The highest of all missionary motives

“If God desires every knee to bow to Jesus and every tongue to confess Him, so should we. We should be ‘jealous’ for the honor of His name—troubled when it remains unknown, hurt when it is ignored, indignant when it is blasphemed, and all the time anxious and determined that it shall be given the honor and glory which are due to it.

The highest of all missionary motives is neither obedience to the Great Commission (important as that is), nor love for sinners who are alienated and perishing (strong as that incentive is, especially when we contemplate the wrath of God), but rather zeal—burning and passionate zeal—for the glory of Jesus Christ.

Only one imperialism is Christian, and that is concern for His Imperial Majesty Jesus Christ, and for the glory of his empire or kingdom. Before this supreme goal of the Christian mission, all unworthy motives wither and die.”

—John Stott, The Message of Romans (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press,  1994), 53

(HT: Of First Importance)

Preachers: Be Predictably Christocentric!

It would not appear that Paul’s determination to know nothing among his hearers but Christ and him crucified led him into the trap of predictability.  Of course, if by predictability we mean that people will come to expect every sermon to expound something of the glories of Christ, then let us by all means be predictable!  Since there are inexhaustible riches in Christ, and the implication of this for our Christian existence are endless, I doubt very much that there is any need for a preacher to be boring and repetitive.

(Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture), p. 115

(HT: Eric Raymond)

The Gospel in 3 Minutes!

(HT: Colin Adams)

Christ is all-glorious!

Christ is all-glorious:

• glorious in his throne, which is at “the right hand of the Majesty on high”
• glorious in his commission, which is “all power in heaven and earth”
• glorious in his name, a name above every name—“Lord of lords, and King of kings”
• glorious in his scepter—“a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of his kingdom”
• glorious in his attendants—“his chariots are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels,” among them he rides on the heavens, and sends out the voice of his strength, attended with ten thousand times ten thousand of his holy ones
• glorious in his subjects—all creatures in heaven and in earth, nothing is left that is not put in subjection to him
• glorious in his way of rule, and the administration of his kingdom—full of sweetness, efficacy, power, serenity, holiness, righteousness, and grace, in and toward his elect—of terror, vengeance, and certain destruction toward the rebellious angels and men
• glorious in the issue of his kingdom, when every knee shall bow before him, and all shall stand before his judgment-seat.

Owen, Communion with God.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

50th Anniversary of John Stott’s Basic Christianity

(HT: Erik Kowalker)

Sovereign Spirit

This week’s sermon from John Piper: “The Free Will of the Wind“

The Wind has a will of his own.

We don’t control the Wind of God’s Spirit. He gives the new birth as he pleases. His will is decisive, not ours. For sure, our will moves when we receive the new birth—it moves toward the crucified Christ. But the decisive Mover is the Spirit. He gets the credit for our new birth.

The free will of the Wind is threatening to those who would be captain of their own souls. But to those who know they are desperate, dead in sin, and utterly unable to save themselves, this truth can be thrilling.

(HT: David Mathis)

Here’s an excerpt:

Desperate For God

I love this:

“There were two exegetes who prayed as they entered the library to work on understanding a biblical text. One was a biblical scholar and the other a common lay preacher. The biblical scholar, on route to deep seclusion in the collection of recent monographs, prayed like this:

‘Lord, I thank you that I am not like other exegetes– the youth ministers, authors of popular devotional literature, mass production book publishers or even this lay preacher. I study the Scriptures for hours every day– in their original… and several other languages, not to mention my work in ancient history and historiography, literary theory, social-scientific research, the most important commentaries, the most recent monographs and dissertations, and the most scholarly periodicals!’

But the lay preacher, trying to remember how to use the complicated cataloging system to find an understandable commentary on a passage of Scripture, prayed thus,

‘God, please help me, a mere preacher, find something to help me understand Your word.’

I tell you, this person– who desperately needed it– received help from the Lord.”

–Craig G. Bartholomew and Robby Holt, “Prayer in/and the Drama of Redemption,” in Reading Luke: Interpretation, Reflection, Formation (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 350.

(HT: Joseph Randall)

What the gospel is and what it is not!

My thanks to James Grant for this. I recommend you read the whole article by Carson.

D. A. Carson’s recent editorial for Themelios is well worth your read. In it, makes a fundamental distinction about the gospel that is being lost in our current theological climate. Carson explains:

It is this: one must distinguish between, on the one hand, the gospel as what God has done and what is the message to be announced and, on the other, what is demanded by God or effected by the gospel in assorted human responses.

This is fundamental. The gospel is about what God has done and not about what I have done. Growing up, this was confused by saying that gospel is believing on Christ. Now this is confused by saying that the gospel is life. The current situation is a reaction to the former. We (at least in evangelicalism broadly speaking) have moved from describing the gospel as conversion to describing the gospel as a way of life. Both are mistakes.

After explaining that the gospel is the “good news” about what God has done in Christ, Carson clarifies what the gospel is not:

By contrast, the first two greatest commands—to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves—do not constitute the gospel, or any part of it. We may well argue that when the gospel is faithfully declared and rightly received, it will result in human beings more closely aligned to these two commands. But they are not the gospel. Similarly, the gospel is not receiving Christ or believing in him, or being converted, or joining a church; it is not the practice of discipleship. Once again, the gospel faithfully declared and rightly received will result in people receiving Christ, believing in Christ, being converted, and joining a local church; but such steps are not the gospel.

In conclusion, Carson reminds us:

Failure to distinguish between the gospel and all the effects of the gospel tends, on the long haul, to replace the good news as to what God has done with a moralism that is finally without the power and the glory of Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended, and reigning.

Read the whole article.

The Bible’s purpose

“The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.”

- Timothy Keller

(HT: Of First Importance)

We can not be more righteous

“As we come to Christ…empty-handed, claiming no merit of our own, but clinging by faith to His blood and righteousness, we are justified. We pass immediately from a state of condemnation and spiritual death to a state of pardon, acceptance, and the sure hope of eternal life. Our sins are blotted out, and we are “clothed” with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. In our standing before God, we will never be more righteous, even in heaven, than we were the day we trusted Christ, or we are now. Obviously in our daily experience we fall far short of the perfect righteousness God requires. But because He has imputed to us the perfect righteousness of His Son, He now sees us as being just as righteous as Christ Himself.”

Jerry Bridges, The Gospel for Real Life, p. 107.

(HT: John Fonville)

Ligon Duncan on How the Pastorals Help Us Avoid Two Huge Errors

Justin Taylor writes:

I want to take to heart this exhortation from Ligon Duncan’s TGC message:

If you take one thing home from this conference let it be a determination and commitment to read, re-read, live in, and live and minister out of the Pastorals (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus).

I was especially helped by his section on how Paul’s material in these letters helps us to avoid two errors from opposite sides of the spectrum:One of the reasons that it is hugely important that we let the Pastorals influence our mode of ministry and the shape of our church life is that two huge errors have bedeviled the Western church for closing in on two hundred years now.

• The first error says that the message must be changed if we are going to reach our culture.
• The second error says that our methods are the key to reaching the culture and our methods are not essentially related to our message.

• The first error is the error of classical liberalism.
• The second error is that of modern evangelicalism.

• The first error says: The church can’t be built unless the message is changed.
• The second error says: The church can’t be built unless our methods are changed.

But the Bible teaches that God will build his church, that he has given us Gospel message and Gospel means, and the Pastorals shows us how our methods flow out of and are connected to that message and those means.

Does this mean that all creativity in ministry is bad? No! There is no such thing as an “unsituated” or “uncontextualized” ministry. We are all situated.

Traditionalists and Progressives both make mistakes in this area.

• Traditionalists tend to assume culture and unwittingly impose their cultural assumptions.
• Progressives tend to adopt culture and unwittingly impose their cultural adoptions.

But we [should] want neither an ossified traditionalism nor a faddish progressivism. Our contextualization must be consistent with our theology or we will subvert our own message.

Sam Storms on a Big God!

Sam Storms says that the Psalms should lead people to stand in awe of how big God is. “From, woe is me, to wow is Thee!”

The Main Problem Churches Face Today

The “main problem churches face is not that they are culturally out of touch, but that they are theologically out of tune.”

Pastor Tullian Tchividjian

(HT: Extreme Theology)

The Lordship of Christ & the Kingdoms of this World

“Jesus Christ is Lord. That is the first and final assertion Christians make about all of reality, including politics. Believers now assert by faith what one day will be manifest to the sight of all: every earthly sovereignty is subordinate to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. The Church is the bearer of that claim. Because the Church is pledged to the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, it must maintain a critical distance from all the kingdoms of the world, whether actual or proposed. Christians betray their Lord if, in theory or practice, they equate the Kingdom of God with any political, social or economic order of this passing time. At best, such orders permit the proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom and approximate, in small part, the freedom, peace, and justice for which we hope.”

~ Richard John Neuhaus, quoted by D. A. Carson in Christ & Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2008), 203.

(HT: The Big Picture)

Testiomonies of Grace!

(HT: Allsufficientgrace)

Justified by the cross, sanctified by the Spirit

“Our deliverance from the law is a rescue from its curse and its bondage, and so relates to the two particular functions of justification and sanctification. In both areas we are under grace, not law. For justification we look to the cross, not the law, and for sanctification to the Spirit, not the law. It is only by the Spirit that the law can be fulfilled in us.”

—John Stott, The Message of Romans (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press,  1994)

(HT: Of First Importance)

We have no rights, but we do have the gospel

Jerry Bridges on , faithfulness, forgiveness, and rights.

(HT: Audiance One)

John Stott on Self-Forgetfulness

From John Piper:

The abundance of audio and video recordings of preaching today tempts pastors to listen to themselves and look at themselves. One might improve a few things that way. But in general it’s a bad idea.

John Stott explains why:

If you look at yourself in the mirror, and listen to yourself on tape, or do both simultaneously on videotape, I fear you may find that you continue to look at yourself and listen to yourself when you are in the pulpit. In that case you will condemn yourself to the cramping bondage of preoccupation with yourself just at the time when, in the pulpit, it is essential to cultivate self-forgetfulness through a growing awareness of the God for whom and the people to whom you are speaking.

I know actors make use of glass and tape, but preachers are not actors, nor is the pulpit at a stage. So beware! It may be more valuable to ask a friend to be candid with you about your voice and mannerisms, especially if they need correction. An Indian proverb says “He who has a good friend needs no mirror.” Then you can be yourself and forget yourself.

Gospel Coalition Online

I want to take a minute to bring to your attention that The Gospel Coalition met this week and has made available the MP3’s from its conference. The speakers include John Piper, Tim Keller, D. A. Carson, Mark Driscoll, Lig Duncan, and many others.  Here’s the link to the audio from the 2009 Gospel Coalition messages.

For those who are interested, Tim Challies has a succinct description of The Gospel Coalition.

(HT: Denny Burk)

‘In Christ’ in Paul

From Rob Bradshaw:

Paul uses the term “in Christ” 216 times in his writings, but what did he mean by it? Michael Parson’s concludes:

We have seen, then, that the ‘in Christ’ formula is important in the thought of the apostle Paul. It primarily designates a close and indissoluble relationship with the Lord, but more than that it speaks of solidarity with Christ in his death and resurrection as the representative head of his people, the church. However, in its implication the term underlies much of the apostle’s explanation of the believer’s awareness of the sanctifying work of Christ’s Spirit conforming him to the image of the Lord to whom he belongs and in the manifestation of this relationship in the life and communion of the body of Christ, the church. We have also seen, in passing, the importance of this teaching as it relates to Paul’s ethical thinking and exhortation. Lives in the present are to evidence the believer’s characteristic union with Christ in godliness and in obedience to him within the context of his church and by the power of his Spirit.

You can read the whole paper here.