"Just Do Something" for those who don't like reading...

The book is great, but here is the topic addressed by the author himself. And a teaser quote (and there are more like it): "How many girlfriends does Jesus have to have?!" (@ 41:50 in the context of about 40:00 to 42:00)

New Books in the Good Reads Bin -->

On the right side of the screen there is a box you may not pay a lot of attention to. But as I listen to interviews at 9 Marks, I am constantly bombarded with book recommendations. So I write them down and plug them into the list there on the right. I recently added a few more. Categories? Two from RC Sproul that are kids books, and a few others on discipling kids. And then a bunch on church discipline and polity. Check them out.

Assurance: Ice Skating Metaphor

From a message by Kevin DeYoung in one of the sermons from a series on the Holy Spirit.  (beginning at 41:30)

"If the seal of the Spirit marks you out as belonging to God, that is true whether you have a deep assurance of that or not. If you get out and skate on the ice, it's not your faith in the ice that holds you up--it's the thickness of the ice. You may be wobbly. You may feel like "I'm gonna fall through any minute." But if the ice is two feet thick, even if your faith is weak, it is the object of your faith that holds you up. But the goal is to experience the freedom of skating around on the ice knowing that you have no possible way of falling through."

DG on Forgiveness

A crucial distinction between granting forgiveness to someone who repents and being ready to forgive those who don't repent. The more thorough treatment can be found at the link at the end of the article.

Gospel Motivation: Seeing Christ

I wish that I had the patience to transcribe from minute 21:00 to 23:15 from this sermon by Kevin DeYoung. [You may have technical diffficulties getting to it from here. If so, go to his sermon page and find "The Holy Spirit Equips and Promises" from January 24, 2010.]

If I could summarize it, he is essentially teaching the truth of 2 Cor 3:18:

"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."


We become like Christ (in, among other things, his obedience) by beholding the glory of the Lord. Look at how glorious Christ is. Meditate on it. Swim in it. Gaze upon Jesus in his word and in your past and in the work he is doing around us. When we do so rightly, we find ourselves wanting to be like him. Not merely following the rules because we are supposed to--but because we really want to. And this is precisely what the Holy Spirit does: "For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." He points our hearts to Christ and there we find joy to obey.

Kevin uses a great analogy of how when we marvel at someone truly talented at what they do (like a figure skater, or Michael Jordan in the 90s, or any other exceptional person we admire), we find in ourselves an amazement that pushes us in some degree to want to be like them. And so it is when we behold Christ.

Kevin is also making the point that becoming like one of these "greats" requires effort--but it is not an effort of loathesome burden, but of joy from inspiration.

This song is one means of so meditating on the character and value of Christ. Enjoy

Keeping the Gospel in View While Preaching

How important is it for a preacher to preach Christ from every text of Scripture? 
 
It's an ambiguous question. Let's see if I can give the two ways I'm hearing it.

It's important that every sermon from a Christian preacher be a Christian sermon, that is, a sermon that, if a Jewish or Muslim person heard it, they wouldn't like. If they like it, something is wrong with it, because they reject Christ as Messiah and crucified and risen as the forgiver of the sins of the world.
And since they reject it, if they hear a sermon that they're totally OK with, then something is missing. The sermon should somehow communicate that this is all based on and aiming toward the work of Christ and the glory of Christ.

However, I don't think there's any particular way that that needs to be made explicit. In other words, when you preach on Proverbs, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise," you want to preach what's there and show that there are moral lessons to be learned from God's providence in the world.
But you will somehow connect that with what makes you a Christian. You're not a Christian because you look at ants and feel them to be especially helpful morally in setting a good example of discipline. That doesn't make anybody a Christian.

So if you just preach, "Let's all be more diligent because ants are, and God says to," that's not a Christian sermon. Somehow it's got to be connected to the bigger redemptive-historical thing that God is doing that saves sinners and strengthens sinners.

What makes that sermon finish is that what you want in preaching discipline is Christian discipline, discipline that is dependent on the Holy Spirit, discipline that is not earning your salvation, discipline that is the fruit and not the root of your acceptance with God. And all of that takes you to the cross.

So preachers, wherever they're preaching in the Bible, must somehow make it plain that this is a Christian sermon. It has Christian roots and the glory of Christ is at stake. And I think there are hundreds of ways to do that.

Praying for the Sick in a Hospital

A friend sent me this via email. This will put another item on the blog roll for sure.

Pastor Dad

Good stuff for Dads on being shepherds at home. Download the free ebook at the end.

Thanks RP.

Ben Patterson on Prayer: Several Messages

Ben spoke at the Magnify Conference at Kevin DeYoung's church. Here are some motivating and insightful messages on prayer. I first heard of Ben Patterson through an article (well, two actually) in Leadership Journal that revolutionized the way we led our worship team in prayer. An exemplary model and messenger on the subject.

Session 1 Why we Must Pray
Session 2 Why we Don't Pray
Session 3 Why we May Pray
Session 4 A Concert of Prayer
Session 5 Q&A with Ben and Loretta Patterson
Bonus: Ben Preaching Sunday Morning

Sinners don't go to hell because they don't know Jesus

From Ray Comfort's blog:

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?" -ANNIE DILLARD. Abe

The priest wasn’t telling the truth. I have used the same scenario in The Evidence Bible to show the foolishness of such a thought. God would be unjust to send anyone to Hell for not knowing something:

"No one will go to hell because they haven’t heard of Jesus Christ. The heathen will go to hell for murder, rape, adultery, lust, theft, lying, etc. Sin is not failing to hear the gospel. Rather, "sin is the transgression of the Law" (1 John 3:4). If we really care about the lost, we will become missionaries and take the good news of God’s forgiveness in Christ to them."

The confusion comes from misinterpreting the meaning of John 16:9: "Why will sinners go to Hell? Much damage has been done to the cause of the gospel by telling the world that they will go to hell 'because they don’t believe in Jesus.' This makes no sense to the ungodly. It seems unreasonable that God would eternally damn them for not believing something.

"However, the verse can be explained this way: If a man jumps out of a plane without a parachute, he will perish because of the results of gravity. Had he put on a parachute, he would have been saved. In one sense, he perished because he didn’t put on the parachute. But the primary reason he died was because of the effects of unforgiving gravitational pull.

"If a sinner refuses to trust in Jesus Christ when he passes through the door of death, he will perish. This isn’t because he refused to trust the Savior, but because he transgressed the Law of God. Had he 'put on the Lord Jesus Christ' (see Romans 13:14), he would have been saved; but because he refused to repent, he will suffer the full consequences of his sin. Sin is not 'failing to believe in Jesus.' Sin is ‘transgression of the Law’ (see 1 John 3:4)." From,The Evidence Bible.

Research on Parenting from Pediatricians

While this site (below) isn't about the gospel, apologetically and practically, it has some good resources on parenting from the American College of Pediatricians. Based on, from what I can tell, sound research methodology. Spanking: does it teach kids to be violent? Homosexuality: innate? And dozens of other topics.

Chill the Heck Out

The fact is some Christians do need to chill the heck out. There is such a thing as pathological seriousness. It is possible to be too intense. Young Christians, especially when they are getting meaty theology and God-centeredness for the first time, can be prone to manic bouts of self-flagellation, spurts of judgmentalism, and unhealthy hyper-watchfulness. I know because there have been times in my life when I’ve been prone to all three.

Disappointment in/with the Church: DeYoung

Over at Kevin DeYoung's blog, he's listed three really practical and helpful posts for pastors and church members on dealing with disappointment with the Church. Good stuff.

Number One: An Introduction.
Number Two: Questions Pastor's Should ask Themselves.
Number Three: Questions Members Should ask Themselves.

Sandra Hymn

Practical Advice for Pastoral Visitation

Great blog entry here on pastoral visitation. While it may be more applicable to smaller one-pastor churches, this advice offers practical thoughts on when to visit, how long to visit, who to visit and how to manage the rest of your week.

Happy Easter

The Indomitable Life of Christ

April 4, 2010  |  By: Tyler Kenney  |  Category: DG Resources

When Jesus was dead and buried, with a big stone rolled against the tomb, the Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for permission to seal the stone and guard the tomb. Pilate said, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can” (Matthew 27:65). So they did. They gave it their best shot—in vain.
It was hopeless then, it is hopeless today, and it will always be hopeless. Try as they may, people can’t keep Jesus down. They can’t keep him buried. They may use physical force or academic scorn or media blackout or political harassment or religious caricature. For a season they will think the tomb is finally sealed. But it never works. He breaks out.
- John Piper, from his article "They Gave It Their Best Shot—In Vain"

Adoniram Judson

Because a friend asked me about a biography on him, I started poking around and here are some places to start on one of the most fascinating stories of God's work through a faithful missionary.

Advice to Missionary Candidates.

The Popular Biography.

John Piper's biographical message. 

Was 3 Hours of Suffering Enough?

A Vision for a Church's Ministry to Children

David and Sally Michael offer a challenging and inspiring vision for ministry to children. I had the privilege a few years ago to sit with Sally and some other pastors over lunch. Very bright, God-loving, passionate person. In this interview you hear more of their heart on the matter.

J.I. Packer on Seeker Sensitivity...

From an interview @ 9Marks: "One of the ways in which the entertainment culture expresses itself today is, it seems to me, is in the kind of [...] entertainment that's presented so often in churches that call themselves seeker friendly, and which say, if asked to explain themselves, "Well, we are orienting everything we do to attract the uncommitted outsider." I think there are two things wrong there, not just one. One is that we shouldn't cheapen or limit the worshiping and teaching life of the congregation in order to concentrate on people who are not yet members of the congregation. Otherwise the congregation will starve and I can tell you frankly that I have met members of congregations that have gone overboard in being seeker friendly and the saints are starving. But there's a second thing wrong, and that is that God himself is being dishonored by establishing a wavelength of entertainment which means gratifying people's present interests, which means worldliness, which means unspirituality. Which means that if the outsider is allured by the skits and the songs and the drama and all of that, [then] he or she will either have to learn at a late stage about the greatness and the majesty of God or, he or she will be an immature, juvenile, stunted Christian for the rest of their days. As a way of forming people in Christ, the seeker-friendly, seeker-sensitive way of structuring church life seems to me to be absolutely wrong at that level too.

J.I. Packer on false conversions...

From a 9Marks Interview: The preacher says, mistakenly, "If you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins, you'll be forgiven and justified and saved." Then the preacher offers him the wording of a sinner's prayer and he prays it and he goes out of church saying, "I'm a Christian now." And nothing has been said to him about repentance. Nothing has been said to him about saying good-bye to the old life of self-centered self-indulgence. Nothing has been said to him about the fact that henceforth, he has a new life given him by the Lord and he belongs to the Lord who's given him the new life--he's bought with a price, hes not his own--and therefore, his whole business in life (I say "he"--it'll be "she" as well) their whole business in life is to glorify God in the way they live day by day.
     Where those things aren't said, you have an inadequate presentation of the gospel and you're simply asking for false conversions. That is: people believing they've become Christians when in fact they haven't. No one becomes a Christian who hasn't repented. No one becomes a Christian who isn't consciously saying good-bye to the old life and welcoming the new one.

J.I. Packer on Owen's Death...

I read this awhile back and it is so worth reading. Perhaps one of the best explanations of true Calvinism I've read. Packer is brilliant.

“But wait a minute,” says someone, “it’s all very well to talk like this about the gospel; but surely what Owen is doing is defending limited atonement—one of the five points of Calvinism? When you speak of recovering the gospel, don’t you mean that you just want us all to become Calvinists?”
These questions are worth considering, for they will no doubt occur to many. At the same time, however, they are questions that reflect a great deal of prejudice and ignorance. “Defending limited atonement”—as if this was all that a Reformed theologian expounding the heart of the gospel could ever really want to do! “You just want us all to become Calvinists”—as if Reformed theologians had no interest beyond recruiting for their party, and as if becoming a Calvinist was the last stage of theological depravity, and had nothing to do with the gospel at all. Before we answer these questions directly, we must try to remove the prejudices which underlie them by making clear what Calvinism really is; and therefore we would ask the reader to take note of the following facts, historical and theological, about Calvinism in general and the “five points” in particular.

Paul Tripp

Counterfeit gospels. 

Seminary's role in pastoral preparation.

I don’t think seminaries can do everything. And I get very tired of hearing young men or pastors who are seasoned, blame the seminaries for their inadequacies. I don’t think seminaries are designed to make complete pastors. Pastoring makes complete pastors. Life makes complete pastors. Families make complete pastors. Seminary is a little slice of influence in life. They’re good for languages. They’re good for theology and they’re good for historical theology. They’re good for apologetics. And they’re good for a few techniques here and there. And that’s pretty small. I mean, just think of what the challenges are in ministry. And if you go into ministry and say “Oh, the seminary didn’t prepare me for this!” I’m going to say to you: “Why do you think it should?” […] I skipped every practical course I could and took exegesis instead. And I would do it the same today. Why? When I took my first pastorate, I had never baptized anybody. I had never buried anybody. I had never dedicated a baby. I had preached fifteen sermons at age 34. I had done two weddings. I had never sat beside a hospital bed while anybody died. I was totally green. And I went to school for five years—the school of life. I did a funeral every three weeks for 18 months. And the old people fell in love with me. It was the best gift I ever got, because they all showed up at the funerals. The young people never came to the funerals. All the old people came to the funerals. They heard me preach over and over again and began to like this young fella who helped them die well—who helped the families. I didn’t know how to do a funeral. I just opened my bible and read about death and resurrection and gospel and thought: “Whoa! I’ve got good news!” I didn’t need a course of funerals—what a useless course. The month before I took the church I went to David Livingston on vacation at a motel and I said “I’m gonna be a pastor in a month. Show me how to baptize people.” He took me to the swimming pool and he said, “take your left hand, put it on their right hand, leave the right hand free to hold their nose, grab ‘em by this arm right here, put your hand behind their back, push ‘em under and pull ‘em up.” That didn’t take a course! And it was free! […]

Here’s the point: I want guys to come out of seminary loving their bible, knowing as much of it as they can. I want them to be broken and humble. I want them to be prayer-filled. I want them to be full of the Holy Spirit. I want them to love people and care about the lost. I want them to have a vision for the world. And a few skills and a willingness to make a lot of mistakes and learn heaps in their first years.    

Keller at The King's College