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Short Term Mission Trips…

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Over at Desiring God, Bill Walsh, who helps oversee International Outreach, has been doing a series of posts all week on short term mission trips. Very good stuff to consider if you have something planned this summer or are wondering about the long term vision of these short trips…

Rethinking Short Term Missions (Day 1)
Effect of Short Term Missions on Poverty (Day 2)
Our Needs & Their Needs (Day 3)
Teaching as a Short Term Missions Strategy (Day 4)
Doing Missions As Servants (Day 5)

Gospel-Centered?

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C.J. quotes Spurgeon, who said this…

“Dear friends I am going to preach to you again upon the cornerstone of the gospel. How many times will this make, I wonder? The doctrine of Christ crucified is always with me. As the Romans sentinel in Pompeii stood to his post even when the city was destroyed, so do I…every thing else can wait, but this one truth must be proclaimed with a voice of thunder. Others may preach as they will but as for this pulpit it shall always resound with the substitutions of the Christ…Our blessed Savior would have us hold his death in great reverence; it is to be our chief memory we cannot think of that death too often.”

This is where we are headed again this weekend. We will be exploring the themes of the Gospel in Jesus’ Roman trial. I think Spurgeon is onto something here: our Savior would have us hold His death in great reverence and we can never exhaust the thought that we could give towards it. Therefore join me this Sunday as we come to awe and wonder again at the incredible Gospel of Jesus Christ. Prepare your heart as we enjoy the Lord’s Supper as well.

A confession of deeply felt reality…

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Reading through Herman Bavinck’s Reasonable Faith, I came across the following quote, which helped me realize something about doctrine. Here’s the quote:

This declaration of faith on the part of the church is not a scientific doctrine, nor a form of unity that is being repeated, but is rather a confession of a deeply felt reality, and of a conviction of reality that has come up out of the experiences of life. The prophets and the apostles, and the saints generally who appear before us in the Old and New Testament and later in the church of Christ, did not sit and philosophize about God in abstract concepts, but rather confessed what God meant to them and what they owed to Him in all circumstances of life. God was for them not at all a cold concept, which they then proceeded rationally to analyze, but He was a living, personal force, a reality infinitely more real that the world around them. Indeed, he was to them the one, eternal, worshipful Being. They reckoned with their lives, they lived in His tent, walked as if always before His face, served Him in His courts, and worshipped Him in His sanctuary. (p.25)

Too many theological discussions today forget that we are dealing with a real Being. We must reckon ourselves accordingly to God Himself. It is easy to treat God, as Bavinck says, as a cold concept to analyze rather than a living personal force, a reality more real that the world around us. Amazing! Hope you are encouraged today to draw near to this real One.

New Hillsong United…

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Some of my favorite Christian music is produced by Hillsong United. I love the way they combine subjective expression with truth and longing to glorify God. Their music is typically energetic, passionate and leads me to glorify God. Therefore, when I heard their new album, A_Cross // The_Earth: Tear Down The Walls, was released today in the US (they are based in Australia), I was (to use an 80’s phrase) stoked. Here’s a link to the album in Amazon, which allows you to listen to many fo the tracks. Enjoy.

Longing for Jesus’ Reign…

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I feel like Spurgeon, who in this letter to his father from September 19, 1850 said:

Yes, where Jesus comes, He comes to reign: how I wish He would reign more in my heart; then I might hope that every atom of self, self-confidence, and self-righteousness, would be quite swept out of my soul. I am sure I long for the time when all evil affections, corrupt desires, and rebellious, doubting thoughts shall be overcome, and completely crushed beneath the Prince’s feet, and my whole soul be made pure and holy. But so long as I am engaged within this house of clay, I know they will lurk about, and I must have hard fighting through the victory by grace is sure. Praying is the best fighting; nothing else will keep them down.
– Spurgeon’s Autobiography (Volume 1, p.189)

I read this and felt like it was another restatement of what we looked at this morning and thought you might enjoy it.

Put It To Death!

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Today’s sermon is now online. In it, we look at Peter’s denial from Mark 14:66-72. Gotten some good feedback and how this made our battle with sin and temptation come alive, so thanks for that. Some might wonder about that quote from Sinclair Ferguson on killing sin I alluded to in discussing the way sin seeks to master us from Genesis 4:6-7. You can find the quote here. Hope you have a good week fighting sin and temptation to the glory of God.

Assessing Reality…

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In my sermon intro this Sunday, I will be quoting a blog post by Paul Tripp (which ended up in his book Whiter Than Snow). Here’s how it begins…

Sin lives in a costume, that’s why it’s so hard to recognize. The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that make it so bad. In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil. Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party. Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth. Prevented lust masquerades as a love for beauty. Gossip does its evil work by living in the costume of concern and prayer. Craving for power and control wears the mask of biblical leadership. Fear of man gets dressed up as a servant heart. The pride of always being right masquerades as a love for biblical wisdom. Evil simply doesn’t present itself as evil, that is part of its draw.

You’ll never understand sin’s slight of hand until you acknowledge that the DNA of sin is deception. Now what this means personally is that as sinners we are all very committed and gifted self-swindlers. I say all the time to people that no one is more influential in their own lives than they are because no one talks to themselves more than they do. We’re all too skilled at looking at our own wrong and seeing good. We’re all much better at seeing the sin, weakness, and failure of others than we are our own. We’re all very good at being intolerant of others of the very things that we willingly tolerate in ourselves. The bottom line is that sin causes us to not hear or see ourselves with accuracy. And we not only tend to be blind, but to compound matters, we tend to be blind to our blindness. (also found on p.32 of the book)

As we look at Peter’s Denial this Sunday, it would be easy for us to take a posture of exaltation as we look at the sin found in that story, but I hope this weekend that God can expose us for who we are and we can make headway in aggressively putting sin to death and putting on holiness. Hope to see you there.

Garland on the Rooster’s Crow…

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I really find David Garland’s commentary on Mark helpful. This week, we are looking at Mark 14:66-72 and Peter’s denial. He draws insightful attention to the rebuke that the proudest animal on the farm gave the proudest of the disciples. He writes:

“It is ironic that a rooster, renowned for its foolish pride, reminds Peter of Jesus’ prediction that he would deny him three times (Mark 14:30). The king of the chicken coop rules the roost and struts around, thinking he is king of the world. The rooster fits perfectly Peter’s cocky boastfulness in Mark 14:29, but it is the crowing of the rooster that snaps him to awareness of what he has just done.” (p.567-568)

Garland goes on to show how this is a common Biblical theme, that is, of “so-called lower creation” rebuking human beings (see Balaam’s ass and Jonah’s worm). Is creation rebuking you?