Thursday, September 23, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Keller on guidance and trusting God
From this Tim Keller sermon.
Proverbs 16:3 - “Commit your deeds to the Lord, and your plans will succeed."
The word commit is a word that literally means "to roll over onto--to put all your weight on". And this is saying, unconditionally trust God for all things that happen in your life. Unconditionally trust God. Radically, unconditionally trust God and you slowly will become a person who makes wise plans--plans in accord with reality. Plans in accord with who God is, who you are, human nature, things. [...]
Why do I call this paying the price? I don't mean paying the price earns guidance. I'm saying paying the price receives guidance. Why do I call it paying the price? Elisabeth Elliot in a book she wrote years ago on guidance puts it like this:
"The more we pay for advice, the more we are likely to listen to it. Advice from a friend, which is free, we may take or leave. Advice from a consultant we have paid much for personally, we are more likely to accept, but it's still our choice--we can take it or leave it. But the guidance of God is different. First of all, we do not come to God asking for advice, but for God's will--and that is not optional. And, God's fee is the highest one of all: it costs everything. To ask for the guidance of God requires abandonment. We no longer say, 'If I trust you, you will give me such and such.' Instead we must say, 'I trust you. Give me, or withhold from me whatever you choose.' As John Newton says, 'What you will, when you will, how you will.'
See, she says, finding God's will is not coming to God and saying 'If I trust you, you will do such and such.' That's the way we read the proverb before we thought about it. She says, no, if you want guidance, you come to God and say 'I trust you. Give me or not give me whatever you choose.'
What does it mean to unconditionally trust God for everything in your life? I think it means, to say, "Lord, from this moment on, I will obey anything you tell me, whether I understand it or not. And I will accept anything you send me whether I understand it or not. But I'm not gonna bail on you no matter what." and the Bible is saying, only if you go through you life like that, (not bailing on God, obeying unconditionally, trusting unconditionally, committing everything) as time goes on, both your good times and your bad times will turn you into the kind of person whose plans are wise.
[...]
"Nobody has ever learned they were a sinner by being told. No one has ever learned about their flaws by being told. You have to be shown. You have to be shown. You're mother's been telling you about your flaws for years, but you've got to be shown. And, until you see your flaws via experience, they're going to control your life. And secondly, no one ever learned that God loved them by being told. You know, I tell you every week, and you go home and say 'well, the preacher told me that I'm loved. I believe it.' No you don't. No you don't. You wouldn't live the way you do if you believed that. You know what you need in order to really know? You have to be shown. Over and over and over as life goes on, you have to be in positions where you are absolutely sure God has abandoned you and then find out later on that you were wrong.
That has to happen over and over and over and over. You can't bail. You have to commit everything to him. But as time goes on, you will find that you are finally becoming wise. You're understanding for the first time your flaws and then your plans are more careful than they would be otherwise. And secondly, you're learning that God loves you, and therefore, your plans are more bold than they would be otherwise. And therefore, by paying this price, by committing everything to him, by then saturating yourself in his Word, so that you not only see the solid lines to your decisions, but also the dotted lines. (I mean, there a lot of things that are biblically, technically okay, but you can see inferences out of biblical principles.) The more you saturate yourself, and seek to do what this verse says--Commit your entire life to him--unconditional trust, you will become, more and more, a wise person.
Proverbs 16:3 - “Commit your deeds to the Lord, and your plans will succeed."
The word commit is a word that literally means "to roll over onto--to put all your weight on". And this is saying, unconditionally trust God for all things that happen in your life. Unconditionally trust God. Radically, unconditionally trust God and you slowly will become a person who makes wise plans--plans in accord with reality. Plans in accord with who God is, who you are, human nature, things. [...]
Why do I call this paying the price? I don't mean paying the price earns guidance. I'm saying paying the price receives guidance. Why do I call it paying the price? Elisabeth Elliot in a book she wrote years ago on guidance puts it like this:
"The more we pay for advice, the more we are likely to listen to it. Advice from a friend, which is free, we may take or leave. Advice from a consultant we have paid much for personally, we are more likely to accept, but it's still our choice--we can take it or leave it. But the guidance of God is different. First of all, we do not come to God asking for advice, but for God's will--and that is not optional. And, God's fee is the highest one of all: it costs everything. To ask for the guidance of God requires abandonment. We no longer say, 'If I trust you, you will give me such and such.' Instead we must say, 'I trust you. Give me, or withhold from me whatever you choose.' As John Newton says, 'What you will, when you will, how you will.'
See, she says, finding God's will is not coming to God and saying 'If I trust you, you will do such and such.' That's the way we read the proverb before we thought about it. She says, no, if you want guidance, you come to God and say 'I trust you. Give me or not give me whatever you choose.'
What does it mean to unconditionally trust God for everything in your life? I think it means, to say, "Lord, from this moment on, I will obey anything you tell me, whether I understand it or not. And I will accept anything you send me whether I understand it or not. But I'm not gonna bail on you no matter what." and the Bible is saying, only if you go through you life like that, (not bailing on God, obeying unconditionally, trusting unconditionally, committing everything) as time goes on, both your good times and your bad times will turn you into the kind of person whose plans are wise.
[...]
"Nobody has ever learned they were a sinner by being told. No one has ever learned about their flaws by being told. You have to be shown. You have to be shown. You're mother's been telling you about your flaws for years, but you've got to be shown. And, until you see your flaws via experience, they're going to control your life. And secondly, no one ever learned that God loved them by being told. You know, I tell you every week, and you go home and say 'well, the preacher told me that I'm loved. I believe it.' No you don't. No you don't. You wouldn't live the way you do if you believed that. You know what you need in order to really know? You have to be shown. Over and over and over as life goes on, you have to be in positions where you are absolutely sure God has abandoned you and then find out later on that you were wrong.
That has to happen over and over and over and over. You can't bail. You have to commit everything to him. But as time goes on, you will find that you are finally becoming wise. You're understanding for the first time your flaws and then your plans are more careful than they would be otherwise. And secondly, you're learning that God loves you, and therefore, your plans are more bold than they would be otherwise. And therefore, by paying this price, by committing everything to him, by then saturating yourself in his Word, so that you not only see the solid lines to your decisions, but also the dotted lines. (I mean, there a lot of things that are biblically, technically okay, but you can see inferences out of biblical principles.) The more you saturate yourself, and seek to do what this verse says--Commit your entire life to him--unconditional trust, you will become, more and more, a wise person.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Spiritual Remembering
You know, the Bible talks about remembering. [...] A basic biblical concept is the sinful tendency to forget the Lord and the need to remember. This cannot mean, mainly, a matter of intellect and information because when God uses the word 'remember' he's not talking about it this way. When he says, "I remembered my convenant to Abraham" this does not mean, "Oh yeah. Abraham. I forgot." When God uses the term 'remember' what it really means is I'm acting now. My heart is engaged. It's not just intellectual.
And what that then means for us is, the problem is that the information we have we spiritually forget. It doesn't automatically become real to us unless someone is fanning the flame all the time. 2 Peter 1:8&9 says "You've forgotten you were cleansed from your former sins." If you're not growing, he says you've forgotten you were cleansed from your former sins. Now, does he really mean that one day you woke up and said "my gosh, it's been three weeks--I forgot: I'm a Christian. Or I forgot that I was saved?" No! What does he mean? He's talking about spiritual forgetting. It's not vital anymore. You're not engaged. It's not real to your heart.
In Joshua 4:21-24, God tells the children of Israel to take 12 stones from the place where he dried up the Jordan in order to make the pillar of remembrance. It would seem ridiculous to imagine that people could forget such a remarkable miracle. [...] The main difference between a Christian and a nominal Christian is that the truth has become spiritually real to the heart of the Christian. The main difference between a growing Christian and a stagnant Christian is that the truth has been refreshed regularly in the growing Christian. [...]
What is the Lord's Supper about? Remembering. It's not primarily an intellectual thing. The Lord's Supper and the worship service in general is designed to recreate sensible ideas (that is sense-affecting ideas) of the gospel. Hebrews 3:13 says we need, at the very least, Christian community daily to exhort us lest we be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. All our problems with worry, temptation, guilt, anger, etc. are due to the fact that God and his salvation is unreal to us. We're not remembering Jesus.
From the end of #31 here.
And what that then means for us is, the problem is that the information we have we spiritually forget. It doesn't automatically become real to us unless someone is fanning the flame all the time. 2 Peter 1:8&9 says "You've forgotten you were cleansed from your former sins." If you're not growing, he says you've forgotten you were cleansed from your former sins. Now, does he really mean that one day you woke up and said "my gosh, it's been three weeks--I forgot: I'm a Christian. Or I forgot that I was saved?" No! What does he mean? He's talking about spiritual forgetting. It's not vital anymore. You're not engaged. It's not real to your heart.
In Joshua 4:21-24, God tells the children of Israel to take 12 stones from the place where he dried up the Jordan in order to make the pillar of remembrance. It would seem ridiculous to imagine that people could forget such a remarkable miracle. [...] The main difference between a Christian and a nominal Christian is that the truth has become spiritually real to the heart of the Christian. The main difference between a growing Christian and a stagnant Christian is that the truth has been refreshed regularly in the growing Christian. [...]
What is the Lord's Supper about? Remembering. It's not primarily an intellectual thing. The Lord's Supper and the worship service in general is designed to recreate sensible ideas (that is sense-affecting ideas) of the gospel. Hebrews 3:13 says we need, at the very least, Christian community daily to exhort us lest we be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. All our problems with worry, temptation, guilt, anger, etc. are due to the fact that God and his salvation is unreal to us. We're not remembering Jesus.
From the end of #31 here.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Abba Father
So I did the same thing again and again. I would kneel down in front of them at eye level and say, "Please look at Daddy's face. Do you know how much I love you? Do you know that your Daddy is not a mean, bad man? Do you know that I would never ask you to do anything that would hurt you or make you sick? I am sorry that you can't understand why Daddy is asking you to do this. I wish I could explain it to you, but you are too young to understand. So I am going to ask you to do something—trust Daddy. When you walk down the hallway to do what Daddy has asked you to do, say to yourself, 'My Daddy loves me. My Daddy would never ask me to do something bad. I am going to trust my Daddy and stop trying to be the Daddy of my Daddy.'"
God does the same thing with you, over and over again. He meets you in one of the difficult hallways of your life, kneels down before you in condescending love, and asks you to trust his loving and wise rule, even though you don't have a clue what he is doing. -Paul Tripp
God does the same thing with you, over and over again. He meets you in one of the difficult hallways of your life, kneels down before you in condescending love, and asks you to trust his loving and wise rule, even though you don't have a clue what he is doing. -Paul Tripp
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Edwards on Worship with the Body
Among those things that I find dissonance in within the church, this is perhaps one of the more evident. We sing songs about lifting our hands, dancing, and the like, and stand there like statues as we quietly sing these very words. Somethin' ain't right. And Jonathan Edwards says a few things about it here and further here.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Who is your real God?
"If you go to the Christian God, ask for forgiveness, and never feel forgiven, it means that the Christian God isn't your real God. And therefore, you have to go underneath and say, "There is something besides God who is your salvation"--and that thing won't forgive you. And the fact of the matter is, no god but God--the real God--will ever satisfy you if you get him or forgive you if you fail him. All other gods are wood and hay and stubble and idols--I mean, they're dumb. They're not alive. They can't do anything for you. [...] When someone says, "I can't forgive myself" it means that some standard, or condition, or person is more central to [their] identity than the grace of God. God is the only god who forgives. No other god will. So if you can't forgive yourself, it's because you've failed your real god. Your real righteousness is holding you captive. The moralists false God is usually holy and demanding but not gracious: the pharisee's god, a god of wrath who will not be propitiated. The pragmatists false god is usually some achievement or relationship that they are using as a substitute for God to get some sense of self-worth." (From Tim Keller's Westminster Lectures with Edmund Clowney, Session 8, Getting Down to Earth Part 1 available for free on iTunes U)
Monday, August 16, 2010
Time Management (vs Maker-agement)
This doesn't have a lot to do with the gospel directly. But if you are a pastor, who preaches the gospel to your people weekly, then this article on managing time is worth a gander. In summary, makers (and in this context, those who make sermons) need larger chunks of time (think half-days) whereas managers think in terms of hours. Knowing how to navigate the difference can mean more fruitful ministry.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Chapell and Keller on Christ-Centered Preaching
Here are two great seminars by Bryan Chapell on preaching Christ in every message. If the question of whether that is even necessary comes to mind, then all the more reason to listen to these.
A great quote from the second one as he contrasted Christ centered preaching with two other forms: (a) preaching to the will (Christian duty and obedience) and (b) preaching for increased knowledge (Christian doctrine):
"If what we are doing [in preaching] is not creating greater intimacy and obligation to the Savior out of love for Him, then no matter what science [of preaching] we have pursued, we have not got the goal accomplished that God intended from his Word."
Along these same lines, iTunes U has an entire seminar by Edmund Clowney and Tim Keller on this kind of preaching (free--along with other Westminster Seminary lectures. Likewise, Gordon-Conwell has a half-dozen messages too (for a well-worth-it price).
A great quote from the second one as he contrasted Christ centered preaching with two other forms: (a) preaching to the will (Christian duty and obedience) and (b) preaching for increased knowledge (Christian doctrine):
"If what we are doing [in preaching] is not creating greater intimacy and obligation to the Savior out of love for Him, then no matter what science [of preaching] we have pursued, we have not got the goal accomplished that God intended from his Word."
Along these same lines, iTunes U has an entire seminar by Edmund Clowney and Tim Keller on this kind of preaching (free--along with other Westminster Seminary lectures. Likewise, Gordon-Conwell has a half-dozen messages too (for a well-worth-it price).
Friday, July 23, 2010
Two options for Training
Here are two options I have been mulling over that are (a) affordable and (b) sound and (c) rigorous.
Ligonier's Certificate Program.
CCEF's Training Program.
Ligonier's Certificate Program.
CCEF's Training Program.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Justin Taylor's 15 Powlison Q&As
Justin:
P&R gave me permission to republish a very helpful Q&A from David Powlison’s essay, “I Am Motivated When I Feel Desire,” included in his excellent book, Seeing With New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture.
He asks and answers 15 questions. I’ll post two per day over the next week.
Here they are.
P&R gave me permission to republish a very helpful Q&A from David Powlison’s essay, “I Am Motivated When I Feel Desire,” included in his excellent book, Seeing With New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture.
He asks and answers 15 questions. I’ll post two per day over the next week.
Here they are.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Rough Winds of Discipline--Spurgeon
From Spurgeon's Morning by Morning devotional, June 11:
“After that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”
— 1 Peter 5:10
You have seen the arch of heaven as it spans the plain: glorious are its colours, and rare its hues. It is beautiful, but, alas, it passes away, and lo, it is not. The fair colours give way to the fleecy clouds, and the sky is no longer brilliant with the tints of heaven. It is not established. How can it be? A glorious show made up of transitory sun-beams and passing rain-drops, how can it abide? The graces of the Christian character must not resemble the rainbow in its transitory beauty, but, on the contrary, must be stablished, settled, abiding. Seek, O believer, that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription upon the rock! May your faith be no “baseless fabric of a vision,” but may it be builded of material able to endure that awful fire which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite. May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desires earnest. May your whole life be so settled and established, that all the blasts of hell, and all the storms of earth shall never be able to remove you. But notice how this blessing of being “stablished in the faith” is gained. The apostle’s words point us to suffering as the means employed—“After that ye have suffered awhile.” It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if no rough winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak tree, and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many storms that have swept over it, and they are also indicators of the depth into which the roots have forced their way. So the Christian is made strong, and firmly rooted by all the trials and storms of life. Shrink not then from the tempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort, believing that by their rough discipline God is fulfilling this benediction to you.
“After that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.”
— 1 Peter 5:10
You have seen the arch of heaven as it spans the plain: glorious are its colours, and rare its hues. It is beautiful, but, alas, it passes away, and lo, it is not. The fair colours give way to the fleecy clouds, and the sky is no longer brilliant with the tints of heaven. It is not established. How can it be? A glorious show made up of transitory sun-beams and passing rain-drops, how can it abide? The graces of the Christian character must not resemble the rainbow in its transitory beauty, but, on the contrary, must be stablished, settled, abiding. Seek, O believer, that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription upon the rock! May your faith be no “baseless fabric of a vision,” but may it be builded of material able to endure that awful fire which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite. May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desires earnest. May your whole life be so settled and established, that all the blasts of hell, and all the storms of earth shall never be able to remove you. But notice how this blessing of being “stablished in the faith” is gained. The apostle’s words point us to suffering as the means employed—“After that ye have suffered awhile.” It is of no use to hope that we shall be well rooted if no rough winds pass over us. Those old gnarlings on the root of the oak tree, and those strange twistings of the branches, all tell of the many storms that have swept over it, and they are also indicators of the depth into which the roots have forced their way. So the Christian is made strong, and firmly rooted by all the trials and storms of life. Shrink not then from the tempestuous winds of trial, but take comfort, believing that by their rough discipline God is fulfilling this benediction to you.
Friday, June 4, 2010
A great metaphor for conversion.
Thanks RP for this.
You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. There is a board room in every heart. Big table. Leather chairs. Coffee. Bottled water. Whiteboard. A committee sits around the table. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting. Constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. The truth is, we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, unfree.
That kind of person can “accept Jesus” in either of two ways. One way is to invite him onto the committee. Give him a vote too. But then he becomes just one more complication. The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. Please run my whole life for me.” That is not complication; that is salvation.
“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.
You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. There is a board room in every heart. Big table. Leather chairs. Coffee. Bottled water. Whiteboard. A committee sits around the table. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting. Constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. The truth is, we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, unfree.
That kind of person can “accept Jesus” in either of two ways. One way is to invite him onto the committee. Give him a vote too. But then he becomes just one more complication. The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. Please run my whole life for me.” That is not complication; that is salvation.
“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Resources for Parents
From the Children Desiring God blog.
The content contained in this booklet was summarized from two workshops delivered at the 2007 Children Desiring God Conference: Preparing Children to Hear the Gospel and Presenting the Gospel to Children. You can stream or download audio from both workshops in English and in Spanish.
If by now you are curious about the Ten Essential Truths of the Gospel presented in the booklet, here they are:
The content contained in this booklet was summarized from two workshops delivered at the 2007 Children Desiring God Conference: Preparing Children to Hear the Gospel and Presenting the Gospel to Children. You can stream or download audio from both workshops in English and in Spanish.
If by now you are curious about the Ten Essential Truths of the Gospel presented in the booklet, here they are:
- God is the sovereign Creator of all things.
- God created people for His glory.
- God is holy and righteous.
- Man is sinful.
- God is just and is right to punish sin.
- God is merciful. He is kind to undeserving sinners.
- Jesus is God’s holy and righteous Son.
- God put the punishment of sinners on Jesus.
- God offers the free gift of salvation to those who repent and believe in Jesus.
- Those who trust in Jesus will live to please Him and will receive the promise of eternal life—enjoying God forever in heaven.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
And related to the last post: ORDINARY pastors.
Especially funny but poignant is from 8:00 to 11:30.
T4G 2010 -- Session 9 -- C.J. Mahaney from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.
T4G 2010 -- Session 9 -- C.J. Mahaney from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Competing with Famous Preachers
Given that this blog points to a lot of the very kinds of things that this blog article addresses, I post it here as a balance to the other posts. It is so true that a local pastor can have far deeper impact when he invests in his people than one of these famous preachers can when congregants listen to their sermons online. But you do have to do the shepherding work to accomplish this.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
What is the Gospel? (2)
Monday, April 26, 2010
"Just Do Something" for those who don't like reading...
Thursday, April 22, 2010
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.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
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."
Sunday, April 18, 2010
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.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
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
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.
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.
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