Becoming True Followers of Christ

I am still alive.

2009-07-30T15:09:00.004-04:00

Hello blog readers (if I still have any),

I hope that you are well. It has been way too long since I posted on here. In fact it has been over three months. Life has been a little crazy over the last few months and has kept me from being able to post anything. I apologize.

The end of April brought the conclusion of my Greek class. I then launched almost immediately into reading some 1300 pages for my next class. In the midst of this, my wife, Amy, and I made the final decision to move to Louisville, KY to attend seminary full-time.

We moved out of our house in May and moved in with my parents. I then finished up my job at McLean Bible Church, went to Myrtle Beach for a week, came back and did a lot of last minute things before moving to Louisville this past weekend.

We are here now. I am officially unemployed and awaiting the start of my five classes. So far I have about 29 books for my classes.

I wanted to make this post to let you know that I fully intend to become a more regular blogger again. In fact, my plan is to relaunch my blog in the coming weeks. Once I do that I will make another post on here with the address change so that you can stay updated.

Thanks for bearing with me and for being a faithful reader. I look forward to interacting with you in the near future.

.grace and peace.

Justin

Lecrae: Don't Waste Your Life

2009-04-19T09:48:00.004-04:00

I have recently started listening to Lecrae. If you like hip-hop this is solid stuff. The lyrics to every song are challenging and convicting. They are like mini-sermons with good theology. One of the songs is called Don't Waste Your Life. Below is the official video for the song.

Lecrae and others will be on a DWYL tour this year. You should go check them out. I hope to.

*If you are reading this via RSS or email you will need to click on the link to view the video on the actual blog.

(HT- Justin Taylor)

Well, it is official...

2009-04-17T11:37:00.012-04:00

I am heading to seminary full-time in the fall. I will become a full-time student again after 6.5 years in retirement. After a lot of prayer, counsel, divine provision, and thinking Amy and I decided that it would be best for me to finish my Master of Divinity sooner rather than later.

It is a bittersweet time as I have enjoyed my last five years at McLean Bible Church in the young adult ministry and at our Loudoun Campus. The thing I will miss the most are the incredible men and women of God that I have served with over the last five years.

My time will end at MBC sometime at the end of June or beginning of July. Amy and I are hoping to move to Louisville, KY sometime in late July or early August depending on our housing situation in Louisville. I hope to finish my degree by December 2010.

You may ask, "What will you do when you are done with school?" Good question. I am not sure yet. We will spend the next year and a half praying about what is next in ministry. I still have a strong desire to plant a church, so perhaps that. What I do know is that I want to preach the gospel, lead people to follow Jesus, and make sold out, passionate disciples of Jesus. Where that will happen is yet to be seen. I have thought about planting a church in Knoxville, TN, Northern Virginia, and the Northeast. All very different places.

I hope to keep the blog going while in school, so please keep reading! Pray for us in our new adventure. We are very excited to see what God is going to do with this season of our lives.

.peace.

Celebrating the Resurrection

2009-04-13T09:58:00.001-04:00

With the passing of our celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ this past weekend, I had a thought that I wanted to pass along for your consideration:

Every day should be a day that we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I find that many people go through their lives regularly forgetting to celebrate and think about the death and resurrection of the Savior. I do not believe this is purposeful but, rather, due to passivity. In other words, it isn’t that people are willingly ignoring the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but that they choose not to purposefully think about them.

I know that I am guilty of this. However, I have been challenged to think and meditate on this more every day, not just once a year at Easter.

I want to challenge you to do this in your own life. How can you be more intentional about meditating on the fact that it is through the efficacious death of Jesus and the victorious resurrection of Jesus that you are made spiritually alive and reconciled to the living God? What do you need to change in your life to make this a foundational piece of each day?

Do not forget Romans 5:8—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What an amazing truth! While we were still in the midst of sin, enemies of God, in utter rebellion—right then—Jesus bore the weight and penalty of our sin on the cross.

Thinking about this everyday will change the way you live life and go about your day. Celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ every day, not just once a year.

1 Corinthians 15:54b-57-

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Meditating on the Gospel

2009-03-30T14:15:00.005-04:00

I am studying 1 Peter with my friend Mark on Thursday mornings. It has been a phenomenal study thus far. I leave each week excited and fired up for the gospel and the glory of God.

We recently studied 1 Peter 2:24-25:
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

These are some powerful verses that contain some powerful truths about the gospel. I keep meditating on them and thinking about them. What does it mean that Jesus bore my sins in his body? What does it mean to die to sin and live to righteousness? What does it mean that I have been healed by his wounds? What does it mean that Jesus is the Shepherd and Overseer of my soul?

So much in so few words. This is the gospel. This is the glorious and magnificent good news of Jesus Christ.

As we draw near to Easter, a time when we remember the sacrifice of Jesus and his victory over death, I would encourage you to meditate on 1 Peter 2:24-25 and ask God to move you to a more worshipful lifestyle of radical obedience and reverent fear because of the amazing reality of your redemption and regeneration.

Thoughts from John Owen on the Glory of Christ

2009-03-16T15:46:00.002-04:00

You know I love me a little J.O. I am currently reading John Owen’s The Glory of Christ. I am only in the first part of the book, but it is already blowing my mind. I wanted to share a challenging and thought provoking quote with you.

“There are some who profess to be strict, disciplined Christians, but who never put aside time to meditate on the glory of Christ. Yet they tell us that they desire nothing more than to behold his glory in heaven forever. They are being wholly inconsistent. It is impossible that someone who never meditates with delight on the glory of Christ here in this world, who does not make every effort to behold it by faith as it is revealed in Scripture, should ever have any real gracious desire to behold it in heaven. It is sad, therefore, that many can find time to think much on earthly, foolish things, but have no heart, no desire to meditate on this glorious object. What is this faith and love they claim to have?”

I want to challenge you to intentionally meditate on and think about the gloriousness of Christ regularly. Read the Scriptures looking for it (Hint: It is everywhere!). What is keeping you from beholding Jesus’ glory?

Owen says that many cannot meditate on this glory “because their minds are so cluttered up with earthly things.” Get rid of those earthly things.

Philippians 4:8 says: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

If Christ is truly our delight and our treasure we will not have a problem making him the object of all of our thoughts and affections. This takes discipline and practice, but I believe it is well worth it.

Meditate on the glory of Jesus this week.

In His Joy

2009-02-24T12:18:00.002-05:00

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44

Can people tell that you value Jesus more than anything by the way that you live?

That is what this parable gets at. In one sentence Jesus says that we should value the kingdom of God, the gospel, our new life in Christ more than anything else. We should be willing to sacrifice everything else in our life in order to gain the ultimate treasure, Jesus.

Notice that in his joy the man sells everything to get the treasure. The world would look at him and think he is nuts for selling everything to buy a field. But the man knew and understood something that the world did not—within this field is a much more valuable prize. Selling everything is secondary compared to the value of what he would receive.

The same is true for our spiritual life. It is worth laying down our lives, taking up the cross, and following the narrow road in order to experience the joy of knowing Jesus, the ultimate treasure.

Remember Jesus words in another passage: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 16:25).

Is that how you are living? Are you living in a way that communicates that everything else is rubbish and trash compared to knowing and following Jesus? When other people look at your life what would they say you value most?

Treasure Jesus this week.

Religion and Church Planting

2009-02-09T15:08:00.000-05:00

As I continue to pray and think about whether or not God wants me to plant a church as a part of my ministry I am often torn between where I would go if I did plant a church.

Al Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, recently posted a blog with some interesting data that the Gallup organization gathered in regard to religiosity in America. 350,000 people were asked: “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”

I will let you read Dr. Mohler’s blog for yourself (it is very good). The data was informative, confirming, and not that surprising. Basically, there really is a Bible-belt in America. The most religious states are those in the South. While the most non-religious states are in the Northwest and Northeast.

As I consider church planting this data leads me to two possible conclusions about where to go to plant a church. First, there is a clear need for Bible-believing, gospel-preaching churches in the Northeast. A friend of mine recognized this and is in the beginning stages of planting a church passionate for the gospel in New Jersey called Jacob’s Well. There are many in this area that have never darkened the door of a church and if they have it is either liberal theologically or dead spiritually.

The second possible conclusion is to plant a church in the Bible-belt. You may say, “Why would you do that when there are so many religious people there already?” Good question. They key word here is religious. As Mohler points out, many in the South consider themselves to be religious and follow a cultural Christianity, but are not regenerate Christ-followers who truly understand, believe, and live out the true gospel. It stops at religion for them and nothing more. They need to hear the gospel.

Sometimes I think it might be harder to plant a church in the South because you have to first convince a large amount of the population that they are not in fact Christians and then re-teach them the true gospel so that they might become true followers of Christ.

Either way, there is a clear and growing need for passionate, gospel-preaching churches to be planted throughout the United States whether that is to reach those in the Northeast and Northwest who are admittedly not followers of Christ or to reach those in the South who are deceived to believe that they are true followers of Christ.

Pray that God would clearly show me what he would have me to do in the future. Perhaps you could also pray and see what God would have you do about this as well.

Crazy Start to 2009

2009-01-30T09:22:00.003-05:00

I really was planning on making a concerted effort to blog more regularly in 2009. Here we are at the end of January and I haven't posted once. Main reason--I have been insanely busy.

Here is a little of what I have been up to this month that has kept me from the blog...

Had to read 1400 pages in two weeks for class.
Went to class at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY for 10 days.
Planned and executed our baptism service at church this past Sunday which involved recording and editing 8 audio testimonies.
Went to a 2-day Leadership Forum at church.
Wrote a 15 page paper on the Theology of Being Salt and Light for my ethics class.
Taught our Christianity 101 class this past Monday night.
Started The Well back up this past Wednesday and taught through 1 John 3:11-15.
And I had my everyday responsibilities at work (email, meetings, etc.)

I think the next month should allow for some more time to blog, though I do start back with Greek II. Thanks for your grace. Hope that you stick with reading the blog and that it is helpful as you seek to walk with Jesus.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

My Books from 2008

2008-12-31T14:26:00.004-05:00

To close out 2008 I wanted to list out some of the books I read this year and encourage you to consider reading them in 2009.

Apostasy from the Gospel, by John Owen
Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, ed. by John Piper and Justin Taylor
Contending for Our All, by John Piper
Vintage Jesus, by Mark Driscoll
Confessions of a Reformission Rev., by Mark Driscoll
The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, by Mark Dever
What is a Healthy Church?, by Mark Dever
The Cross Centered Life, by CJ Mahaney
Stop Dating the Church, by Joshua Harris

And here are some of the books that I am excited about reading (or finishing) in 2009:
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen
Desiring God, by John Piper (I know, I know I am little behind the times)
God is the Gospel, by John Piper
A Hunger for God, by John Piper
Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints, ed. by John Piper and Justin Taylor
Humility, by CJ Mahaney
Death by Love, by Mark Driscoll
Vintage Church, by Mark Driscoll
The Reason for God, by Timothy Keller
What's So Great about the Doctrines of Grace?, by Rick Phillips

Happy New Year!

Jesus: King of Kings

2008-12-25T16:16:00.007-05:00

"She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:21

I just wanted to write a quick reminder today, for you and for me, that what we celebrate today is not the birth of a little, cute, cuddly baby. Today we celebrate the birth of the King of Kings. Today we celebrate the Savior and Lord who came to save his people from their sins.

Little Lord Jesus is not what should be in our view. Instead we should have in view the cross that he endured for the joy set before him that we might be called children of God. Today we should be thankful for the fact that we have been adopted as sons and daughters because of the triumphant work of our King.

It is important for us to know and acknowledge that Jesus is human, allowing him to be our high priest and acceptable sacrifice. But it is also important for us to remember that he was in the beginning with God. That he has no beginning or end of days.

To close I will leave you with two Scriptures that I read today that helped me give thanks and praise to my King.

"But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."
Hebrews 1:2-3

"But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world."
1 John 2:1b-2

Merry Christmas!

Not Wasting Their Life

2008-12-23T17:05:00.004-05:00

This past Wednesday Amy and I had the privilege of seeing my cousin, Travis, and his wife, Danielle, commissioned as missionaries to Mexico through the International Mission Board. They will be serving for two years in Mexico City helping to coordinate groups coming to the area for short-term mission trips as well as building relationships for future house church plants.

It was awesome to see them, along with about 200 other people, commissioned to go out and spread the gospel to a large lost world. It was truly an honor to support them on this special day.

There were two things that really caught my attention and brought tears to my eyes. First, there were so many people going to the North Africa/Middle East region. This is unbelievable considering the hostility toward to the gospel in this area. The second striking thing was seeing so many older couples going out.

The oldest person was a 72 year old woman. There were a lot of couples in their 50s and 60s. These people are in "retirement-zone" and instead of buying a home in Florida and playing golf and spoiling their grandchildren, they are starting the second half of their life as missionaries. Unreal. Amazing. Challenging.

Amy and I saw 200 people that are definitely not wasting their life on the fleeting pleasures of the so-called American dream. There was no health and wealth theology in this group of seeking comfort and excess in Jesus' name. This group truly exemplified a willingness to heed God's call and trust him.

I hope that when I am in my "retirement years" that I will remember these men and women and not waste my life. Maybe you could consider the same.

If you want to follow my cousins on their journey you can check out their blog.

I need more Jesus

2008-12-14T13:49:00.004-05:00

I have been thinking about what to write on here for the last week and was at somewhat of a loss, but then was inspired to write about something instead of not writing about anything.

This last week I have felt really dry spiritually. To put it simply, I realized that I need some more Jesus. My sin has been gross to me (which is a good thing), but I haven't felt the grace of my God. Not sure of the exact reason, but all I know is that I need more Jesus.

I want to continually have the longing of Psalm 42:1-2a:
"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

But I also want to be satisfied like Psalm 34:8:
"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!"

My small group just studied Hebrews 12:1-3 and so I have been challenged to run the race set before me with endurance and perseverance. I need to resolve to cast off things that weigh me down and to not be entangled by sin. But the most important thing I need to do, the only thing that will allow me to do this, is to fix my eyes on Jesus.

I don't know where you are right now, but if you need some more Jesus like I do start there--fix your eyes on the founder and perfecter of your faith. I trust and believe that when we do that we will get more Jesus and indeed taste and see that the Lord is good.

.peace.

Election and Evangelism

2008-12-06T11:00:00.002-05:00

There is often theological debate about the doctrine of election as it relates to evangelism. Below is a good quote from Pastor Mark Dever on the issue:

"Sometimes the charge is leveled, 'If you're a believer in election, you won't evangelize.' But haven't many of the greatest evangelists in the history of the Christians church believed that salvation is by God's election? Has that dulled the evangelistic zeal of a Whitefield or an Edwards, of a Carey or a Judson, of a Spurgeon or a Llyod-Jones, of a D. James Kennedy or an R.C. Sproul?

My concern is the opposite: if you don't believe that the gospel is the good news of God's action--the Father electing, the Son dying, the Spirit drawing--that conversion is only our response to God's giving us the grace-gifts of repentance and faith, and that evangelism is our simple, faithful, prayerful telling of this good news, then you will actually damage the evangelistic mission of the church by making false converts. If you think that the gospel is all about what we can do, that the practice is optional, and that conversion is simply something that anyone can choose at any time, them I'm concerned that you'll think of evangelism as nothing more than a sales job where the prospect is to be won over to sign on the dotted line by praying a prayer, followed by an assurance that he is the proud owner of salvation...

...I pray that we see an end to a wrong, shallow view of evangelism that simply tries to get people to say yes to a question or to make a one-time decision."

- Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, pg. 110-111.

Going to School

2008-12-03T14:07:00.000-05:00

2008 has been a crazy year for Amy and me. Ministry has been very different, I took my first semester of Greek, family planning hasn't turned out the way we had, well, planned, and we got a crazy dog, just to name a few things.

So to add to the craziness we are praying through another big change--going to seminary full-time at Southern Seminary. I enjoy school (Amy calls me a nerd) so the idea of going to school full-time is exciting to me. In addition to that I figured out that at a minimum it is going to take me 4.5 years to finish my degree at the pace I am going right now. If I go to school full-time I think I can get done in a year and half.

Why am I writing about this today? Well, to let you in on our little adventure of seeing where God leads. I also wanted to let you know that we will be trying to rent out our townhome. So, if you know of anyone who would be interested in renting a nice townhouse in Leesburg, VA please let me know. Ideally, we would love to have someone in our place between March and May.

I have been reminded recently as my small group has studied Hebrews of the importance of keeping our eyes on Jesus and walking in radical faith with our faithful God. I hope that encourages and challenges you as well with whatever is going on in your life at the moment.

.peace.

The Gospel and Personal Evangelism

2008-11-24T10:56:00.007-05:00

I am currently reading Mark Dever's book, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism. This is one of the most practical and sound books on evangelism that I have seen. Dever deals with the issues of what evangelism is, what evangelism isn't, and why we should evangelize.

He gives the solid challenge and reminder that we are called to share the gospel, the whole gospel, regardless of how people will respond to the gospel. We are merely messengers. God is the agent of change.

If you struggle with sharing the gospel I would highly recommend reading this book. It is very short (124 pages), but you will be thoroughly challenged.

If you do read it, let me know so that we can discuss.

Thankfulness for John Piper

2008-11-17T12:40:00.002-05:00

I like John Piper a lot (in case you didn’t already know that). He has had an enormous impact on my wife, Amy, and me over the last few years through his sermons, books, and blogs. I am so thankful of how God, through the power of the Spirit, has used him.

Let me be clear that I do not idolize him for he is merely a man—just thankful for his passion, love of the gospel, desire to glorify God, and full-on pursuit of Christ-likeness.

I was reminded of his impact on my life last night after getting the Desiring God winter catalog. The catalog itself is intended to be used to glorify God and to live with a wartime, don’t waste your life mentality. Not about money. Not about selling things. Just about Jesus, the gospel, the supremacy of God—a catalog. Amazing.

Getting the catalog and then reading Piper’s blog this morning about how he approaches God when he is feeling rotten and unworthy is what led me to write a little reflection of thankfulness today.

The blog post is very challenging and encouraging. Please read it.

Time for me to be vulnerable. Right now in my life I don’t feel that I have anyone who is really pastoring me or pouring into me as a man of God and as a pastor. It is something that I think about and pray about often. In a way, John Piper, along with some other men have become the men that pour into me.

This is not a good solution, but I am thankful that in this time God has allowed me access to their ministry. I honestly believe that I would not be where I am today if it were not for some of these guys. I still have a long way to go, a really long way, but my passion for the gospel and the glory of God has been borne out of the ministry of men like John Piper through the grace of God.

Thanks Pastor John for being willingly used by God. I believe that God is truly glorified by you and your ministry.

In God We Do Not Trust: Great Post by Driscoll

2008-11-04T17:11:00.003-05:00

Mark Driscoll has written a great post about the longing our society has for a Savior and King that is being sought out in the political process. He challenges pastors directly about the time they have spent thinking and talking about the election and politics. I think this is also applicable for all those that are true followers of Jesus. Christians should consider their focus and allegiance as this year's election comes to a close.

Check out Mark's post: In God We Do Not Trust.

1517-2008: The Reformation Continues

2008-10-31T10:27:00.001-04:00

Today, October 31, is not just a day for candy overload and crazy costumes. Today is a day to be celebrated for more eternal reasons. On this, day 491 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to a door in Germany. This was the beginning of the Reformation.

You may say, “Why celebrate something that happened 491 years ago? What is the big deal?” The big deal is that the gospel won out. The big deal is that acknowledging what happened 491 years ago is a testimony of God’s faithfulness and a motivation to continue to proclaim the truth today.

As I mentioned in my post last year on the Reformation, the church today is in need of another Reformation. I won’t rehash what I wrote last year—you can read it for yourself—but I will say that there is still a need for reform in the church today.

What I want to focus on briefly today on this 491st anniversary is the importance of continuing to preach the gospel both outside and inside the church. Most churches in the West, and around the world, would acknowledge the need to continue to share the gospel with a lost world. But, I believe, in the Western Church today we have reserved the preaching and teaching of the gospel to that only.

Today should remind us that even within the church we need to hear the gospel. I don’t think that we can get very far in the New Testament without seeing the need to consistently and repeatedly be reminded of the truth of the gospel. It is all too easy for followers of Christ to neglect their salvation and forget the gospel. The centrality of the cross and its implications for our lives get moved to the back burner. The result is that we live our lives as people that do not really believe the gospel.

I was reminded this week of the importance of keeping the gospel in front of us at all times. The apostle John says, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1a). That is an amazing truth. That is the good news. That God in his extravagant love and grace sacrificed his own son that we might be adopted as his sons and daughters and called children of God. John tells us to see this love, meditate on it, dwell on it, contemplate what it really means. That should give us hope and joy and peace. That should give us the ability to endure and persevere.

But so many in the church today lack joy and hope and endurance. Why? Because they have forgotten the gospel. What happens when the church forgets the gospel? Feel-good messages are preached. Hope is sought in other places. People are not motivated to tell others the good news of Jesus Christ. Complacent and temporal living sets in. Effectiveness diminishes. The Church becomes a social club.

We cannot allow that to happen and the only way to avoid this trend is to continue to proclaim the message of the Reformation, the message of Jesus. God has rescued you. God has redeemed you. God has adopted you. God is transforming you. He is the giver and initiator and he who has promised is faithful. Don’t forget. Don’t live hopeless lives. Live as the sons and daughters of God that you are and find your joy and satisfaction in him alone.

Preach the gospel in the church. Preach the gospel to yourself. Preach the gospel to the world. Let the Reformation continue.

Soli Deo Gloria.
For more Reformation Day blogs check out Tim Challies’s blog.

A Weekend in Aspen, CO

2008-10-17T09:43:00.004-04:00

I haven’t blogged in over a week because I was out of town. I spent a few days in Nags Head, NC and then headed off to Aspen, CO with my good friend Mark. Mark and I spent the weekend hanging out in the beautiful Rocky Mountains talking about ministry, the purpose and mission of the church, and the gospel. We were dreaming about what the church could and should be about.

We believe that the two primary functions of the church are discipleship and evangelism. According to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) we are supposed to make disciples of Jesus. This does not just mean converting people. It means that we are supposed to make people that follow Jesus not merely claim him as Savior. The Great Commission also says that we are supposed to teach them all that Jesus has commanded. Again, people need to be taught about what it looks like to follow Jesus and become more like him. Once we do this we can then send people out to tell the world about the good news of rescue, redemption, grace, and forgiveness.

Mark and I discussed the possibility of planting a church in the future. We are still not sure what God’s desire is in this regard, but will continue to think and pray about the future. Either way, it was an encouraging and challenging weekend to be reminded of what is most important and what our focus as ambassadors for Jesus should be.

The gospel must be central to everything in our lives. Is it central in your life?

Mark Driscoll on Pornography

2008-10-05T14:36:00.005-04:00

I like Mark Driscoll. He is very straightforward and to the point. He loves God and loves God's people. I was excited to hear that he is publishing a short, free book online entitled Porn-Again Christian.

It is a short e-book that deals with the issues of pornography and masturbation very directly. I hope that this is a resource that many men will take advantage of and read. Sexual sin has plagued the church in recent years. We cannot effectively walk like Jesus and share the gospel with others if we are struggling with these areas of sin.

This book is intended for men. Driscoll warns, "Because I am speaking to fellow men, my tone may not be well suited for some women and, therefore, I would request that they not read this booklet, unless they are a wife whose husband has read it first and he can discuss its contents with her in love."

So, take heed before reading. Driscoll is known for not watering things down and speaking very matter-of-factly on these sorts of issues.

You can access the e-book at the following link: http://relit.org/porn_again_christian/

The whole book is not online yet, but you can receive updates of new chapters by going to Mark Driscoll's blog at http://theresurgence.com/md_blog.

May God use this book to challenge, convict, and encourage men to remain pure and live God glorifying lives.

The Importance of Correctly Interpreting Scripture

2008-09-22T15:03:00.002-04:00

As followers of Jesus it is important that we be students of Scripture. After all, we know that Jesus held Scripture highly and used it practically (see Matthew 4:1-11). However, many Christians do not have a good understanding of correct biblical interpretation and, sadly, many pastors do not.

A fancy word for biblical interpretation is hermeneutics. It can be defined as the science and art of biblical interpretation (Virkler, Hermeneutics, 16). For the purpose of this post I want to give two quick points that everyone who is a serious student of Scripture must consider when studying the Bible.

1) There is only one meaning to the text. Many people today claim that you can find your own meaning in a text and that it can mean something different to each person. This is not only wrong, but very dangerous. When the original author wrote the text he had a specific meaning in mind so as we study Scripture we are seeking out that meaning, the only meaning.

2) We must practice exegesis and not eisegesis. Simply put, exegesis is the practice of pulling the meaning out of the text, while eisegesis is the practice of placing meaning into the text. This happens all of the time. In fact, there are many sermons that I have heard where eisegesis rules the day with very little solid exegesis. I won’t name any names at this point.

If we stick to these two things we will be much more likely to accurately interpret Scripture. It is when we accurately interpret Scripture that we can accurately apply it to our lives and live the way God wants us to live.

I want to make one last point/observation/challenge in regards to accurate biblical interpretation and preaching. When a pastor preaches expository sermons he is much more likely to incorporate the above mentioned points. His goal is to go verse by verse through a passage and teach it accurately and correctly. As Pastor Mark Dever says, expositional preaching aims to make “the point of the biblical text the point of the sermon.” When a pastor sermonizes you are likely to hear a sermon that has sprinklings of Scripture, but a lot of eisegesis. Sermonizing is basically preaching that happens when a pastor forms his sermon and then finds Scripture to support his predetermined points. Not good. This is dangerous because it can lead people to a misunderstanding of the biblical text. Unfortunately, I think there is a lot more sermonizing going on than solid expositional preaching. I hope that this changes.

For those of you that are not preachers, but listeners, I think it is important that you know the difference in these styles of preaching so that you do not just swallow whole what is being taught to you. As you listen to a sermon put on your hermeneutical thinking cap and ask yourself, “Is this what the author intended to communicate? Is the pastor pulling meaning from the text or placing meaning into the text?”

If you use these two hermeneutical tools you will be on the path to accurately interpreting and understanding Scripture and living a life that is glorifying to God.

The Purpose of the Gathering of the Church is NOT for Evangelism

2008-09-09T10:44:00.001-04:00

Justin Taylor posted on this topic the other day. He references a blog by Tony Payne. I would encourage you to read it.

http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/09/should-evangelism-be-key-purpose-for.html

This is a topic that I have thought about often: what is the purpose of the gathering of the church? I have been convinced, especially from passages such as Ephesians 4:11-16, that the main purpose of the gathering of the church is for the edification and building of the body of Christ to the glory of God. It is a time to gather corporately for fellowship, encouragement, challenge, and worship.

This means that the purpose of the gathering of the church is not for evangelism—meaning the preaching to the lost in hopes that they will become believers. Now, we must understand that the gospel must be preached regularly (really every time we gather) and through this some that are not regenerate will be awakened by the Holy Spirit to respond to the gospel of grace, but that is not the focus of the gathering. Scripture does not indicate this as the purpose.

This is very different than what many churches today are focused on. Really it boils down to the question of whether we are we trying to attract people to our gatherings to convert them or are we drawing together the redeemed to be built up so that in their overflow they might share the good news with a lost world?

I will leave it at…just read JT’s blog post referenced above.

Practicing Humility

2008-08-26T14:14:00.001-04:00

I have the privilege of meeting weekly with Mark. Mark is one of our year-long interns with our Future Leaders Program. I have been asked to hang out with him to mentor/disciple him. We have met twice for coffee and it has been a great experience thus far. He loves to learn and talk about theology all the while seeking to glorify God. He is my kind of guy.

On Monday when we met he asked me a very challenging and important question. He said, “how can you seek to stay humble in ministry?” I had to think about it for a moment. Below is basically what I said to him.

I think it is great that the question is being asked by a guy in his early 20s. There are guys that are ten, twenty, thirty years older than Mark that have never even considered how to work on humility in their lives in ministry. I told him that the fact that he is asking this question now will help him to stay humble in years to come.

Two main things come to mind when seeking to stay humble. First, you need to study the Scriptures and understand the gospel. By understanding the gospel and the reality of our state apart from Jesus Christ requires us to be humble. We recognize that we have absolutely nothing to boast in apart from the Lord who called us and rescued us. It is good to remember that we did not choose God, he chose us.

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31:

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

The second way to make sure that you stay humble is to surround yourself with other people that are humble. When you are around other people that are sincerely practicing humility it forces you to be confronted with your own pride and boasting. I have had the privilege of meeting with some pastors from other churches recently that clearly evidence humility in their lives and it has been so refreshing.

I think a lack of humility is one of the most overlooked sins in the church today. I hope that Mark will be a man that changes this as he becomes a minister of the gospel in the local church. And by God’s grace, I hope that I can model humility to him.

Audio for The Well

2008-08-11T14:50:00.003-04:00

We are recording the messages for The Well. Click on the link below to check out the messages on 1 John and let me know what you think. I hope that they are a blessing to you.

Click here for Sermon Audio

To be circumspect

2008-08-08T12:41:00.001-04:00

This past weekend I got together with some of my closest friends from college. We get together every year to catch up, encourage one another, and challenge one another. Mark, our fearless leader, picked out 1 Corinthians 9:24 as the theme for the weekend.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.”

The question that he posed to us for the weekend was: “How can you run in such a way as to receive the prize?”

He gave us several things that will characterize a man or woman that is seeking to run in such a way as to receive the prize. The one that was most challenging to me is the need to be circumspect.

For those of you that are vaguely familiar with the definition of the word like I was here you go:

Circumspect- being heedful of your circumstances and the potential consequences of your behavior.

In essence, being circumspect is taking it all in before jumping into a situation or conversation. This is extremely difficult for me. It is hard for me to hold my tongue when I am in a situation where I feel someone is speaking about something incorrectly. I am very quick to point out how someone is wrong or how they should not talk about something in a particular way. Sometimes my “rebuke” may even be warranted, but it is not always tactful. It is not always done being circumspect.

Mark challenged us to think about what an old man would do. An old man sits back at the family dinner table taking it all in, readjusting his glasses, rubbing his chin—saying nothing. He waits for the right opportunity and the right people to talk to. Maybe even waiting for someone to approach him for his thoughts.

Oh, how I need to be more like an old man. I need to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19), choosing the right circumstances and words more carefully. If I am going to evidence godly wisdom then I must be gentle, peaceable, and humble in my interactions (James 3:13-18).

By being circumspect I will not get distracted and caught up or pulled into meaninglessness in my life. I will be able to focus on the race at hand and continue to move forward. I will be able to become more Christ-like and set an example for others around me of what it means to be like Jesus.

I am not very good at it right now, but I pray that God will help me to be better that I might glorify him more fully and be more effective for his purposes.

Full of Deadly Poison

2008-07-28T11:20:00.001-04:00

My friend Mike and I get together every other Friday morning for breakfast and Bible study. We have been meeting for a while now and are currently studying the book of James verse by verse. This past Friday we discussed James 3:1-12. This is the passage in which James deals with the issue of taming the tongue.

I remember studying this passage in college and focusing mainly on the idea of cursing or using foul language. While I think this passage speaks to this to a degree there is so much more that is present. James deals very directly and powerfully with the reality that the tongue is one small member of the body that can cause such great destruction.

One of the most challenging portions of this passage was v.8-10:

“But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.”

James calls the tongue a restless evil that is full of deadly poison. One of the things that I observed was the subtlety of poison. It is usually very hidden and undetectable until it is too late. It covertly does its damage with minimal drama, but its effects can be deadly and catastrophic. James is saying that the tongue functions in the same way. Through subtle words we can speak death into people’s lives.

In a sense, your words are either speaking life into people or they are speaking death into people. There is no in between. There is no neutral. Your words will always lean to one side or the other.

Oh, how Christ-followers, myself included, need a wakeup call to the reality of this truth! Do we praise our Lord and God with our mouths and in the same breath curse men? Perhaps it is talking ill of a coworker, a neighbor, your pastor, a family member, the guy who cut you off in traffic, someone from a different culture, someone from a different political party.

Are your words speaking life into the lives of people, people created in the image of God? This must be intentional otherwise in our depravity and sinfulness we will always lean towards neutrality which ultimately leads to speaking death.

What kind of words will you use? Will your tongue be a subtle tool used to administer deadly poison or will it be seasoned with grace, love, hope, and truth and give life? I hope that is challenging to you as it has been challenging to me.

God, help us to be men and women who speak life!

A Challenge to the Church

2008-07-16T12:10:00.003-04:00

I love reading John Owen. He was a great theologian of the 17th century in England. I wanted to share two quotes from his work on the "Apostasy from the Gospel" which is really an exegetical work on Hebrews 6:4-6.

I hope that this makes you think about your own spirituality and about the state of the church in America today.

"Who will glorify the great name of God if all his faithful people fall away into apostasy? How many nations that were once receptive to the gospel are now overrun by Islam, paganism and atheism? How concerned are we for the glory of God's holy name? Thousands in our own nation who call themselves Christians are so in name only. They have an outward form of godliness but there is no reality in their lives. So they bring the Christian religion into contempt in the eyes of the world."

"The religion of some is no more than going to church and staying there during the celebration of that sort of worship which they like. By this, they satisfy their consciences, especially if they are admitted to the sacraments and so are outwardly assured that they are true Christians...When men are satisfied with communal religious worship, and use it as an excuse for neglecting private spiritual duties, they are on the road to apostasy."

Pray for yourself. Pray for the church. Pray for reformation.

Why So Shocking?

2008-07-13T12:39:00.000-04:00

I have talked with several guys recently who are pastors at other churches and all of them have said something to this effect:

“Let me know if there is any way that I can serve you or pray for you.”

I don’t know most of these guys and they certainly do not know me. In fact, one guy who said this to me in an email I only talked with for about 10 minutes at Panera Bread.

I have been very encouraged by their willingness to serve and pray for me despite the fact that we have little to no relationship. I believe they are sincere as well.

I am also very challenged as a pastor because I don’t know that I would do the same thing for someone that I do not know well. I hope and pray that I can become a pastor like these men.

The sad thing about this is that I have been shocked when they have said this to me. Why is this so shocking to me? Why is this abnormal to me? This should be normal behavior and not offering to serve and pray should be abnormal.

I want to share this with you to challenge you in your own life (you do not have to be a pastor to serve and pray for someone) and to let you know how God is challenging me.

Wrong Conclusion

2008-06-28T15:40:00.003-04:00

Time magazine published an article this past week entitled Christians: No One Path to Salvation. According to research done by The Pew Forum "57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation."

As I read the article I was somewhat perplexed. Since the exclusivity of Jesus Christ is a major and defining tenet of orthodox, Bible based, Christianity shouldn't the statistic read:

"There are now 57% less evangelicals than we thought"?

This does not make the data easier to swallow, but does give us a good indicator of the great need to preach the gospel inside and outside of the gathering of the church. This also confirms the notion that there are many that gather with the church that are professors of true faith, but not necessarily possessors of true faith.

The American church is in need of a new reformation.

The first drink from the Well

2008-06-28T15:32:00.003-04:00

The Well launched successfully this past Wednesday. As I mentioned in the previous post, our goal was not to draw a lot of people (in fact I don't know how many actually came), but to preach the gospel and glorify God.

I wanted to let you know that I think we achieved those two goals. The songs that were sung were cross-centered and Christ-exalting. I taught on John 4:1-15 and of our need to drink deeply from Jesus, the well of living water, constantly. I shared that my desire is that The Well be a place where people can realign their hearts, minds, and souls back on Jesus in order to live lives that are glorifying to God.

We start 1 John on July 9. I am excited to see what God will do in this new community! I will keep you posted on how things go.

Launching The Well

2008-06-23T11:47:00.008-04:00

This week is really exciting for me. We are starting up a new midweek community at the church I work at. The community will be called The Well. The goal is for it to be a multigenerational community that engages in a time of musical worship and in-depth Bible teaching in order to become more like Jesus.

What that means practically is that we will have acoustic style worship and will be teaching through a book of the Bible. We will be starting off preaching through 1 John.

The reason for the name “The Well” is because I want us to be a people that drink deeply from Jesus, the well of living water, and to be fully satisfied by him.

Right now I am reading through John Piper’s The Supremacy of God in Preaching. It is a phenomenal book for anyone who preaches. I read the following quote this week and it has challenged me deeply as I think about preaching and teaching at The Well:

“How utterly dependent we are on the Holy Spirit in the work of preaching! All genuine preaching is rooted in a feeling of desperation. You wake up on Sunday [or Wednesday in my case] morning and you can smell the smoke of hell on one side and feel the crisp breeze of heaven on the other. You go to your study and look down at your pitiful manuscript, and you kneel down and cry, ‘O God, this is so weak! Who do I think I am? What audacity to think that in three hours my words will be the odor of death to death and the fragrance of life to life (2 Cor 2:16). My God, who is sufficient for these things?'"

I hope that sticks with me for as long as I preach. I must be so reliant on the Holy Spirit to do anything through my preaching. Apart from his work in my heart and mind the words that come from my mouth will be utterly useless. I am truly humbled to have this opportunity.

Please pray for us this week as we launch—not that we would have a ton of people, but that our time together would be richly saturated in the gospel and give great glory to God.

Commentary on a Fortune Cookie

2008-06-20T11:11:00.004-04:00

I like to eat at Pei Wei a lot. They have great food for a decent price and you don’t have to tip. My favorite dish there is Pei Wei Spicy Chicken with a side of Crab Wantons to split with my wife, Amy. Of course at a place like Pei Wei you have to grab a fortune cookie (or two) before you leave. While I definitely do not put any weight or value in what a fortune cookie says, I think they are interesting to read and provide some insight into our world and culture.

Recently, I got one that said: Every person is the architect of his or her own fortune.

What does this really mean? I guess it is saying that you are the creator of your own destiny, your future and lot in life are in your control. This is definitely what our world tells us. It is up to you to achieve happiness, wealth, power, position, and prestige. While this is what the world proclaims, it is not what God proclaims to us.

According to Scripture when we seek to create our own fortune, being the architect of our lives, things get really messy (Genesis 3, Romans 1-3 are a few examples of this). The reason this is true is because God is the creator and we are the creation. God is in control, not us. When we seek to be in control of our lives we usurp God’s authority. We disrupt, confuse, and distort God’s order.

He created us to be a people that would worship and follow him. However, due to our sinfulness this has been corrupted. We now seek to be the god of our life instead of allowing the one true God to be the architect of our fortune.

We need to remember who God is and who we are. I like this quote from A.W. Tozer:
"God being who and what He is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one of full Lordship on His part and complete submission on ours."

We need to lay down control of our lives, every area of our lives, and let God be the one that directs us knowing that he is good, holy, righteous, just, loving, merciful, grace-filled, and sovereign.

One way to do this is to truly see God, the gospel, and his kingdom as treasures. To worship God and know that his will for our lives is the best will possible even if it is sometimes confusing to us.

John Piper says, “When the kingdom is a treasure, submission is a pleasure.”

So the fortune cookie is true in a sense and wrong in a sense. Yes, we can be the architects of our own fortune, but the results will be catastrophic. It would be much better to allow the true Architect to direct our lives.

I will leave you with this—many of us have sought to be in control of our life, the architect of our own fortune. My question to you is, how has that worked out for you so far?

Something to think about this week.

A Crazy Time...

2008-06-15T11:53:00.002-04:00

It has been awhile since I have written a blog. I am told that the blogosphere likes regular posting. Well, shoot me. I have been busy. I really do want to try and write more regularly, so I am going to try.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know what I have been up to recently that has taken me away from the blog.

Haiti
As you remember from my previous post, I went to Haiti back in May for a week. It was an amazing experience. We stayed at an orphanage for a week that is the home to eighteen girls. We successfully painted their rooms, put together wood chests for their belongings, and installed a solar panel to supply electricity.

I also had the opportunity to preach on Sunday at their church gathering and teach a class to new believers in the community. It was a humbling and exhilarating experience. Pastor Ernst translated for me. He is a young pastor who recently got married. He loves Jesus and wants to see Haitians live for the glory of God and to passionately share the gospel with their neighbors. His passion for the gospel is very evident when you talk with him. By the way, he knows Creole, French, Spanish, English, and a little Portuguese.

Conferences
The week I got back from Haiti I headed to two local conferences. One was The Whiteboard Sessions. It was pretty awesome. Eight speakers. 30 minutes each. Talk about whatever you want. With the exception of two or three guys it was a very challenging time. Probably the best conference I have been to. The next day I went to a Church Planting conference that was run in conjunction with Whiteboard. It was also very good. It definitely gave me a lot to think about as I continue to think about planting a church.

Vacation
Memorial Day Sunday we left for the beach for a week. Amy and I headed down to meet up with my family at Myrtle Beach, SC. We had great weather the whole week and it was very relaxing, though I did spend most of my time reading for seminary, which leads me to the next item.

Seminary
After being back from the beach for a week I preached at The Rock (our student ministry) and then headed to Louisville, KY to take a week long class at Southern Seminary. The class was Intro to Christian Philosophy. It was a good class with a ton of information. It was great being on campus.

So, as you can see the last month has been very busy. Very good, but very busy. I am looking forward to the rest of the summer as I will be in town most of the time. Also, we are getting ready to start up a midweek community called The Well. I am really excited about this. We will be teaching through 1 John and have a more intimate time of worship. If you are in the area stop by.

Hope that your summer has been good. I’ll try to post again sooner rather than later.

.peace.

To Haiti and Beyond...

2008-05-07T13:35:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I leave for Haiti. I am going with one of my closest friends, Mark Johnston, who discipled me in college (and does so from a distance today). We are going to be spending a week at an orphanage/school/church. Pastor Gaspar and his wife run all three entities with very little. Right now, there are eighteen girls, ages 3-16 living there. Over 200 children from the community attend the school. But, they have no electricity, so we are going to try and remedy that.We will be installing a solar panel system to provide rudimentary electricity. We will also be painting rooms and building storage chests for the orphans so that they feel like they live in a home more than a prison cell.

I will have the opportunity to meet with several Haitian pastors to encourage them, pray for them, and teach them. This is extremely humbling as these men faithfully serve their people in circumstances that I know nothing of.

Please pray for me and for our team as we seek to bring light into a very dark place.

The main reason I write this post today , however, is not about my trip specifically, but about my small group. In the span of 2 months our small group will do something I think is rather extraordinary. 7 out 12 of us will have participated in some sort of overseas mission activity.

One couple has already gone to a closed country to visit missionary friends and encourage them. Another couple just got back from Burundi, Africa with World Relief. Another couple in the group leaves this Saturday leading a team to Rwanda, Africa with World Relief. And I leave tomorrow for Haiti.

My group has truly embraced the call to go into all the world with the gospel as well as the importance of encouraging and caring for our brothers and sisters globally. It is a privilege to be a part of this group, to lead this group.

I hope that this is an encouragement and challenge for you to look outside of the comfort of your life to see what God might desire you to do for his glory and the advancement of his kingdom.

Where might you be an ambassador for the Lord Jesus Christ?

Your Rebate Check

2008-04-30T12:02:00.003-04:00

As you most likely know, most Americans are getting a fat rebate check in their bank accounts in the near future. The idea is to give money to us so that we can stimulate the economy by going out and spending it on stuff.

John Piper wrote an extremely challenging blog about this. He challenges us to consider what we use the money for.

Economic Stimulus Payment & Christ

It definitely has caused me to think about what I will do with my $1200.

What are you going to do with your rebate check?

Preaching Christ and Him Crucified

2008-04-17T12:15:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of leading the Frontline (www.frontlinedc.com) staff devotional. I decided to teach on 1 Corinthians 2:1-5.

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

This section of Paul’s letter has been extremely challenging to me as a minister of the gospel. I felt that it could be just as challenging to my fellow ministers of the gospel. And really, it should be challenging to all of us that call ourselves followers of Jesus.

The clear point of Paul’s message to the Corinthians is reminding them that when he proclaimed the gospel to them he did it in a way that focused on Jesus and not himself. Paul was not concerned about his presentation style, his fancy words, worldly wisdom, or receiving accolades. He wanted nothing to get in the way of the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified.

So many times as believers, especially in vocational ministry, we can get too focused on the moving parts and the ministry activity and neglect our motivation for these things—Jesus. We must realign our hearts, motivations, and minds back on Jesus and Jesus alone. Paul had much to brag about in his ministry, from the people he knew to the ministry successes that he had, but he did not seek to do any of that. He did not want to manipulate, but to expose people to the gospel and allow the power of God to bring them to a true understanding.

A question I posed to the staff was this: “How can you make sure that you are not prostituting the gospel for your own fame and glory?” I think this is something that all of us should ask ourselves. Are we seeking to make much of me or to make much of Jesus Christ?

I want people to look at my life and say, “what a great Savior Justin has” not “what a great guy Justin is.” I am nothing apart from Jesus. I am still dead in my sin, I am still spiritually inept, I am still under the wrath of God, I am still in bondage. It is only by the blood of Jesus that I am set free and able to do anything of eternal value in this life.

My challenge to the Frontline staff, to myself, and to you is to be cross-centered, Christ-exalting, ambassadors. We need to re-present the message of the gospel, not present ourselves.

Let us make much of Jesus in our lives and claim to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Mark Driscoll on Good Friday: The Day of Atonement

2008-03-26T14:26:00.006-04:00

I just got done watching Mark Driscoll (www.marshillchurch.org) preach on Good Friday and what it really means for us as followers of Christ. I wish I had listened to this last week, but am thankful that I listened to it today.

He does a great job of laying out in graphic detail what it means that Jesus is both our propitiation and expiation. That he bore God's wrath that was meant for us and also removed our sin from us. In looking at Leviticus 16, the Christology is so clear.

Jesus is our great High Priest who has reconciled us to God through his death and resurrection.

I would encourage you to take the time to watch this. I will warn you that it is graphic both visually and mentally.

O, praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead-Jesus!

Video Sermon

Thoughts on the Letter to the Hebrews

2008-03-18T13:35:00.001-04:00

My small group is currently studying the book of Hebrews. We are doing an inductive study, taking sections of the text and discussing them each week. It has certainly been challenging and insightful thus far.

As you may or may not know, there are five major warning passages in the letter. We have just wrapped up the second warning (3:12-4:13) and are getting ready to discuss what is probably the most controversial part of the book, warning #3 (6:1-8).

Even though we are only a little more than a third of the way through the book I have been challenged greatly, both practically and theologically. First off, I have realized my constant need to fix my eyes on Jesus (3:1). He is more superior than angels, than Moses, than anything. He is both creator and founder of our salvation. He is the source of eternal life. He is preeminent and the great high priest who has made propitiation for my sin and unrighteousness.

Jesus must be first in my life. He must sit on the throne of my life. He must be the number one priority in my life. I need to strive to know him and to obey him.

Theologically, our group has had to wrestle with what it means to strive to enter God’s rest, to hold fast to our confession, and to not drift away from what we have heard and believed. I am more convinced now than ever before that we as followers of Christ must persevere to the end in order to receive eternal life. I do not mean that someone can lose his or her salvation, but rather that if we are actually redeemed we will endure to the end by God’s power. It is a strange concept—we must endure to the end to receive eternal life and we will endure to the end if we are truly regenerate.

The problem that I see is that often times we assure people of their salvation when in actuality they are not regenerate or redeemed. We give a false sense of security. We need to tell people that they must endure to the end, persevere in their faith. Our lives as followers of Christ should be lives marked by progressive sanctification, with an upward trend of spiritual growth and maturity.

We should look to the present to validate being spiritually alive, not to a past event in our lives. I get nervous when you ask someone to tell you about their relationship with God and all they refer to is a time when they prayed a prayer, or walked down an aisle, or checked off a box on a card. That is not holding fast to your original confession and striving to enter God’s rest.

We see very clearly in Hebrews 3-4 that the reason people do not enter God’s eternal rest is because of unbelief and disobedience. The inverse implication from this is clear. Belief and true faith will produce obedience. You cannot have true belief and faith and not have obedience. They do not go together.

Therefore, as followers of Christ we must persevere to the end, obediently following after Jesus. Praise God that our perseverance is not all up to us. We have a great high priest who has been tempted in every way and understands our weakness, yet is without sin. He is our advocate and our righteousness. Apart from Jesus, you and I have nothing.

Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and strive to enter God’s rest. Run the race with endurance that is laid out before you. If you see others along the way that are struggling or wandering, pull them back on track and help them to run with you. After all, it is a matter of eternal significance for both you and them.

Resurgence Conference: Text and Context

2008-03-12T15:36:00.003-04:00

I was really bummed that I was not going to be able to go to the National Resurgence Conference, entitled Text and Context, this year in Seattle. However, thanks to the blogging world, I found out that they were going to be streaming the whole thing live on the internet for FREE.

I didn't get to catch all of the sessions, but did see several and it was amazing. The words from the men that spoke were challenging, convicting, and inspiring. I am extremely thankful for Resurgence making it available for free for guys like me. I am also thankful to God for guys like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, and CJ Mahaney and their desire to glorify God and help others do the same.

Resurgence is now posting all of the talks (both audio and video) for free online. I would encourage you to check them out, especially if you are in vocational ministry and do any kind of teaching or preaching. It will be well worth your time.

Text and Context Audio and Video (the talks are on several pages).

Theology and Jesus

2008-02-14T11:27:00.002-05:00

I was talking with my wife, Amy, the other day about theology in reference to the blog post I made last week. She mentioned that she had read my blog, but didn’t click on the link to read the longer post about Dispensational and Covenant Theology. I was giving her a hard time about it and then she said, “I like theology, but I like Jesus more.”

That stuck out to me-- “I like theology, but I like Jesus more.” I like that.

Now, I would be the first to tell you, as would my wife, that theology is important. Some in the Church today are almost anti-theology claiming that it divides churches, is nitpicky, and ultimately unimportant. I would argue that those that say that are either lazy, or do not understand the beauty of theology. Yes, many have used and continue to use theology as an aluminum baseball bat with which they beat people over the head that disagree with them. That is obviously not good.

However, I think it is important for us to pay attention to theology because it allows us to know God more and understand more of his revelation to us through Jesus Christ. After all, Paul told Timothy to pay attention to his teaching and doctrine and to teach truth in a perverse time (1 Tim 4:16; 2 Tim 4:1-5).

What I like about what Amy said is the priority of theology and Jesus. Theology is important, but Jesus is more important. We cannot get bogged down in non-essential* theological arguments (e.g.- charismatic gifts, eschatology, etc.) if it causes us to neglect Jesus in our life.

If we spend more time arguing about theological issues than we do on seeing and savoring Jesus Christ in our lives we are on a slippery slope.

Paul said that he counts all things as loss compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus (Phil 3:8), that he preaches the gospel (1 Cor 1:17), and that he knows nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2).

It is all about Jesus for Paul, and should be all about Jesus for us. Jesus is the foundation of our theology. So next time you are arguing about when and how the world will end ask yourself, “Am I more concerned about this, or about knowing Jesus and becoming more like him?” I hope it is the latter.

Theology is good, but Jesus is better.

___________________________________________________
* There are essential doctrines and non-essential doctrines. Essential doctrines are foundational tenants of the Christian faith, core elements of the gospel, which validate and verify orthodoxy and sound theology. Non-essential doctrines are things that do not make a person a true believer, but are theological issues that true followers of Jesus can disagree on without compromising the gospel.

Theological Musings

2008-02-06T10:16:00.000-05:00

A friend/acquaintance of mine wrote a blog recently on the differences between two major theological camps--dispensationalism and covenant theology. While this discussion can be rather long, intense, and often times convoluted, I think Reid did a great job of giving us a clear and succinct view from a high level.

Theology is something that I think we should all be students of as followers of Christ. I believe that it is important to understand more of what God has given to us through his revelation. While those that fall into these two camps (and possibly four camps) disagree on many areas, they are all followers of Jesus. Their differences are non-essential for the most part, though there are "extremists" in both that can get a little wacky.

For myself, I am constantly trying to think and rethink about my theology, constantly evaluating it and refining it as I think we never arrive. According to Reid's blog, I would find myself in between Progressive Dispensationalism and New Covenant Theology. I don’t think that I fully fit neatly into any of them.

Anyway, check out Reid's blog and let me know what you think.

http://www.powerofchange.org/blog/2008/02/continuity_and_discontinuity.html

What is more tragic, our news or our priorities?

2008-01-23T16:36:00.000-05:00

Today something has caught my attention that greatly disturbs me. It is our news. For the majority of the day today on cnn.com and foxnews.com the top story of the day has been about Heath Ledger’s death. However, slowly moving down the page (in fact it is not even on the main foxnews.com page) is a story that, I would say, is of much greater importance and significance: 5 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Since 1998 the conflict in the Congo has resulted in the death of 5,000,000 people, most of which are under the age of 5 years. Not of all of these deaths were due to direct violence. In fact, most were due to preventable disease and malnutrition—all direct effects of the violent conflict.

In the Holocaust, it is estimated that over 6 million people were murdered by Nazi Germany in a span of less than 10 years. Why is it that we know much about that Holocaust, but little about this modern day holocaust in Africa?

I think a lot of it has to do with our news. Why do our news agencies find it more important to report about an actor who died (possibly of a drug overdose), yet in the last ten years we have heard little about the suffering and terror happening in Congo? I would guess that most Americans (including myself) had no idea how many people have died in the DRC. Is that due to our news controlling our knowledge or is it because the news agencies know what our priorities are?

Either way, I think it is a sad state of affairs to realize that we are more excited to find out that latest on Britney Spear’s custody battle or how Heath Ledger died than we are about men, women, and children being displaced from their homes, raped, murdered, and dying from preventable diseases.

I don’t really know what else to say, except that I am ashamed, heartbroken, and saddened by our priorities as a country.

As followers of Christ, we need to be leading the charge of bringing to light the dark places of this world. People need to know. We need to move to action. I don’t know how, but we need to move. We need to pray for the nations, pray for the gospel to spread, pray for lives to be changed, pray for evil to be thwarted.

Don’t be someone that perpetuates the tragedy. I hope and pray that I am not.

Why the Church doesn’t preach about sin…

2008-01-16T13:05:00.000-05:00

In my small group we are currently reading and studying through John Owen’s The Mortification of Sin. I have referred to this in a previous blog (I want to be a murderer…). First off, I think that everyone who is serious about their relationship with God, who claims to be a true follower of Jesus, should read this book. It is intensely impactful, challenging, and applicable to our everyday lives (because who doesn’t battle sin on a daily basis?).

Anyhow, last night in our discussion someone made the observation that it doesn’t seem like the Church preaches about sin very often. Why is that? I am not just talking about theologically liberal churches, but even at conservative evangelical churches sin if often not discussed or taught on from the pulpit. We talked about this for awhile. I want to share some conclusions here.

Conclusion #1: Many churches do not preach about sin because sin is a very unpopular topic. If you want people to keep coming back each week then you can’t make them feel, as Owen states, like wretched and vile people. But is that really true? Will people really not come back if you address the reality of their depravity? I think if the message is communicated poorly they may not return, but that could be true of any message.

Conclusion #2: Many churches do not preach about sin because grace is so much more important to focus on. Again, not sure if that is true. Grace is important to focus on, but does that lessen the importance of discussing our sin nature? I would argue that if you do not address sin in the body then you will not appreciate or be thankful for grace as you should because you don’t even recognize or acknowledge why you need grace in the first place.

Many preachers, when they do talk about sin, only refer to the fact that we are freed from it and we need to realize that it is nailed to the cross. Our sins, past, present, and future, have been paid for, therefore, we need to live in grace. While that is true, I think there is more that should be said. I think people can hear a talk like that and feel justified in their sinning, because grace abounds. But, as Owen says, “God will justify us from our sins, but He will not justify the least sin in us.” Therefore, we need to challenge people to examine themselves and their motivations. We need to challenge people to abhor their sin and hate it with a violent hate. In order to receive the peace of God and truly experience his ongoing grace, we must utterly detest our sin. It is only when we have this attitude against sin that grace will be so sweet and we can have true peace.

Conclusion #3: Sin is not preached about because we have lessened the seriousness of it with bad theology. I honestly think that sometimes as believers we think sin has become less serious because of the cross. That when Jesus died as our propitiation sin all of the sudden lost its weightiness. That is absolutely not true and biblically inaccurate. Sin has always been and always will be gravely serious. The cross did not make sin less serious, it is the triumph over its seriousness. The wages of sin are still death. That doesn’t sound light and airy to me.

I plead with pastors, small group leaders, and biblical teachers to tell your people about the seriousness of sin. Don’t allow them to think that it is no longer a weighty topic to be discussed. Some of your people may not even be true followers of Christ, but they are never confronted with the reality of their disobedience, and therefore are still destined to perish. Don’t allow that to happen.

Preaching about the seriousness of sin allows you to preach more effectively about the gloriousness of the gospel and God’s unfathomable grace, and in turn the glory of God!

MAN UP!

2007-12-12T13:19:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday I got to be a part of something extraordinary. Several staff guys and volunteers had been talking about praying about this event for a long time, but it had finally arrived. The event was MAN UP. Our desire was to gather the men of Frontline (our young adult ministry) together to challenge, encourage, and speak truth to in regard to being the men that God has called all of us to be.

We promoted this to the guys at Frontline for a few weeks prior. We had been praying that at least 300 guys would show up, which was a lot considering that Frontline has never done anything like this before for guys. God was faithful and we had around 330 men attend the event! It was unbelievable and the energy in the room was great.

We got to play some screamo music as guys walked in (it is great when you are in charge of the event) and started the night off with a short intro and then an arm-wrestling competition. But then we jumped right in to some intense stuff.

The main focus on the evening was that as men we need to MAN UP and be who God has called us to be. We boiled that down to say that he has called us to be like Jesus. As men we need to be defined by Christ so that when people look at us they see Jesus.

We then talked about how to get there. Breaking it down into two things: discipline and accountability. We drove home hard the fact that following Jesus is not microwave spirituality. It requires effort on our part and we need to get off our rears and make it happen through God’s grace and power. As I mentioned in a previous blog (The Jesus Life series), we need to practice and exercise ourselves in godly discipline just like we would do if we were training to be a professional athlete.

Our focus on accountability was not your typical, “you need an accountability partner”. It was more focused on our need to be in relationship with other men that will speak truth in our lives and help us to become more like Christ by asking hard, direct questions and pushing us on in the race we are running.

The end up the night was the pinnacle of the evening in that we called guys to reflect, pray, and think about what they had learned and been challenged by and then to right that down on a small card. We wanted them to make commitments or offer up prayers to God about becoming more like Jesus in their lives. We then had the guys come up and staple-gun the cards to a large board as symbol of what we are asking God to do. 95% of the guys got up and made such a commitment. To read some of what was written was unreal and truly awesome. Below are a few:

* Lord, I am ready to become the man you made/designed me to be. I am ready for your yoke.
* Father, I have willingly and purposefully turned away from you, your teaching, and your examples. Today I am taking one big step toward you. I am going to practice daily the disciplines you teach. I am going to sharpen the weapons for battle and strictly train to become the man you intend me to be. I will develop accountability to conquer the sin that has taken hold of my life. Through you strength I will be victorious. I love you Lord.
* To invest my time to be the man God called me to be through spiritual discipline and motivating other men to MAN UP!

We are in a desperate time in our world and in our church. As men we need to MAN UP for Jesus and be who we have been called to be. My prayer now is that the 300 men that attended this event on Sunday will strive to become more like Jesus and that the Holy Spirit will continue to do a mighty work for God’s glory and fame in the world! Pray with me not only for yourself or the men that you know, but for the body of Christ around the world. Let’s pray for radical change and, in turn, radical obedience!

To God be the glory!!

490 Years Ago

2007-10-31T13:33:00.000-04:00

On this day, October 31, 490 years ago a young German man nailed 95 Theses to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. This was the spark of what is now referred to as the Reformation and this man was Martin Luther. I think it is important to remember today and celebrate a few important things.

First, we should celebrate the fact that we have a great God and a great Savior who has rescued us to himself through the blood of Jesus Christ in spite of our wretchedness and rebellion. Second, we should celebrate that the Church (universal) is Jesus’ Church that he built on the truth of the gospel, not on man (Matthew 16:13-19). In this same vein we should celebrate God’s grace in the fact that the Church still exists today and resembles Jesus’ original intentions. Third, we should celebrate that it is possible for orthodoxy and truth to prevail over tyranny and false doctrine. This was true 490 years ago and it is true today. This leads me to the main point of this post.

I think we are at another crucial time in the history of the Church. I think that we are in need of another great Reformation, specifically in the Western Church. Interestingly, I believe that the Western Church today has striking similarities to the Catholic Church in 1517.

In 1517 the common man did not have access to the Scriptures, but was taught from the priests what he should do in life. This is how people were duped in to thinking they needed to buy indulgences to receive forgiveness and to spring people out of purgatory. Today many pastors teach pop-culture, psychobabble type messages that are loosely based on Scripture, often times proof texting their way through a sermon series instead of getting into the Word and digging deep. At the same time they are not encouraging their congregations to get into the Word personally and to dig deep and mine the truths of Scripture for themselves.

In 1517 the Catholic Church was focused on power and prestige, elevating leaders and being more focused on politics and institutions than the gospel. Today, many Christians are too entwined with politics, focusing on legislating morality instead of sharing the gospel and allowing God to transform peoples’ lives. Many today elevate Church leaders based off of trendy books written by the pastor or the size of the congregation instead of looking at the purity of the messages being taught and the character and lifestyle of the person teaching them.

I could go on.

We are in need of a new Reformation. We need new, passionate leaders in the Church who are not jaded by power and religion, but are so moved by the Spirit of God and so satisfied with the glory of God that they humbly point people to Jesus, not themselves or their church. As the Church we need to be teaching people what it means and what it looks like to become more like Jesus. We need to create true followers of Christ.

The Western Church needs change. The Western Church needs people to step up and lead with pure, gospel centered doctrine, advancing the Kingdom of God not consumerism Christianity.

Are you going to go with the flow or are you going to ask God to use you to be a new Reformer? I hope it is the latter. That is my prayer for my generation today.

To God be the Glory. Let’s drive a stake in the ground!

Struggling with Sovereignty

2007-10-19T11:41:00.000-04:00

There are several men that have challenged me immensely through their writings and ministry, namely, A.W. Tozer, Dallas Willard, and John Piper. One of the things that I appreciate about them and their writing is the fact that it pushes me not to put God in a box, but to allow God to blow my mind with how unimaginable and huge he truly is. A consistent and common theme, whether stated or not, throughout their writings is the sovereignty of God.

What exactly does that mean? Simply put, it means that God is in control of and overseeing the orchestration of all things. He has foreknowledge and is outside the bounds of time. He ordains and sustains all things. I am so thankful that my God is sovereign because it allows me to trust in him and what he is doing in this world and in my life, even when I don’t understand it all. Recently, though, I have struggled with the sovereignty of God in my life.

I came to realize about two weeks ago that I like the fact that God is sovereign when his sovereignty matches up with my plans. However, when his sovereignty does not match up with my plans my lack of faith is extremely evident.

I have been struggling with some different circumstances and events that have occurred in my life, things that involve my future in ministry and my family. Without going into detail, things haven’t worked out the way that I would have wanted or hoped.

I have found myself questioning and confused about what God is doing in my life. It has been difficult. When I pause, though, and listen God speaks a consistent message to me- TRUST IN ME. Why is that so hard for me to do!?

I think it has a lot to do with my pride. I want to be a co-planner with God and that is not how God often works because, if I am honest, I would jack my life up a lot if the plans were all in my hands. I can vouch for that from firsthand experience.

Through some reading and studying I have discovered that one of my greatest sin areas is impatience and not believing that, in God’s sovereignty, he has the best in mind for me and for his glory. What I have to remember and consistently pray is that God would help me to believe in his promises and his faithfulness even with the future is unclear. Scripture is full of God’s faithfulness, but is often coupled with waiting and patience.

I also remembered that patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It is something that I need to seek empowerment from the Holy Spirit on in order to have it in my life. I can only do this by walking by the Spirit and fighting against unbelief and sin in my life.

So this is where I am. I am struggling with God’s sovereignty right now because I am unsure of where he is taking me and what he is doing in my life. But I am thankful for his Word and for godly men who can help me to see the big picture and to TRUST.

His sovereignty is perfect even if it doesn’t match up with my plans. Praise God for that!

Being Dudes for God

2007-10-03T13:30:00.000-04:00

This past weekend the ministry I work for had a Fall Retreat. On Saturday morning we broke up into a man session and a woman session. We had about 220 guys present to talk about issues regarding male leadership and other sundry topics. Below is a little write up I did for our Frontline community staff blog. Just wanted to share it here too...

My favorite part about the Fall Retreat this year was the Saturday morning time with the men of Frontline. As a few of the FL pastors sat around to talk about what that time would look like we really wanted it to be a dialogue and a place for guys to be able to talk and share what is going on in their hearts and minds in regards to being a man at FL.

It was awesome to see hands shoot up all over the room with penetrating and revealing comments. Guys said challenging things, thought provoking things, and encouraging things. The biggest challenge for the men of Frontline is this—taking action based off of the challenges that were expressed during that time.

Take action on striving for holiness and purity in your life. Take action on stepping up to leadership and pouring out. Take action on keeping Christ and Christ-likeness the number one priority in your life. Remember, bodily discipline is beneficial, but godly discipline is eternally beneficial (1 Tim 4:8).

I want us to step up as men for Christ. As I said during our time, we don’t have to be meek, nice guys to be godly. We need to be passionate, Christ-centered dudes that get what it means to sacrifice, suffer, and fight for the gospel in our workplaces, homes, neighborhoods, nation, and world. Jesus doesn’t have to be your boyfriend. Jesus is our King and he is worthy to be praised and worthy to be followed.

Don’t be a pansy. Flip the switch and man-up. Follow after Christ like your life and this world depended on it…because it does.

I want to be a murderer...

2007-09-12T13:19:00.000-04:00

I want to be a murderer. Not of people. I want to be a murderer of sin. John Piper says that if we think the Christian faith is not violent we are mistaken. It is very violent, not towards people or creation, but towards sin and sin alone. I recently read John Owen’s book The Mortification of Sin. Published originally in the mid 17th century, Owen’s words are just as challenging today as ever before.

The main text for the book is Romans 8:13- “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Owen compellingly challenges his readers to be mortifiers (murderers) of sin. His reasoning for this is as follows: Always be killing sin or it will be killing you. We must be on the offensive constantly in order to not allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies.

I am actually re-reading the book now with my small group. Our discussions have been great so far. Just this past week we talked about Chapter 2 and I wanted to share some of the challenges with you. One of the most challenging statements that Owen makes in this chapter deals with so-called believers that do not seek to kill or mortify sin in their lives. I wanted to post this to challenge us to think about if we are merely professors of faith or people that are so filled with the Holy Spirit that we are truly being changed by the grace of God and are seeking to kill sin in our lives.

“Before proceeding, I cannot but note that even though there is in this generation a growing number of professors, a great noise of religion, religious duties in every corner, and preaching in abundance, there is little evidence of the fruit of true mortification. Perhaps we might find that, judging by the principle of mortification, the number of true believers is not as multiplied as it appears from those who have made a mere profession. Some speak and profess a spirituality that far exceeds the former days, but their lives give evidence of a miserable unmortified heart. If vain spending of time, idleness, envy, strife, variance, emulations, wrath, pride, worldliness, selfishness, are the mark of Christians, we have them among us in abundance.”

While Owen’s words are intense, I think that they should give us all pause about the state of our spiritual lives and our ever present need to be murderers of sin. I know his words have certainly done that in my life.

John Piper on Building the Church

2007-08-15T14:15:00.000-04:00

DesiringGod.org posted a video from John Piper that was shown at a conference recently. Piper deals with Jesus' words: "I will build my church." It is an awesome video, especially the end. Whether you are planting a church, pastoring a church, or just a part of the church you should check it out.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/2310/Video/

A Divided Jesus: Part 2

2007-08-07T10:00:00.000-04:00

It is clear from Scripture that Jesus is both Lord and Christ. He has been given authority over all creation, including the church, by God (Acts 2:36). We do not grant Jesus Lordship, he already is Lord. The misconception and the shying away from teaching about this in the church today is probably due to the fact that we don’t understand that wrapped in the gospel is the truth that Jesus’ Lordship is an attribute he has held from everlasting to everlasting. He did not graduate to being Lord, and certainly did not attain this title for his divine business card from men.

As I mentioned in Part 1, I believe that part of the reason that the universal church does not teach about the necessity of Lordship, and consequently create a divided Jesus, is a result of feeling that a call to radical obedience will turn many away from accepting the gospel and the sacrifice of Christ and also keep the congregation from growing numerically.

The irony in this is that in not preaching about the Lordship of Jesus we do more damage than help for people. We could possibly even go as far as saying that if we as the church only communicate the saving work of Christ on the cross, but do not tell people about the life of obedience that God has called us to once we are regenerate that we are fraudulent and dishonest, selling something without giving the whole story. We do a little bait-and-switch on people when we share the gospel, not informing them that not only is Jesus our Great Savior, but he is also our Great Lord to whom we must give control of our entire lives. How much healthier would the church be if people knew from the outset that obedience and following Jesus as Lord was the plan from the start?

Dallas Willard calls the preaching of a divided Jesus “the Great Omission”. He is referring to the fact that the Great Commission contained in Matthew 28:19-20 calls us to make disciples of all the world and to teach them to obey all that has been commanded by Jesus. When we only preach Jesus as Savior and not Lord we commit a great omission and only do half of what was commanded, telling only half of the story.

Let me also say that obedience and submitting to the Lordship of Jesus are not easy. We have a raging and ravenous sin nature that wants nothing more than to knock us off track and to make you Lord of your life instead of Christ. However, that does not give us the right to postpone or negate his Lordship in our lives. Remember, Jesus is already Lord—God granted him this authority. Our role is to step off the thrown of our lives and allow Jesus to take his rightful place there.

Let’s look at a few places in Scripture to point out our call to radical obedience:

Matthew 16:24-27- Jesus calls us to follow after him and deny ourselves, allowing him to lead our lives.
Matthew 23:25-28- Jesus calls the Pharisees whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones, because they have a nice outward appearance, but in their hearts they are not obedient and do not follow God.
Luke 6:46-49- Jesus questions why people call him ‘Lord’, but do not obey. He says those that listen and follow build on a strong foundation that will endure, but that those that don’t will be in ruin.
John 14:15- Jesus says that our love for him is evident if we keep his commands.
John 15:1-11- Jesus calls us to abide in him, allowing him to lead us, so that we might bear fruit and prove to be true disciples.
Romans 6- We are no longer slaves to sin, but now slaves to righteousness and must live as slaves to God.

When we do not allow Jesus to be Lord of our lives and live with a divided Jesus mentality we are usurping God’s authority through Christ in our lives and that is sin.

In order for us to be obedient and allow Jesus to be Lord, we need to know what he has called us to. We need to walk as Jesus walks, lives as Jesus lives, speak as Jesus speaks. We need to hate the things he hates and love the things he loves. We need to daily strive for holiness as he is holy and kill sin in our lives. He has called us to follow him now. We need to take him up on that and seek to be true followers and disciples—learning to be like our great Lord and in turn glorify God in obedience.

Obedience is difficult, but let us remember the words of our Great Lord: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30.

Let Jesus be Lord of your life and take his rightful place on the throne of your life, for there is no other way—this is the real and undivided Jesus.

A Divided Jesus: Part 1

2007-07-24T11:16:00.000-04:00

There is a big problem in the church today. Some might call it a monumental or foundational problem. The problem, in a nutshell, is this: we have created a divided Jesus. We have taught our people incorrectly about who Jesus is and what our relationship with him really looks like. We have told them only half of the story, only 50% of what the Christian faith is really about.

First off, let me say that when I refer to the church I am not singling out or referring to a specific local gathering, but instead to the universal, global church. The one, holistic body of Christ.

How have we divided Jesus? We have made him Savior and Lord. The division in and of itself is correct. However, the issue arises in the fact that we make the divisions mutually exclusive and, consequently, optional.

To really understand the gravity of the issue we are dealing with we must first understand what these roles that Jesus holds really are. Here is an easy definition:

Savior = Christ, Messiah, Redeemer
Lord = CEO, King

When we refer to Jesus as Christ or Savior we are referring to one thing. When we refer to him as Lord we are talking about another role that he fulfills in our lives. It is not really accurate to use the terms Christ and Lord interchangeably because they mean two different things.

Some of you may be thinking, “Yeah, and?” It is great if you see and understand the difference. However, as I mentioned before, that is accurate and correct. The problem comes in the fact that we divide these roles out and see them as disconnected from each other. It is as if Jesus sometimes wears the Savior hat and at other times, if we allow him, he wears the Lord hat, but we get to choose which one we want him to wear in our lives.

Let me scandalize you for a second and make the following statement: Jesus must be both Savior and Lord in order to have a relationship with him.

(Some of you are thinking I am going to start preaching Lordship salvation. To read more on this check out the following article- So-called Lordship Salvation.)

The reason that the statement above can be scandalous to some is because in our churches we have taught, intentionally or otherwise, that someone can accept Jesus as their Savior, but that making him Lord of our lives is entirely optional if not all together unnecessary. A.W. Tozer calls this a heresy:

“I must be frank in my feeling that a notable heresy has come into being throughout our evangelical Christian circles—the widely accepted concept that we humans can choose to accept Christ only because we need Him as Savior and we have the right to postpone our obedience to Him as Lord as long as we want to!”

Scripture would tell us otherwise. God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). He is the head over all and subjects everything unto himself (Ephesians 1:22-23; Colossians 1:15-18).

The fact of the matter is that nowhere in Scripture do we see a divided Christ. Nowhere do we see the option to accept Jesus as our Savior, but to not accept him as our Lord and King. It is even wrapped up in our salvation:

If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

We must confess Jesus as both Lord and Savior simply because that is who he is. We do not don Jesus with the title of Lord. God the Father has given Jesus that authority from the beginning. If we try and slice and dice we get half of Jesus and who wants that? Jesus is always Lord and Savior.

If you have been taught, or have taught someone else, that all you need to do is accept Jesus’ sacrifice for you on the cross and stop there you have been taught a lie. Scripture calls us to obedience and when we deny Jesus as our Lord we deny our willingness to be obedient- the essence of sin and why we need a Savior in the first place.

I think the main reason that we have been taught about a divided Jesus is because obedience and yielding authority to another is not easy to swallow for many. Some might not believe on Jesus if they have to give him authority so we just omit that part.

We will talk about that more next time, but think of what I have said so far. Think about what you have been taught or what you have taught others and comment away.

Mark Driscoll on Culture and Being Missional

2007-06-14T11:37:00.000-04:00

Here are some videos that Mark Driscoll did at the Desiring God Conference in 2006. They both talk about how we relate to culture in an effort to bring the truth of the gospel, in its fullness, to people who are separated from God.

These are to add on to my posts about our mandate to be missional. Check them out and comment away!

The Need for Cultural Immersion

Biblical Principles and Cultural Methods

Must we be missional? Part 2

2007-06-05T15:16:00.000-04:00

So last time we talked about what it means to be missional. It is the idea of living with a missionary mindset and being a missionary within our current culture. After discussing what it is and looking at Hudson Taylor as an example of being missional we were left with a challenge. Many pastors, ministers, and believers today question the idea of being a missionary within culture because of the sinfulness of culture and people involved in culture. “It just doesn’t look good.” “We don’t want people to get the wrong idea about Christianity.” Sadly, things like this are said often within the church. So we are left with the question must we be missional? Is it essential or not? Well, instead of basing our convictions off of traditions or new ideas let’s look at what we see in Scripture.

John 17- Jesus prays that his disciples be given strength and protection to remain in the world, but not be of the world. He recalls his charge to go out into the world.
Acts 17- Paul gives speaks to Greek philosophers at Mars Hill using Greek culture as the backdrop. He quotes a Greek poet, uses a Greek idol as a talking point, and even validates some beliefs as partially true.
1 Corinthians 9- Paul uses his Christian liberty to relate to others and “become all things to all men” in order to share the gospel with them. He gets involved in culture as necessary.
Specific Examples from Jesus- Jesus eats at Matthew’s house (Matt 9:9-13; Mark 2:14-17; Luke 5:27-32); Jesus teaches by the sea in parables to the common people (Matt 13); Jesus eats with Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10); Turning water into wine at a wedding feast (John 2:1-12); Speaking to a Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:7-45)
Jesus’ ministry model- Jesus preached in the synagogues, but also went out to be amongst the people and shared himself and the gospel with them. He immersed himself in the culture.

It seems that Scripture clearly shows us from Jesus to Paul that being missional was a part of sharing the gospel with a broken world in the first century. What is different about the first century and the twenty-first century that would cause us to think that we should not be missional? If anything, it seems that our culture would demand us to be more missional than ever before. Must we be missional? The answer is a resounding YES! It is imperative that as the body of Christ we must seek to be missional. As we seek to model our lives after Jesus and seek to make true disciples of Christ in this world who actually learn what it means to be a follower of Christ we must strive to be relevant to our surrounding culture, involved in culture, not removed and hiding. We need to do this just as Jesus and Paul modeled.

Things like removing your kids from public school and, therefore, removing them from a viable mission field, creating Christian myspace and facebook sites instead of engaging in the real thing, listening to “Christian” music exclusively, I could go on and on, are not being missional. I might even go as far to say that they are counter-missional. They do not promote the expansion of God’s kingdom, of more people being exposed to people who actually strive to live like Jesus. When those that don’t follower Christ want to know what it really means to know Jesus and live for him there are no authentic disciples around. Jesus called his disciples to be in the world, but not of the world.

Being missional does not mean that we become unidentifiable from those that don’t follow Christ. It means that we are involved in the world so that we are accessible to others and can display a Christ-like life and light to an otherwise dark and hell-bent society.

Evangelism should not be done in the pews and seats of our church buildings. That is not what the gathering of the saints is supposed to be about. The gospel must be integrated into real life and, like Jesus, brought to the people where they are. By being missional we do not sacrifice or water down the weight of the gospel. We bring it fully to those who truly need it and, as Mark Driscoll says, we contextualize it to the surrounding culture just like Hudson Taylor.

Better yet, as Jesus said: “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:12-13.

In other words, we must be missional or we become irrelevant and fail our God given, Jesus commanded mission.

Together let us be a body of believers, passionate followers of Christ, who truly seek to make an impact in our world with the gospel by going out and being involved in our culture. Let’s be missional together, for there is no other way.

Blood Diamond

2007-05-29T11:15:00.000-04:00

Okay, let me start off by saying that I know that the movie Blood Diamond came out back in December of 2006 in the theatres and it is now May of 2007. But here is the deal, I watch a lot of movies, but I usually watch them on DVD when I can see five a month for the price of one in the theatre. So that is why I write about Blood Diamond now, almost six months after it was released.

As my wife and I sat watching this movie, which takes place during the 1999 bloody civil war in Sierra Leone, we were again challenged by the blatant evil of this world. The war is ragging over control of diamond mines in Sierra Leone. The power hungry in this broken country realize the great power and wealth that is available to them by mining diamonds and selling them to the West- that is enough for a whole other blog or book. The term blood diamond, or conflict diamond, comes from the idea that the diamonds are obtained through violence and murder. Thankfully, the civil war ended in 2002.

The main point of this post is to draw attention to the atrocities of child soldiers around the world. The rebel armies portrayed in this movie use child soldiers. There are some 250,000 children forced into the ranks of rebel armies around the world as we speak. Throughout this movie you are confronted with the reality that kids, usually about twelve years old, are kidnapped and forced to do terrible and heinous things.

As I sat watching I kept thinking of the many children we interacted with in Africa. Some of which have seen the great atrocities of war and some that were child soldiers. They are so innocent, so joyful, so undeserving of such evil. It is absolutely terrible.

I write this today not to simply tug at your heart strings, but to challenge you into action. Right now there is a bill being introduced in Congress to stop US Aid to countries that allow child soldiers. There are currently about nine recognized countries that are targeted. We must be vocal about our feelings on child soldiers.

I want to encourage you to send a letter to your congressman/woman about the Child Solider Prevention Act. You can find the link below. The cool thing is that you just have to fill out some information and World Vision will send the letter for you, already pre-written. It takes about five minutes.

Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007 http://www.worldvision.org/worldvision/wvususfo.nsf/stable/globalissues_childprotection_conflict_bill?open&lid=bill&lpos=day:txt:bill

I also want to say that I think you should watch Blood Diamond. Whoa! Did I just recommend an R-rated movie as a pastor? Am I allowed to do that? Anyway, if you are touchy on things like this, I will warn you that there is a lot of violence and language, but it is necessary for the story.

Compassion without action is not compassion. Compassion necessitates action. Let’s be active!

Must we be missional? Part 1

2007-05-24T19:40:00.000-04:00

Recently, I have been reading, studying, talking and thinking about the idea of being a missional church. The question at hand is: must we be missional? However, before we ask that question we need to have a basic definition and understanding of what it means to be missional, so let’s start there.

Being missional (in a nutshell) is this: having a missionary mindset and being a missionary within the current culture in which we live. Being missional is the idea that we seek to integrate into culture in order to be used of God to proclaim the gospel so that people in our culture might be redeemed and restored to a right relationship with God. I bolded the word within above because I think this is where most of us get hung up in our ministries and evangelism. As believers in Christ, followers of Jesus, I don’t think that anyone would deny the fact that we must be mission minded. No one would debate the fact that our neighbors, friends, coworkers, families need to know Jesus and experience the true freedom available in him. However, when we say be a missionary within our culture people start freaking out. See, being a missionary within culture is about immersing your self into the surrounding culture, being a participant in culture.

Okay, before you close your web page because you think I am going to get all liberal on you, keep reading. Why is it that we freak out when we hear people say that we should be involved in our surrounding culture? I think the main reason is due to fear, because the enemy doesn’t want us to be missional, and because of ignorance. The interesting thing is that the idea of being missional is not new. To show you a relevant example of what it means to be missional let’s look at someone who got it- Hudson Taylor.

Hudson Taylor was a missionary pioneer to inland China in the 1800s. At the age of twenty-one he set sail from England to follow God’s call on his life to share the gospel with those that lived in China. Upon reaching China and working with other missionaries that were already there Hudson began having some ideas and thoughts about how to be a more effective minister of the gospel. He had become a student of his culture and thought that it might be more advantageous to advancing the gospel if he tried to blend into his surrounding culture more. Perhaps people would be more willing to speak with him and listen to him if he looked more like them. So what did Hudson Taylor do? He dyed his blonde hair black, shaved the front of his head, had a pony tail sewed on, wore traditional Chinese clothing, and ate traditional food. He had already learned the language and continued to refine his communicate skills. Hudson Taylor had basically made himself a Chinese man. He integrated himself into the culture for the sake of advancing the gospel in inland China. He became missional.

We can look at Hudson Taylor and commend him for taking such a bold approach and going to “extremes” to reach the Chinese people with the gospel. However, Hudson was heavily criticized by missionaries with “more experience” than he because his methods were crude, unconventional, and out of the box. Oh how things never change!

Today missional ministries and missional followers of Christ are heavily criticized by fellow ministers, pastors, believers, and others for being missionaries within their current cultures. They are criticized for what is deemed as crude methodologies, inappropriate evangelism, becoming worldly, I could go on and on. “You can’t be a faithful Christian and be involved in culture because our culture is sinful and of the devil.”

So we are left with a bit of a conundrum. Should we be missional? Must we be missional? Is it okay to be involved in culture and be a faithful follower of Christ? I will leave it at that for now and be posting again soon to continue the conversation.

Back from Africa: The Horror of Hate

2007-05-10T17:26:00.000-04:00

The effects of evil are horrendous.

Our time in Rwanda and Uganda was fantastic. We got to meet amazing people and see two amazingly beautiful countries. However, our time there also proved to be difficult.

After arriving in Kigali, Rwanda we went to one of the genocide memorials that were built to remember those that were killed in the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. It is estimated that almost 1 million people were killed in 100 days simply because of an intense hatred that had built up amongst two people groups.

At the particular memorial that we went to first the history of the tragedy is displayed inside. Outside there is a mass grave with 256,000 people buried beneath the concrete. It was really difficult to wrap the mind around. We then headed to one of the killing sites. A church on the outskirts of town where 5,000 people were slaughtered by neighbors and friends. As a way to remember those that were killed, the Tutsi people have left many of the bones of those that were murdered in the church. Again, walking amongst the dead and seeing such things is hard to internalize. It was odd for me to drive through Rwanda and see people walking by knowing that all were effected by, and possibly participated in, this atrocity.

In Uganda, we headed to Gulu, a city in Northern Uganda. For the last twenty years Northern Uganda has been ravished by a rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). In seeking to overthrow the Ugandan government the LRA has stooped to abducting young children from their homes and forcing them to fight in their rebel ranks. Many children would walk up to 12 miles into downtown Gulu in an effort to avoid abduction. Thankfully, in the last few months night commuting has ended and the LRA has been less active as they have fled to the DRC. However, in an effort to stop the rebel army the Ugandan government has forced people in Northern Uganda to live in Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps. These camps range from 13,000 people to 70,000 people. While the government used this as a means of protection, no infrastructure was put in place for people. No waste removal, food, clean water, housing, etc. were provided. This has resulted in unbelievable poverty, disease, and death.

We went to one IDP camp in Gulu called Koro-Abili. This is one of the smaller camps. It was unreal to walk amongst so many beautiful people who literally have nothing. Homes, which are no bigger than a walk in closet in some houses in America, are packed in tight next to one another. Whole families live in these homes. One thing that stood out to me was the joy, laughter, and smiles of the children that followed us around in throngs. Their faces will be forever seared into my mind.

The effects of evil are horrendous because children, families, husbands, wives, grandparents are left to clean up the aftermath of selfishness that is exacted in these episodes of intense hate. The challenging thing to me is that this has all happened in my lifetime and I hear very little about it. Our society is more interested in who will get Anna Nicole Smith’s baby than they are about the millions of people living in IDP camps and the genocide that is happening to fellow humans around the world. It is disgusting to me that we are so ignorant.

Right now there are over 2,000,000 people displaced in Sudan because there is a group of people attempting to commit genocide against non-Arab Sudanese people. It is estimated that at least 400,000 have already been killed. What is the world doing to respond? Not a whole lot. Check out www.savedarfur.org to learn more about how to help and what is going on.

So all in all, our time in Rwanda and Uganda was awesome, even seeing such tragedies, because it challenged me deeply. I still don’t know what the right response is, but I know that I am not going to be ignorant.

I also know that there is a desperate need for people to know the gospel. This is the way the culture will be changed and for such evils not to run rampant. I am not naïve enough to believe that we can eliminate all evil from earth during this age. The Scriptures do not point to that. I do know that people need freedom and forgiveness and love for one another. This can only come through the truth of the gospel penetrating hearts and changing lives.

I will end with this quote from Mark Driscoll: “our faith rests in Jesus alone, who redeems people and their cultures…we should focus our attention on the gospel because our ultimate hope rests in God, not in human governments, programs, or institutions.”

Back from Africa: Hanna's Orphanage

2007-04-27T15:32:00.000-04:00

You may or may not know that I recently went to Africa for two weeks. Specifically, I traveled to Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda. I have been thinking about writing a blog about my experiences there since I have returned. I have been back in the States now for about four weeks. So here I am, trying to relay my thoughts in a blog. I already feel that it will be utterly inadequate, but it is my main method of disseminating information so I am left with no other choice. So here goes.

In a nutshell, I went to Africa for two weeks with my wife and twelve other lovely people in conjunction with an organization called Visiting Orphans. Any ideas what we did? While our trip consisted of a lot of traveling we got to see some pretty amazing things and spend time with some pretty amazing people.

My plan is to write a few different blogs about some key experiences that I had and my thoughts from each. So here is my first…

Our week in Ethiopia was both joy filled and downright depressing. We spent a few days with kids at Hanna’s Orphanage in Addis Ababa. There are about 100 children living there. I loved being with them. I played a lot of soccer with kids who are far better than me (I blame my being out of breath on the altitude of 8,000 feet). We talked with one another, even through language barriers, and just spent time laughing, smiling, and loving one another. Really pretty amazing.

The thing that really struck me about my experience at Hanna’s was the fact that I left thinking that if these kids were to be adopted out to families in the West it would be more detrimental to them than staying in the orphanage would be. Why? Because they are a close knit family that cares for each other. They have food to eat, clothes to wear, places to sleep (to Western standards not enough of any of these things). Hanna makes sure they go to school. Some attend college. One has become a lawyer. They are taught about Jesus and know what it means to carry each others burdens. Yanking them out of that environment so that they can have a lot more useless junk and deal with broken families and spoiled siblings and classmates does not sound real appealing or beneficial.

Sure, if you asked any of those kids if they would like more clothes, new shoes, or a little more food, they would most likely say yes. But the key is that they are content without it. Content in their circumstances and still so full of life and so full of joy.

That was definitely a common theme in our travels. Joy in spite of circumstances. I believe the apostle Paul said something about that.

Oh, how we could all learn something from a few orphans in Africa.

As the Deer Pants...

2007-03-13T11:35:00.000-04:00

“As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.”
Psalm 42:1

The other day I was thinking about and meditating on a few Scriptures. One was Psalm 42:1 (written above). I have probably read this verse hundreds of times. It was in an old praise song from my college days. A small piece of Scripture that I was very familiar with due to mere exposure and familiarity. But on this day this verse really jumped out to me and challenged me.

As I sat reading it over and over again, the imagery really hit me. I could picture a deer that is so thirsty for water that it is panting as it hunts for even a few drops to quench its dry mouth. It is probably not an every day occurrence for any of us to see a deer panting for water. However, most of us have seen dogs pant for water. So let’s picture that instead. Their tongues hanging out, breathing heavy, running towards their water bowl after chasing someone or something in the yard. The only thing that dog (or in the verse a deer) wants is a drink of water. Something to cool it down, replenish its tired body.

The Psalmist says that just like a deer that is longing for a drink of water, his soul is longing for God. He is literally panting for more of God. He is seeking to be replenished by and filled up by God.

That blew me away.

It blew me away not because of its great imagery or poetic elements. Not because it is spiritually hardcore and mystic-like. It blew me away because, if I am honest with myself, I do not have that same kind of longing for God in my life. This is not a verse that I could use to describe my spiritual life most days.

So as I sat there thinking about this verse and its intensity I just began to pray that God would give me that kind of longing for him. I want to pant for God, thirst for him, desire him, and ultimately be satisfied by him.

As I continued to pray about this verse in relation to my life, I also began to think and pray that in my soul-level thirst for God I don’t want it to stop at mere longing. I want to be fully satiated by God and be able to taste and see that God is good (Psalm 34:8). I want to experience the presence of God in my life in a real way and drink deeply from the living water that he provides.

I think what it really comes down to for me, and what God has been teaching me recently, is that I need to find my full joy and satisfaction in God alone. I need to be so fully satisfied in him that I can look at everything else in this world and say, like Paul, that I count it as loss, as rubbish compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus (Philippians 3:7-8).

I want to be able to honestly look at my life and be able to say that Jesus is high and lifted up above all else. This will come from a sincere longing after God deep within my soul.
So how can my soul pant for God as the deer pants for water? I need to inundate my heart and mind with the word of God. The Psalmist says, “I opened my mouth wide and panted, for I longed for your commandments” (Psalm 119:131). He also says, “How sweet are your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth! From your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:103-104). The word of God is given to us as a gift so that we might grow in our knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10) and in turn be satisfied in him, for his word is truly sweeter than honey.

I also need to spend consistent and focused time in dialogue with God. I need to cry out to him to create a longing in my soul for him, because I cannot do this on my own. I need to pray that God would create this longing and that he would satisfy my soul.

This is both exciting and challenging for me. As John Piper says, it is both liberating and devastating. Liberating because of the great freedom it allows in our lives, and devastating because we often place other things higher in our lives than Jesus Christ.

I am excited to see where God takes me, and I hope that you will consider praying towards the same end in your life.

I was born OK the first time.

2007-02-02T23:17:00.000-05:00

This was on a bumper sticker that I have seen on several cars in the area. “I was born OK the first time.” Wow, that is a bold statement. As a side note- I think that bumper stickers are an interesting cultural phenomenon. They really are the epitome of passive-aggressiveness (or maybe that is what a blog is). I wonder how many people that have bumper stickers on their cars with bold statements like this one would really say those same things in a mixed setting conversation.

Anyway, back to the content of this particular sticker. To be honest, at first I thought it was a pretty clever sticker. But then as I thought about it more I was sad. Sad for those that feel strongly enough to let the whole world know that they see themselves as a person that was “born OK the first time.”

Why would you make such a statement? Is it because you are prideful enough to think that everything about you is good? Is it because you hold a deep resentment, disrespect, or disdain for evangelical Christians? Or is it because you have absolutely no idea what it really means to be born again?

Because I haven’t had a chance to ask anyone that has one of these stickers why he or she put it on their car, I will simply make my own attempt to answer the question of what it really means to be born again and why it is absolutely and unequivocally impossible to be “born OK the first time.”

One of the greatest texts explaining why we are not born OK the first time has to be Romans 1:18-3:23. I would encourage you to read this text if you are unfamiliar with it. From the first verse we see that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” So you might say “yeah, that is true, but I was born OK the first time. It is just these other people that weren’t.” Well you could say that, but then if you read on you will see that is impossible. Continuing on we see that all are without excuse (Rom 1:20; 2:1). We also see that all are accountable to God (Rom 3:19) and that every single person is under the curse of sin and has fallen far short of God’s glory (Rom 3:9-18; 3:23).

You see God is perfect and has called us to be perfect. He demands righteousness and holiness from us. But there is no way that we can achieve perfection on our own. We are utterly incapable. We are tainted by sin from our birth. We are rebels against God. No one comes into this world perfect. What is the result of this imperfection and great unrighteousness? Well, death (Rom 6:23). Because God is perfectly just, sin and disregard for the commands of God must be punished. So, to say that you are born OK the first time goes against everything that Scripture tells us. We are incapable of being perfect, holy, and righteous according to God’s standards so the result for everyone is the punishment of death. I don’t know about you, but I would not consider that OK.

But there is great news! We don’t have to remain on the path of death and God’s wrath, living in the reality of our “first” birth. But how? How can I get away from the death sentence I have had since birth? The answer lies in Scripture. As Denny Henderson once said, we should find so much joy in the words “But now”. Romans 3:21 says, “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,” then in v. 24, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” You see, we are all not born OK the first time, BUT NOW we have been given an opportunity to have that curse removed. The only way that we can be freed from the futility of sin and death is through the blood of Jesus Christ, through his death and resurrection. We must be BORN AGAIN in order for this to take place.

Jesus tells us in John 3:3, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He goes on to tell us that he must be lifted up, and that whoever believes in him will have eternal life (John 3:14-15). We must believe in Jesus and his finished work on the cross in order to have the curse of death removed from us. If we don’t believe in Jesus and allow him to bear the payment for our sin then God’s wrath remains on us (John 3:36).

This is why we are not born OK the first time and why we must be born again, every single one of us.

If you have already become a true follower of Christ and been born again, I would encourage you to really think about what that means and give God all of the praise and glory for rescuing you and redeeming you through the blood of Christ. If you have not been born again, think on these things and really decide if you were “born OK the first time.”

The Jesus Life- Part 3

2006-12-17T16:45:00.000-05:00

**NOTE: If you haven't yet read The Jesus Life, Part 1 & 2 I would encourage you to do that before you read this post.

We have seen that the life that Jesus is offering to us, the Jesus Life, is both real and amazing. We have new life in and through Christ and if we follow after Jesus we can take on his yoke which is both easy and light. The Jesus Life is the abundant life that God has called us to and desires to give to each and every person that is a true follower of Christ.

We have also seen that in order to live the Jesus Life, to experience all that it has to offer, we must put forth some effort on our part. It is not a one-way street where we just sit back and wait for God to change us and bless us. The Jesus Life is about following after Jesus. Taking real and active steps to be who he has called each of us to be and to model our lives after his life. It is only through this that we can experience the life that God has promised us here on earth.

The question now is, "how do I take on the yoke of Christ? How do I take those active steps in following him so that I can experience the Jesus Life for myself?" While I think there are a considerable amount of things that a disciple of Jesus can do to make progress in this area, I will touch on only a few for the sake of brevity.

KNOW- Due to our desire to be instantly gratified in our pursuits (a condition of Western society), when we are challenged to learn or increase in knowledge many of us want the Cliff's Notes version and want to skip ahead. I think of the scene in the Matrix where Trinity has the ability and knowledge to fly a helicopter uploaded into her brain. We wish we could do the same. Well, I'm sorry to say, that's not the way life works. One of the first things that I think each of us must do to take on the yoke of Jesus and to live the Jesus Life is to grow in our knowledge of what kind of life he has called us to.

This can only happen through studying and meditating on Scripture. As my buddy Rich Hurst says, "How can you ask what would Jesus do if you don't know what Jesus did?" We need to saturate ourselves with the words of Christ in Scripture. We need to know what Jesus was about, what he cared about, what got him fired up, what he was passionate about. This will come through spending serious time in the Word and allowing the Spirit of God to teach us. (side note: if you are not sure how to really study your Bible, I beg you to seek out some help doing this. You will not regret it.)

A great place to start would be to read the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7). You could also read the Book of John.

GUIDE- Next we need to seek out a guide for our journey. Great news! One has already been given to you. The Holy Spirit. Jesus says, "I will ask my Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever" (John 14:16). The Holy Spirit has been given to us to help us, to guide us, to come alongside us during our time here on earth. If we want to walk as Jesus walked we will need the help of the Spirit to guide us through this process. If we try and do it on our own we will not succeed. We need to daily seek the guidance and direction of the Spirit so that we can live the Jesus Life. The world is pulling us the other way. The Spirit will enable us to stay on the right path, narrow as it may be. This leads to the next step.

CONVERSE- We also must spend some serious and consistent time in prayer. We need to communicate with God and find out what it is that we need to work on. We should ask him if there are things in our lives that are inhibiting our ability to be more like Jesus. We should live life in conversation with God. This goes hand in hand with allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us. It is through prayer that we can communicate with God and seek the guidance of the Spirit. Prayer can also be a time where we allow God to speak to us. Remember, it is a conversation not a monologue performed by you.

Some of you may think that these are the things that you always hear you need to do. This might be true, but maybe the repetitiveness should be a hint that they are extremely important. My question to you is, are you doing them? Are these things a consistent part of your life?

DISCIPLINES- Lastly, and really in summary of the above mentioned principles, is the use of spiritual disciplines. This is a topic that could really take up another three blogs or more to really delve into. However, I will only give a brief description here. Disciplines are activities that you partake of in order to master something. As mentioned in the first two blogs, growing in your spiritual life requires training, discipline, and effort much like an athlete training for the big game. Study of the word and prayer are two spiritual disciplines. Others include fasting, solitude, silence, worship, fellowship, frugality, and service. As Dallas Willard points out, there is not an exhaustive list of disciplines. The important thing to see is that if used correctly they are all means to take on the yoke of Jesus and to learn to live more like Christ in the everyday. After all, Jesus practiced many of these disciplines himself. (For further information on spiritual disciplines you can check out The Spirit of the Disciplines, The Celebration of Discipline, and The Life You've Always Wanted).

The important thing to remember about any of the above listed activities is that none merit grace. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. You can't focus so much on the activities, but instead must fix your eyes and heart on knowing Jesus and striving to live more like him. It is only when you have this focus and enact these principles that you will truly live the Jesus Life.

This is God's desire for you. Take him up on it and go after it. You won't regret that you did.

The Jesus Life- Part 2

2006-11-09T16:42:00.000-05:00

**NOTE: If you haven't yet read The Jesus Life, Part 1 I would encourage you to do that before you read this post.

The Jesus Life is not a far off, abstract, nice in theory idea. It is a reality. It is possible. It is biblical. It is what Jesus has called every person that claims to be a follower of Christ to.

In order for us to move forward, we need to come to the understanding that our life here and now has a purpose and meaning. We are not simply waiting until we get to heaven and filling the time in between with insignificant activity. Throughout Scripture we see that when we have come to believe in and accept the truth of the gospel, that we are said to have new life (Rom 6:4; 2 Cor 5:17; John 3:3). Not life after death, not a ticket to heaven, we have a new life NOW.

Jesus himself says, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10b). In redeeming us, we are enabled to live the life that God intended for us to live now.

I think a lot of us (including myself) believe the lie that our life on earth is better than the life that God has to offer us. We misunderstand his call to follow Christ in true discipleship. We think that this is overly burdensome and unnecessary for the here and now, and altogether optional. We believe that life would easier if we just tried to do it a little on our own and little God's way.

That is a direct lie from Satan.

Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:29-30).

That doesn't sound like a burdensome and unnecessary way of life. That sounds like a good deal to me. "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." Rest, easy and light, those are good things, right?

The problem arises in what our view of easy and light are. Our society has programmed us to think that something is not beneficial or easy if it requires much effort on our part. We live in a streamlined, low-effort required, microwave society. When we dig deeper and see what the yoke of Jesus, the Jesus Life, is really about we all of the sudden realize that we can't just press a button and wait for results, we have to put forth some effort, and we run the other way and fall back into our old way of doing things.

What a tragedy. What a waste of a life. To not take Jesus up on his offer to give us an abundant life if we will only take on his EASY and LIGHT yoke.

"Thanks God, but I am just going to tuck my ticket to heaven in my back pocket and try to live in this hell-bent, God defying, evil, sinful, every man for himself, world on my own, not seeking out the power of the all-powerful, Creator of the Universe, who (by the way) removed all of my sin past, present, and future from me, because the Life that you called me to just looks too hard."

What the heck!?! Does anyone else see how ridiculous this sounds!?

So what does the Jesus Life look like? It looks like believing that the life we are being offered, this new life, is worthwhile. That it is all that Scripture claims it to be, and that it is infinitely better than the life that the world offers us.

The Jesus Life is wrapped up in the idea of making Jesus the focus of our lives and seeking to truly follow Him, taking on his yoke and allowing him to lead our lives. Relinquishing control and letting him be in charge.

For Part 3 we will talk about some practical ways to take on this yoke and live the Jesus Life in the everyday.

For now, I will leave you with this quote from Dallas Willard, "You might wish to think about what your life amounts to before you die, about what kind of person you are becoming, and about whether you really would be comfortable for eternity in the presence of One whose company you have not found especially desirable for the few hours and days of your earthly existence. And He is, after all, One who says to you now, 'Follow me!'"

The Jesus Life- Part 1

2006-10-19T17:38:00.000-04:00

I don't think that many Christians would deny the fact that it is good to be like Jesus. They wouldn't deny that we should work on being more like him and do what Jesus would do in a given situation. The problem arises with what Christians actually do about making this a reality. As followers of Christ we want to act as Jesus would in all situations in our lives, but sometimes it just doesnt work out that way. Why? Dallas Willard nails it in his book The Spirit of the Disciplines: "A baseball player who expects to excel in the game without adequate exercise of his body is no more ridiculous than the Christian who hopes to be able to act in the manner of Christ when put to the test without the appropriate exercise in godly living." You see, as believers we often want to act as Jesus would, but do not want to put forth the effort that it takes to get there. Why should we think that we can be like Jesus in life when we don't seek to live the kind of life that Jesus lived in the everyday? As Willard says, it is as ridiculous as a kid wanting to be a great baseball player like Cal Ripken, but never taking the necessary steps of rigorous practice and discipline that it takes to get there. The key to living the Jesus Life is really wrapped up in the idea of true discipleship.

What does this mean? What is true discipleship? True discipleship is seeking to live like Jesus in every aspect of our lives. We are called Christians, little Christs. How can we bear the name of Christ yet not seek to live a Christ-like life? But so many of us do.

This is something that fires me up. It is my holy discontent. When people claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but are fine with the status quo for their spiritual life. There is no desire or effort to rid themselves of sin and strive for holiness and Christ-likeness. The American church is plagued with this mentality. Mediocrity is preferred over sacrifice for the sake of comfort and ease. We are fine with justification, but want nothing to do with sanctification. It just takes too much work. I am not pointing the finger as if I have it down. I struggle with this in my own life. There are so many times that I fill my life with useless things, setting aside the pursuit of the Jesus Life. Yet this is not at all what Christ had in mind when he called us to himself.

Jesus said to his disciples, If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me (Matt 16:24). Jesus desires us to follow him. He calls us to follow him. Salvation is not just about life after death. It isn't just a ticket to heaven. Salvation is about living a Christ-like life now, striving for holiness for God's glory. Salvation requires something of us now. Don't misinterpret what I am saying here. I am not saying that you must do anything to be redeemed. We are justified by faith alone and not by works (Rom 3:28; 5:1). However, Jesus did not redeem us so that we would just sit around being satisfied with the pleasures of the world and not seeking to follow him. We are called to work out our salvation (Phil 2:13). This requires effort on our part. Being a Christian necessitates that we truly follow Christ, that we really become disciples of Christ, followers of Christ.

We cannot accept the sacrifice of the cross for payment of sin and then leave Jesus there so that we might pursue our own desires and passions. This was not part of the plan, yet so many of us live our lives this way. We sing, "thank you for the cross" but no thanks for the life of discipleship that you have called me to. I am fine the way that I am.

This is a journey that I am still on. This is a lesson that I am still learning, but I want to share it with you in hopes that you might join with me and see the Jesus Life for what it really is- the true life that he has called us to, and experience the joy that comes from it.

What does this really look like? I'll be back again with Part 2 soon.

Spirituality: Individualism or Community?

2006-09-21T17:31:00.000-04:00

Have you ever heard someone say, "I am a deeply spiritual person and have a close relationship with God, but I don't really go to church. I just kind of do my own thing."? For a lot of us we look at that statement and are excited that someone is pursuing God at all. But I want to challenge you on this premise: Is spirituality something to be experienced as an individual or in community? I think that our culture has tried to answer this question for us. Western culture is absolutely an individualistic culture. In fact, Westerners pride themselves on their individualism. I think that this is fairly obvious for you to see. (If not, then just turn on the TV or open a magazine and see what the ads are about.) As believers or followers of Christ we have grabbed a hold of our cultures push for individualism and have applied it to our spiritual lives. The problem is that I dont think this is at all what Jesus had in mind when he established his church. He did not create his church as an option for believers in case they got lonely being a follower of Christ. He didnt establish his church as a place for people who couldnt quite get it right on their own. He created the church as necessary for the spiritual life. It is an extension of Jesus, it is his body. As followers of Christ we are automatically placed into the body of Christ upon being regenerated and redeemed. There is no opt out program available to us. If you are a follower of Christ, then you are a part of the church. It is simple. Now you might say that you agree with this, but this body of Christ idea is speaking to the larger universal church in a philosophical way, and that when it comes to daily living you can do the alone thing and be just fine. In fact you would prefer it this way. People just make things messy. Yes, people do make things messy, but this does not give you a free pass to avoid them. Read 1 Corinthians 12. It is clear that as the body of Christ we need each other in a daily functional way. We cannot remove ourselves from the body of believers universally or locally. It would be like cutting off your arm and expecting your arm to continue living in the same way that it would if it were attached to your body. It is impossible. This is the way Jesus created his church, his body. This is what he wanted to happen. The gospel is to be lived out in community with one another each and every day.

Now let me circle back to that initial hypothetical question. Getting the fact that the spiritual life is not to be done alone conceptually is not the end. In fact, just going to church on a Sunday is not the end. You can still keep your spiritual life very isolated and individualistic and go to church ever single week for your whole life. There is nothing of community in the act of going and sitting in a seat and listening. When Christ designed his church to be community oriented he expected there to be willing interaction and dialogue. Look at Acts 2 when the church is started. The people see their need for one another and their need to be in relationship with one another. What happened when they did this? The Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. It wasnt because they were weak. It was because they got it and God blessed them through this. They understood that Jesus created the church to exist in strong community with one another. He wanted them to do spirituality in the context of relationships, not as individuals. Interestingly, Jewish tradition during Jesus time saw the value of spirituality being a community experience. When the Scriptures were studied they were studied in community. Men and women dialoguing with one another to come to a deeper understanding of Gods word. This brings me to the practical point.

If we truly want to grow in our knowledge of the Lord and become the followers of Christ that he desire us to be, we need to be able to dialogue with one another about spiritual things. We should be engaging in spiritual conversations about Scripture and what we are learning of God. It is through this dialogue that we will come to a deeper understanding of the will of God and live as he desires us to live. Try it. Try studying the Bible on your own and then try studying it with a group of people and see where you learn the most. You will learn as you study on your own, but you will learn even more when you take what you have learned and engage with others.

Spiritual individualism is a manifestation of pride. Spirituality done in community is the way Jesus wants it.

If I were you, I would go with Jesus' way.