I try to glean insights from a number of scholars who are far more learned than I am (there's no shortage!).  To this end I have loved studying a number of fine commentaries on The Sermon on the Mount (Carson, Doriani, Ferguson, Stott) in addition to commentaries on Matthew from my two favorite sets by Calvin and Hendriksen.

Another commentary on Matthew that was recently introduced to me by a friend is Frederick Dale Bruner's Matthew: A Commentary. Volume 1: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12.  I've only had the commentary for a couple weeks and I can't speak to all of Bruner's theology.  What I can say though, is I have already been richly blessed by the devotional nature of his writing and some of the insights he offers on Matthew 5.  Included in this would be the following words I came across today preparing for this week's lesson on being "the salt of the earth":

"Blessing is given to believers so that they will be blessings -- to the world (cf. especially the seminal promise of Gen 12:1-3: "I will bless you and make you a blessing; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed"); salt is made salt in order to be salty in food.  We are put on notice that while it is from nothing (gratis) that we have been made salt, it is not for nothing (frustra).  We are to live for other people.  Christians, we learn here for the first time explicitly, are in danger if they do not live as Christians.  This is what is meant by the warning's sad conclusion, "It is absolutely useless except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot."  Here is deserved persecution.  In the world this "persecution" often takes the form of simple contempt or of complete disinterest."

May we always remember how very blessed we are to have found favor in the eyes of God in spite of our sin. And may we also remember that we, like Abraham, are blessed that we might be a blessing.

A Biblical View of Church Leadership

Far too often our idea of church leaders is that they are to be a board of directors who run the business of the church.  Doug Wolter provides a helpful corrective to this view of church leadership:

The image of a spiritual leader in the church is not a CEO but a good mother and father. Someone worthy to imitate and follow. 1 Thess. 2:7-8, 11-12 says, "Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.  For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory."

May the Lord raise up more leaders who lovingly train and guide the people of the church, not just oversee its administration.  Click here to read the whole post.

In Support of the Institutional Church

These days it is increasingly fashionable to bash "the church."  In Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, the lament is voiced, "Community is hip, but the church is lame.  Both inside the church and out, organized religion is seen as oppressive, irrelevant, and a waste of time.  Outsiders like Jesus but not the church.  Insiders have been told they can do just fine with God apart from the church."

Today though, Jared Wilson offers up a helpful piece reminding us of the biblical support for the institutional church:

1. The New Testament presumes church governance

2. The New Testament commands church discipline

3. The New Testament designates insiders and outsiders in relation to the church

4. The image of "the body" presumes unified order

5. The New Testament churches had recognizable structures. The apostles sent their letters to somebody

6. "Spirit-filled community or institutional organization" is a false dichotomy that presumes the Spirit is powerless against institution

7. Logically speaking, there is no such thing as "no institution" except chaos or anarchy. Every community made up of people is institutional to some degree

8. That institution is not eternal is not grounds for jettisoning it. Marriage isn't eternal either.

9. The subjection of kings and nations presumes institutional subjection to Christ and therefore that God works in, with, and through institutions

10. No one in 2,000 years has successfully cultivated an enduring institution-less expression of the local church

Read the whole post here.

A (Different) Conservative Christian Perspective at the Fourth of July

Fourth of July weekend is upon us and for most of us, that means it’s time to celebrate. Some of us just celebrate a day where we don’t need to go to work, but others of us will actually celebrate our nation’s independence and the freedoms that this secures for us.

Okay. Let me just lay my cards on the table. I’m what most people would probably refer to as a “conservative Christian.” And conservative Christians are supposed to have certain views regarding church and state, our founding fathers, and America’s identity as a “Christian nation.” I guess I just don't quite fit the stereotype.

I do feel that those who seem actively opposed to all things Christian have a tendency to go way too far in their attacks on the idea that we have a Christian heritage and Christian principles upon which our nation was founded. At the same time though, I feel that conservative Christians tend to massively overstate their case as well, overreaching their position and leaving them as easy targets for those who would disagree with them.

From time to time (mostly through emailed urban myths) you’ll hear about the ACLU or some other like-minded organization suggesting that we need to remove the words “In God We Trust” from our currency. I had a pastor once who actually suggested that the Church ought to beat the ACLU to the punch and spearhead the movement. His line of thinking was that, as a nation, we certainly did not trust in God, and to say that we did was to use the name of God in vain.

I’m not sure I agree with where his reasoning led him, but I’m not sure I disagree either. We tend to have this presumption that we as a nation are the people of God. While I feel there is no doubt that this nation has been immeasurably blessed by God, it is wrong to say that this marks us out as His nation (other than in the sense that all nations are His).

The idea that we are especially His often ushers us into the misapplication of the Bible. One classic example would be the (mis)use of 2 Chronicles 7:14 which reads, “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Conservative Christians (at least those who are Americans) are eager to apply this verse in such a way that understands the U.S.A. to be a proper referent for “their land.” At first glance it seems reasonable. After all, as the song goes, “This land is your land, this land is my land…”

What needs to be kept in view though is that the Church/State nexus that was Old Testament Israel is actually to whom this promise was addressed, and the “land” to which God is refering is that very same land about which he speaks one verse earlier in 2 Chronicles 7:13 where he sets the stage for his promise with, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land…” You see, God’s promise here really has more to do with agricultre than with American culture.

That’s not to say that there is no modern day application for us in this passage. If there is an entity with the right to apply the ideals in this promise, it would not be our nation, but the Church. If the Church were to humble itself, pray, seek God’s face and turn from whatever evil ways it might have, then God is indeed faithful to forgive our sin and and bring healing within our midst.

One of the other big issues for conservative Christians seems to be prayer in school. We are told that the moral slide of our nation began when prayer in school was outlawed and we can trace everything bad back to that. Well, it’s not quite that simple.

First of all, as Richard Hardy, one of my political science professors in college taught me, as long as teachers give exams, there will be prayer in schools! Of course he was making a joke and what we’re talking about is something altogether different.

It occurs to me though, that I’m pretty sure I don’t want a teacher (who might worship some false god or no god at all) being the one who is leading my child in prayer, modeling for them how one should pray. Conservative Christians are often quick to object to certain subjects being taught from the atheistc viewpoint of certain teachers, but they want to open the door to prayer being modeled and thus taught by the same atheistic teachers? It seems to me that the wall of seperation between church and state, which is intended to protect the religious practice of people from the government intervention (not vice versa), actually serves us pretty well here.

The moral decline of our culture did not begin with removal prayer from schools. It began in the Garden with the Fall (see Genesis 3). And I reckon that the lack of prayer in public schools is nowhere near as influential in the continuation of this decline as the lack of prayer in our homes. It is we parents who have too often failed to train up our children in the way they should go, and for this we must repent.

Okay. Now that I’ve ticked off 90% of the people who might actually read this blog, let me finish off by taking care of the other 10%. According to our Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I think it is a legitimate question to ask this 4th of July, that if we, as a culture, cease to accept the fact that there is a Creator, what does it say about those rights? Would not logic dictate that they were not quite so inalienable after all?

You see, God is indeed the source of all our rights, and of all that is right. We are his and he has made himself known to us through the Bible and in the person of Jesus Christ. He did this not so that we could have a Christian culture or a Christian nation, but so that we could have forgiveness from our sins, and be, as the Church, his bride.

May we be thankful that he has blessed us as Americans to live in a land and a time where we are among the most blessed people ever. May we be thankful that we live in a land where we are free to worship him. But most of all, may we be thankful that God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Now that’s reason to celebrate!

Why We Love the Church

Josh Harris reminds us in this post that the affection and love we're to have for fellow-Christians is not to be based on how great we think others are or how much we enjoy them, but upon the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.