Something is wrong with our ego

In his new and helpful little book (a pamphlet really), The Freedom Of Self-Forgetfulness, Tim Keller writes:

The ego often hurts. That is because it has something incredibly wrong with it. Something unbelievably wrong with it. It is always drawing attention to itself - it does so every single day. It is always making us think about how we look and how we are treated. People sometimes say their feelings are hurt. But our feelings can't be hurt! It is the ego that hurts - my sense of self, my identity. Our feelings are fine! It is my ego that hurts.

Walking around does not hurt my toes unless there is already something wrong with them. My ego would not hurt unless there was something wrong with it. Think about it. It is very hard to get through a whole day without feeling snubbed or ignored or feeling stupid or getting down on ourselves. That is because there is something wrong with my ego. There is something wrong with my sense of self. It is never happy. It is always drawing attention to itself.

"The gospel is powerful in spite of us, not because of us"

How often we overestimate our importance! It's not that the way we live does not matter immensely, for it does. It's not that our living does not impact our effectiveness to advance the gospel, for it does. But let us not forget that the power of the gospel does not come from us. The gospel has always been and always will be advanced by a deeply flawed church made up of saved sinners.

Really good stuff from Duane Lifton explaining why our deeds will never preach the gospel:

Some today will claim that there is no true evangelism without “embodied action.” In fact, according to one critic, “Unless [Christ's] disciples are following the Great Commandment, it is fruitless to engage in the Great Commission.” According to this view, the gospel is without its own potency. Its “fruitfulness” depends upon us. But this is not the testimony of the New Testament.
According to Paul—whose itinerant ministry met few of the “embodied action” criteria—the power of the gospel does not reside in us; it resides in the Spirit’s application of the message itself. . . .

Few would deny that the holistic mission of the church is the best possible platform for our verbal witness, and that our jaded generation will be more inclined to give us a hearing if we are living it out. (Indeed, the longest section of my new book, Word versus Deed, is devoted to the crucial role of our deeds.)

But this does not permit us to hold the gospel hostage to our shortcomings.

When has the church been all it should be?

When, short of glory, will the church ever be all that God wills for it?

The church has been messy from the beginning, falling far short of living out the Great Commandment. Yet despite our failures, the gospel itself remains marvelously potent, the very “power of God unto salvation” to those who believe.

The gospel’s inherent power does not fluctuate with the strengths or weaknesses of its messengers.

This truth is humbling, but also immensely liberating. In the end, my inability to answer objections, my lack of training or experience, even failures in my own faithfulness in living it out do not nullify the gospel’s power. Its potency is due to the working of God’s Spirit.

Even when we are at our best, the gospel is powerful in spite of us, not because of us. Thanks be to God.

Read the whole article HERE.

HT: Justin Taylor

What Celebrity Culture?

I just can't figure out why Carl is so convinced that evangelicals have surrendered to a celebrity culture.

Summer Reading...

Inerrancy And Worldview by Vern Poythress

Communion With The Triune God by John Owen

Wherever I Wind Up by R.A. Dickey

The Full Harvest by Charles Spurgeon

Shame Interrupted by Ed Welch

Gospel Coach: Shepherding Leaders to Glorify God by Thomas & Wood

Transformed By God: New Covenant Life and Ministry by David Peterson



Memorial Day

Sunday's Sermon

On Sunday I preached part 19 of our current series through Philippians. It is entitled "Follow The Right Example" and can be listened to or downloaded HERE.

The Right Way to Leave a Church

Words of wisdom from Kevin DeYoung:

Try to leave graciously. When someone voluntarily leaves a church (not because of a move or a graduation or a deployment) it is usually a painful experience. You’ve probably been hurt or disappointed. Maybe you dislike the new pastor or the new direction of the church. The temptation in these situations will be toward bitterness. You may want to leave with all your guns ablazin’ but the approach that feels good isn’t always the one that is good. Better to err on the side of gentleness and let the Lord repay your enemies. This also makes it easier for you to admit wrong if you should find some down the road.

Tell the pastor you are leaving. This may be the most important point. Please let someone know you are going. You may want people to notice you are gone, and a good elder board will notice, but if you’ve already decided to leave now is not the time for sour grapes. If you tell the leaders you are leaving, they can pray for you. Maybe they can clear up a misunderstanding. Or maybe they need to learn from your experience. Just don’t go silently into that good night.

Leave off a ledge. I got this imagery from a dear member who recently left our church and did so with great grace and magnanimity. He told me that as he thought about leaving he decided he didn’t want to drift away, slowly pulling away and dropping his commitments. He said he’d rather take a leap off the ledge and be fully engaged until the moment when he decided it was time to go. Be in while you are in, and then when you are out, jump right out.

Learn how to kindly and honestly answer the question “Why did you leave?” People will ask you, so figure out your answer. Don’t kill someone’s character or disembowel the whole church with your reply. Don’t lie either. A simple, straightforward answer will suffice. We didn’t agree with the direction of the church. We disagreed with some of the doctrines being taught. We didn’t feel like we could submit ourselves to the authority of the church any longer. Tell the truth, but speak it in the manner you would want the church to speak about you.

Develop a plan right away for how you will look for a new church. It may take you some time to settle in a new place, but start working on your plan right away. Will you visit these ten churches? Or two churches? Will you visit them once or three times? What is important to you (and your family, and God!) in finding a church? Don’t allow yourself to float aimlessly for months and years. Too many church floaters just float away.

Don’t burn bridges. If you were a faithful member of your previous church, you will keep running into those who are still there. You’ll see them at weddings, funerals, open houses, and school functions. Maybe even family reunions! It’s bound to be a little awkward but do what you can to keep the relationships intact. Many of them are worth saving. And you may need them later.

Keep praying and ask others to pray for you. The ties that bind are not broken easily. In some ways they don’t have to. Obviously, the relationship changes when you leave a church, but you should still want what is best for all those you left behind. And hopefully they still care for you. It never hurts to have more prayer.

New Book...

Congratulations to Dr. David Garner (a friend to me and of Church of the Saviour) for his good work in editing the new book by P&R Did God Really Say?

Good Apologetics Sites

Check out these sites which provide good resources and articles on Christian apologetics:

• Choosing Hats
• John Lennox
• Centre For Public Christianity (John Dickson)
• Discovery Institute
• Fixed Point Foundation
• The Ehrman Project
• Canon Fodder (Michael Kruger)

There are issues and then there are ISSUES

Great analysis by Denny Burk on the idea of "Post-Partisan" Evangelicals:

My concern with the post-partisanship of Jonathan Merritt is the message that it sends to ordinary evangelicals. When the ordinary evangelical steps into the voting booth this November, he will in fact have a choice to make. And that choice will involve prioritizing some issues over others. But I think Merritt disagrees. In his new book A Faith of Our Own, he writes:

Evangelicals…often reduce the immense witness of the Scriptures to only a few culture-war issues—namely, abortion and gay marriage. Both are important issues deserving serious thought. The Scriptures speak often about life and sexuality. But they also regularly address poverty, equality, justice, peace, and care of God’s good creation.

If Christians act as if the culture-war issues are the only issues or make them so paramount that they dwarf all others, we distill the limitless bounty of the Scriptures into a tiny cup of condensed political juice (p. 89).

How is a reader to apply this reasoning when it comes to voting? Merritt seems to be saying that evangelicals need not prioritize ending the regime of Roe v. Wade in their exercise of the franchise. If that is the message he’s trying to send, I think he is dead wrong.

When it comes to voting (which is the extent of political activism for most evangelicals), if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. Merritt’s “post-partisan” approach causes the pro-life issue to get lost in the din of competing interests.

Christians should cast a wary eye toward anyone who suggests that abortion-on-demand is just one among many social ills. In America, it is the single greatest human rights crisis of our time, and to overlook the fact that it is legal in all fifty states to kill a person at any time from 0-9 months gestation is unconscionable.

Abortion definitely deserves more than “serious thought” in the voting booth. It deserves priority.

Read Denny's entire post HERE.

The Necessity of Affliction

Scripture teaches us that afflictions and trials are a necessary part of the Christian Pilgrimage. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul encourages believers to stand firm for the Lord, reminding them, 'For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake' (1:29). He connects belief in Christ with suffering for Christ, seeing them both as gifts granted to the church. In the epistle to the Romans, Paul says we are adopted as children of God, making us coheirs with Christ, but our inheritance in glory is conditional on our suffering with Christ, but our inheritance in glory in conditional on our suffering with Christ in this life. He writes, 'The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together' (8:16-17)...

Suffering is to be expected, not only as part of our human experience, but also as part of our Christian pilgrimage heavenward. Our suffering, whether a direct result of our faith and defense of the cause of Christ, or something we bear as part of the fallen world, should not surprise us. However, because we are Christians, and therefore heirs of the promises of God, our trials and afflictions have a different purpose - they sanctify us within the grand scheme of God's redemption of our souls.

Afflictions are the instruments by which God, as Master Carpenter shapes and conforms us to Christ's image (Rom 8:28-29). They are the means by which God completes the good work He began in us (Phil 1:6-7). They are occasions for our faith to grow in steadfastness and maturity (James 1:2-4). They are the means by which God exposes our sin to lead us to repentance (Job 42:3b, 5-6) and to reveal our hearts (Gen 22:1, 12). And they are necessary goads sent to test the genuineness of our faith and prepare us for the return of Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7; Matt 10:22b).

It is thus foolish for us to think we can avoid trials, difficulties, and affliction as Christians. Why would we want to? If they serve such an important purpose within God's plan of redemption, we cannot afford to live without them. Indeed, we should prefer to live with them. That is what the apostle concluded when he realized how much his trials had benefited him. He says, 'Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then I am strong' (2 Cor 12:9b-10).

From Living By God's Promises by Joel Beeke & James A. LaBelle

The Sufficiency of Christ

All your church attendance, all your religious activities, your Sunday school attendance medals, your journals, having a “quiet time,” reading the Scriptures—it’s all in vain if you don’t have Christ.

We are saved, sanctified, and sustained by what Jesus did for us on the cross and through the power of his resurrection. If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of his glory and Christ of his sufficiency.

Romans 8:1 tells us that there is no condemnation for us, not because of all the great stuff we’ve done but because Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death.

My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ.

From The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler

Are Christians Too Political?

From "An Open Letter to Young, 'Post-Partisan' Evangelicals":

As we fight the culture war, we’re going to make mistakes, we’re not going to agree with each other, and sometimes I still get deeply frustrated at my own side. But I no longer believe the lie that there is a path for Christians through this culture that everyone will love — or even most people will love. I no longer believe the lie that American Christians are “too political” and if we only spoke less about abortion we’d be more respected (the mainline denominations have taken that path for two generations, and they continue to lose members and cultural influence).

So, “post-partisan” Christians, please ponder this: First, as the price for your new path, are you willing to forego any effective voice at all for unborn children? Are you willing to keep silent when the secular world demands your silence? After all, that is the true price of non-partisanship — silence. Second, if you believe that a more perfect imitation of Christ (more perfect than the elders you scorn) will lead to more love and regard for the Church, consider this: No one was more like Christ than Christ, and he wound up on a cross with only the tiniest handful of followers by his side.

Follow Jesus, yes, but don’t think for a moment that will improve your image, and don’t be surprised if He takes you down much the same path He took the generation before you.

Read the entire post HERE. It will be worth your time.

HT: Justin Taylor

How to keep church discipline from seeming weird...

Great post from Jared Wilson:

As God has built his church, his church leaders have not always kept up with what makes a church a church. So even to mention the idea of a church disciplining its members strikes tenderhearted and undereducated Christians as weird, mean, and legalistic. How do we work at keeping church discipline from seeming weird? Here are 5 ways:

1. Make disciples.
Many local churches have simply becoming keepers of a fish tank. A surface level of fellowship is often in place, but the central mission of the church – to make disciples – has been neglected. Instead, churches are structured around providing religious goods and services, offering education or even entertainment options for their congregational consumers. People aren’t being trained in the context of ongoing disciple relationships. But this largely what “church discipline” is – training.

If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. Matthew 18:15

In discipling relationships, we are always disciplining one another, not chiefly or only in the fight against sin but largely in our encouragement of each other, edifying one another, teaching one another, and sharing one another’s burdens. In short, disciples know each other. And so Matthew 18:15 might be happening all the time, perhaps weekly within loving relationships where there is no imminent danger of somebody being kicked out of the church but rather a constant iron sharpening of iron.

In churches with healthy discipleship cultures, church discipline is going on all the time in helpful, informal, everyday ways. When the more formal processes of church discipline become necessary, they are much less likely to be carried out too harshly or received strangely. The church will already have a positive training context for knowing that discipleship requires obedience, correction, perseverance, and mutual submission.

2. Create clarity about church membership.
In many churches, there is no church membership structure at all. But even in churches that maintain formal church membership, the expectations and processes are unclear. Prospective church members need to provide more info than merely their profession of faith, previous church membership, and the area of service they are interested in. They need to know what the body is promising to them and what they are promising the body. If church membership is a Christ-centered covenant relationship – and it is – their needs to be a clear, mutual promise between all invested parties that their yes will be yes and their no will be no, so that there can be no surprise when someone’s yes to sin is received with a no from the church.

3. Teach the process.
I remember a church meeting once upon a time where elders were sharing the grounds for dismissal of the lead pastor. The evidence was extensive and serious, and there was plenty of testimony about the elders having for years seeking the pastor’s repentance and his getting counseling to no avail. One woman, visibly upset, shouted, “Where is the grace?!” The whole idea seemed weird and unchristian to her. She did not have the biblical framework to know that the last several years’ of seeking the pastor’s repentance was a tremendous act of grace, and that indeed, even his dismissal was a severe mercy, a last and regrettable resort in seeking to startle him into Godly sorrow over his sin. But churches aren’t accustomed to thinking of discipline that way; they think of grace as comfort and niceness. This is because we don’t teach them well.

For some, church discipline will always be objectionable because it seems outdated and unnecessary. But for many, their objection is a reflection of simply not knowing what the Bible teaches on the matter. If a church never broaches the subject until a church’s response to someone’s unrepentant sin must be made public, church discipline will always seem alien. “What are you doing bringing all this law into a place that should be filled with grace?” And the like. So we have to preach the relevant texts.

One word of caution, however: Some churches love teaching the process of church discipline out of all proportion; they love it too much. In some church environments, church discipline is mainly equated with the nuclear option of excommunication and the leadership of the church is not known for its patience but for its itchy trigger finger. Teaching the process of church discipline is not about filling the church with a sense of dread and covering the floor with eggshells. It’s about providing enough visibility about the guardrails and expectations that people can actually breathe more freely, not less. Church discipline – rightly exercised – is motivated by real, sorrowful love and concern.
4. Follow the process.
Once again, we fail our congregations when we don’t begin church discipline until we feel pressed to remove someone from membership and refuse them the Lord’s Supper. It’s as if there aren’t previous, patient, hopeful steps in Matthew 18. Even the context of Paul’s command in 1 Corinthians 5:13 appears to demonstrate excommunication is the final straw, not the only one. If we will follow the biblical process of church discipline, beginning with confidential and humble rebuke of a brother’s or sister’s sin, if unrepentance persists and the circle of visibility widens, expulsion will be seen as a regrettable and sorrowful necessity, and as something intended for a person’s repentance and restoration, not for their punishment.

5. Practice gospel-centeredness.
God will get the glory and our churches will give him glory when church discipline is practiced in the context of a grace-driven culture. You can expect church discipline to seem unnecessary and legalistic in churches where the gospel has not had any noticeable effect on the spirit of the people. But in churches where God’s free grace in Christ is regularly preached and believed, church leaders will be regularly setting aside their egos and narcissistic needs and the laity will be bearing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things, and believing all things (1 Corinthians 13:7), including that while no discipline feels pleasant at the time, in the end it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:11).

"When Satan Comes to Church"

Good and sobering words HERE.

Sunday's Sermon

On Sunday I preached part 18 in our current series in Philippians. It is entitled "Restful Striving" and can be listened to or downloaded HERE.

New Credo...

Check out the new edition of Credo Magazine HERE.

5 Resolutions Worth Following...

Great wisdom from the Memoirs of Charles Simeon:

The longer I live, the more I feel the importance of adhering to the rules which I have laid down for myself in relation to such matters.
1st. To hear as little as possible what is to the prejudice of others.

2nd. To believe nothing of the kind till I am absolutely forced to it.

3rd. Never to drink into the spirit of one who circulates an ill report.

4th. Always to moderate, as far as I can, the unkindness which is expressed towards others.

5th. Always to believe, that if the other side were heard, a very different account would be given of the matter.

I wonder how much greater would be our joy and our fellowship if we were to commit ourselves to such simple rules.

Piper on the insider movement

Should we use "Son of God" in Muslim Contexts?

There has been much debate concerning the so-called insider movement which advocates removing references in the Bible to Jesus as the Son of God. The debate is important. Obviously, Muslims are offended by any language that would refer to Jesus as anything other than a great prophet. And, since Muslims are anti-Trinitarian, references to God's Son would be, to them, blasphemous. What motivates the Insider Movement is, of course, noble. But how far should we go when seeking to reach out?

The PCA has released a report from a study committee charged to consider the validity of removing Son of God references as a strategy for reaching Muslims. The report will be released in a series of installments. This first installment is entitled “Like Father, Like Son: Divine Familial Language in Bible Translation.”

The report concludes:

Bible translations geared for Islamic contexts should not be driven by concerns that Muslims may recoil from biological terms applied to God or Jesus. That revulsion originates primarily out of religious conviction, not any communicative limitation of the terms themselves. The essentially biological terms (Hebrew, ben and ab; Greek, huios and pater) are divinely given and therefore should be translated into comparable biological terms. Footnotes, parentheticals and other paratextual comments may be used to explain the biblical and theological riches of Scripture, while never subverting the important truths embedded in the biological contours of Scripture’s words.

Not all translation workers share these methodological commitments. Therefore, churches should carefully assess the philosophies and practices of translation workers whom they support. Churches should direct resources toward faithful translation and, if loving attempts at correction fail, away from projects and persons advocating problematic approaches to translation. For the honor of the God who has revealed himself in his Word, churches and agencies involved in translation should collaborate to improve the spread of the Christian message worldwide, ensuring that Bibles oriented towards those in Muslim contexts retain the fullest range of theological meanings resident in the original languages.

The responsibility for faithful translation and worldwide gospel proclamation rests finally in the church of Jesus Christ.

Sacrificing the clearly inspired Son of God references to Jesus is giving up far too much. It begs the question, how do we win someone to Jesus, if the Jesus we win them too is not the Jesus revealed in God's Word? Further, if the idea that Jesus is God's Son offends Muslims (and it surely will) just wait until you tell them about the cross and Jesus' substitutionary death.

When you get a chance, check out Colin Hansen's interview with John Piper on the insider movement.

HT: Justin Taylor