A Look Inside Mohler's Study:
Al Mohler - Study Video from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.
(I was in Mohler's study last Fall - it REALLY is amazing!!! I pray my future husband has such a study one day...)
Ohhh how badly I want to attend T4G 2010! Featuring Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney, and Albert Mohler with Thabiti Anyabwile, John MacArthur, John Piper, and R.C. Sproul, in Louisville, KY April 13-15th. Words fall short of my desire to attend this conference!
One Great Reason
“Every government, every war, every plague, every bit of persecution, everything that has ever occurred in every corner of the world exists for one reason alone – God’s great gospel. It pushes and drives everything. Do you know how the gospel left Jerusalem? Stephen was martyred. Do you know how Christianity got here? The Puritans were being persecuted. So they hopped on a boat and came over. Everything is about what God is doing. This is what you’re caught up in. This is what’s happening. We’re right in the thick of it. This is the story of creation. There is no other story. Every other story is a footnote in this story. And if you go back and look at it historically, you can find how it pushed, played and exalted this story.”
– Matt Chandler, Pastor, The Village Church
Loving the Church
Are there right and wrong reasons to love the church?
Joshua Harris answers YES in Wrong Reasons to Love the Church:
Joshua Harris answers YES in Wrong Reasons to Love the Church:
Do you love the church? Romans 12:10 tells Christians to "Love one another with brotherly affection."Read the rest by Joshua Harris.
The affection and love we're to have for fellow-Christians is to be based on the work of Jesus Christ for us. It's not about elitism, it's not because Christians are better than anyone else, it certainly isn't because Christians are necessarily more lovable. We love the church because we love the Savior who redeemed the church.
Unbound Without Love
To believe in a powerful, sovereign God is misery if we do not also see that He is a loving, merciful God. In Paul's letter to the church at Colossae he exhorts them to "put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony" (3:14). There is a "unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (a state of reconciliation and love)" which unites all believers to one another and to Christ. Paul further addresses the Ephesians, "And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:2). We walk with Christ by walking in love, but until we see Christ's direction as love we will be unable to follow him thus.
Without love we are unbound. Unbound from each other and unbound from Christ. We depart from the body and we walk unfamiliar from Christ. Not literally, for it is God's love that saves us and keeps us, but relationally, emotionally, and conditionally we are wandering stray and unbound without love. So to know God as a powerful and sovereign God, but to forget that He is a loving God hinders us from walking near Him. We might fearfully tiptoe under His lordship, knowing that His hand has great might. But we cannot joyfully worship Him aside from resting in His love and mercy. Just cognitively knowing of God's love without putting it on and savoring it will do no good. We must learn the intimacy of our God. We must know God as loving and merciful or will shall find ourselves miserable and unbound.
Without love we are unbound. Unbound from each other and unbound from Christ. We depart from the body and we walk unfamiliar from Christ. Not literally, for it is God's love that saves us and keeps us, but relationally, emotionally, and conditionally we are wandering stray and unbound without love. So to know God as a powerful and sovereign God, but to forget that He is a loving God hinders us from walking near Him. We might fearfully tiptoe under His lordship, knowing that His hand has great might. But we cannot joyfully worship Him aside from resting in His love and mercy. Just cognitively knowing of God's love without putting it on and savoring it will do no good. We must learn the intimacy of our God. We must know God as loving and merciful or will shall find ourselves miserable and unbound.
Religious Affections and Haiti
In A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections Jonathan Edwards lays before his readers the biblical foundation of true religion: the affections. One’s affections are “no other than the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and the will of the soul.”
Edwards is not talking about one’s logical understanding or sudden passions, but the deepest enduring propensity of one’s heart. He makes clear the true religion is not found in fleeting emotions. Nor is it found in external change or performance. Rather, true religion lies in the affections of the soul. Edwards writes, “ That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising us but a little above a state of indifference: God, in His word, greatly insists upon it, that we be in good earnest, “fervent in spirit,” and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion.”
Edwards so powerful writes:
If we be not in good earnest in religion, and our wills are inclinations be not strongly exercises, we are nothing. The things of religion are so great, that there can be no suitableness in the exercises of our hearts to their nature and importance, unless they be lively and powerful. In nothing is vigor in the actings of our inclinations so requisite as in religion; and in nothing is lukewarmness so odious. True religion is evermore a powerful thing; and the power of it appears, in the first place in the inward exercises of it in the heart, where is the principle and original seat of it.
Religious affection originates in the heart, and once it is thus rooted it grows outward with great strength. Therefore, true religious affections will bring about the stirring-up of grief, compassion, and hope in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. And it is this inclination which governs us in our actions! Out of our grief we must be moved toward prayer. Our compassion must arouse us to give, send, go, or sacrifice. Furthermore, our hope frees us to trust in God’s great plan of redemption for every lost life and suffering child. These responses, without the deeper roots of religious affections will be beneficial, yet short-lived. Many of the aids and funds will run dry as history has demonstrated, but if we are driven by Christ’s love for lost and suffering people we will persevere in serving Haiti. We ought to be humbled by such a great responsibility and privilege to serve and comport the men, women, and children suffering in Haiti. Let us not grow weary or fainthearted while so many remain in need.
Their God is Their Belly
Philippians 3:17-21
1. Their end is destruction (final judgment)
2. Their god is their belly (themselves)
3. They glory in their shame
4. Their minds are set on earthy things (worldliness)
Their god is their belly (themselves):
In the conclusion of Paul's letter to the Roman church he warmly greets those he knows in Rome who are involved in ministry, showing the love that existed among Christians. Just after his detailed and loving greeting he turns to warn the Roman church "watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them" (16:17). His specific description of these divisive men is that, "such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites [their own belly], and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive" (v 18). These men who serve their own appetites are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:4). They seek personal fulfillment and self-worship above all else. Therefore, their lives are spent in pursuit of satisfaction rooted in selfish and empty desires.
Paul's wording "their god is their belly" might sound crazy - but it's widely prevalent in the lives of the lost and the sins of the saved. What are you spending your life pursuing? How far will you go for the sake of personal pleasure? If necessary, will you turn against God to get your 'fix' and 'fulfillment'? Who or what is your god? Is it Jesus Christ? Your mouth might say one thing... but your actions could say another. Does a desire for comfort and pleasure prevent you from doing what you should do? Do you live as if your personal pleasure is separate and more rewarding than God?
To be satisfied with your god as your belly is the fruit (evidence) that you walk as an enemy of the cross of Christ. To be satisfied loving pleasure more than you love God is a big deal.
Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.Verse 19 states four truths about those who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ:
1. Their end is destruction (final judgment)
2. Their god is their belly (themselves)
3. They glory in their shame
4. Their minds are set on earthy things (worldliness)
Their god is their belly (themselves):
In the conclusion of Paul's letter to the Roman church he warmly greets those he knows in Rome who are involved in ministry, showing the love that existed among Christians. Just after his detailed and loving greeting he turns to warn the Roman church "watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them" (16:17). His specific description of these divisive men is that, "such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites [their own belly], and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive" (v 18). These men who serve their own appetites are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:4). They seek personal fulfillment and self-worship above all else. Therefore, their lives are spent in pursuit of satisfaction rooted in selfish and empty desires.
Paul's wording "their god is their belly" might sound crazy - but it's widely prevalent in the lives of the lost and the sins of the saved. What are you spending your life pursuing? How far will you go for the sake of personal pleasure? If necessary, will you turn against God to get your 'fix' and 'fulfillment'? Who or what is your god? Is it Jesus Christ? Your mouth might say one thing... but your actions could say another. Does a desire for comfort and pleasure prevent you from doing what you should do? Do you live as if your personal pleasure is separate and more rewarding than God?
To be satisfied with your god as your belly is the fruit (evidence) that you walk as an enemy of the cross of Christ. To be satisfied loving pleasure more than you love God is a big deal.
DO the Word
Jesus' final teaching from the sermon on the mount is a lesson of preparation for the storms of life. Jesus warns the crowds that rain will fall, winds will blow, and floods will come. In the midst of the storms of life, what matters is what foundation our house is built on.
Matthew 9:24-27
We will hear God's Word, and we will build a house. The rains will come, the wind will blow, the flood will rage. But what distinguishes between the wise man and the foolish man is what they build their house on. The man who DOES the Word of God builds his house on rock. The man who DOES NOT DO the Word of God builds his house on sand. It's not about IF the storms will come. They will. It's not even about hearing the word of God, because we do. It's about DOING the Word of God. THAT is what makes the difference when the storms of life come.
Matthew 9:24-27
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.
We will hear God's Word, and we will build a house. The rains will come, the wind will blow, the flood will rage. But what distinguishes between the wise man and the foolish man is what they build their house on. The man who DOES the Word of God builds his house on rock. The man who DOES NOT DO the Word of God builds his house on sand. It's not about IF the storms will come. They will. It's not even about hearing the word of God, because we do. It's about DOING the Word of God. THAT is what makes the difference when the storms of life come.
At our core: Worldview
I have been enjoying CrossTalk Where Life & Scripture Meet by Michael R. Emlet, and I was particularly struck by Emlet's insights into the centrality of man's worldview. Emlet writes, "Each person (or community) asks and answers foundational questions about the nature of life, consciously or subconsciously. The answers we give to these questions characterize our “worldview,” our “take” on the nature of reality” (p 67). The most revealing approach to understanding a person is understanding their worldview. A worldview describes a consistent (to a varying degree) and integral sense of existence and provides a framework for generating, sustaining, and applying knowledge. However, just as a man's worldview takes a lifetime to develop, it will take thought and consideration to seek it out.Brain Walse and J. Richard Middlton propose four basic worldview questions:
1. Where are we? That is, what is the nature of the world in which we live?
2. Who are we? Or, what is the essential nature of human beings?
3. What’s wrong? That is, why is the world (and my life) in such a mess?
4. What’s the remedy? Or, how can these problems be solved?
As I serve in full-time student ministry these questions are not overt, but concealed within each conversation. They are the questions I ask myself; therefore prompting many of the questions I verbalize. They are important, not so that I can learn the worldview of each student as an end in itself, but because only through understanding their worldview can I minister to them. I step into their world by understanding how they see the world, by getting behind the lens they wear each day.
On pages 67-68, Emlet states:
These questions – and how we answer them – form the narrative backbone of our lives. They shape the way we interpret life events, from the mundane (no milk in the refrigerator for the breakfast cereal) to the horrific (loss of children in a car accident). They shape our view of ourselves and others. They shape our vision of what constitutes a meaningful life, even a meaningful moment. They shape our beliefs, emotions, and decisions every day. Everybody has an overarching story he or she lives by, moment by moment. Everybody is a meaning marker with categories for making sense of life. Reality does not come to us unfiltered by always through the lens of our perception. The real question is, What lens will we use? What story, what narrative will we use to see the world and interpret our lives?*Not only must worldviews be investigated and understood, but often they must be challenged and changed. Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III, Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson contrasted the biblical worldview with 10 “isms” that are at odds with Christianity. His list reveals some of the dangerous beliefs wrongly incorporated into today's worldviews:
1. Life does not revolve around self.
Individualism: The self is the prime reality.
2. Truth exists and matters.
Relativism: there is no such thing as absolutes or morality.
3. What you believe informs everything you do, and what you do shows what you really believe.
Secularism: Religion must be kept out of all public spheres.
4. Real tolerance is not (and cannot be) based on relativism. All roads do not lead up the mountain!
Pluralism: All views, values, and lifestyles must be accorded equal standing.
5. Not everything that works is right.
Pragmatism: Whatever works is right.
6. Not all change is good.
Progressivism: Change is always good and progress is inevitable.
7. Our technology does not give us the ability to solve every human problem.
Rationalization (or Technophilia) Technology can solve all our problems
8. This material world is not all that there is.
Naturalism: Reality is material.
9. Freedom does not mean doing what I want to do.
Antinomianism: Freedom is right and it means I can do whatevery I want to do.
10. You are worse than you think you are. You are what you are alone, when no one sees you.
Privatism: Private life and public life have no necessary connection.
We could all benefit from asking ourselves Walse & Middlton's four questions... and considering where we fit with Duncan's comments. Perhaps we have grown too accustom to our own lens and fail to question our worldviews stringently enough...
*Joe B. Green, “The (Re-)Turn to Narrative” in Narrative Reading, Narrative Preaching: Reuniting New Testament Interpretation and Proclamation
Glad in Him
Tonight I gathered together with friends to worship Jesus Christ for who He is. As we sung together I was amazed - a voice in itself may sound exceedingly beautiful, but the stirring of affections for the Lord pouring forth in song and praise is far more beautiful a sound. There is little in this life as pure as the voices of God's children united in praise and worship. It was a revitalizing night for a wandering soul.
As we sang together I read the words of the psalmist, who declares that there is nothing better than to commit our welfare to God. It is both wise and worshipful to unhesitatingly cast ourselves with confidence, and with a cheerful heart, upon the paternal care of God.
Our soul waits for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you. (Psalm 33:20-22)
To live in the song of the psalmist is to be empowered to joyfully wait for the Lord. The Lord who's name is trustworthy because of who He is; because He is holy.
In great wisdom John Calvin comments on this psalm:
As we sang together I read the words of the psalmist, who declares that there is nothing better than to commit our welfare to God. It is both wise and worshipful to unhesitatingly cast ourselves with confidence, and with a cheerful heart, upon the paternal care of God.
Our soul waits for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you. (Psalm 33:20-22)
To live in the song of the psalmist is to be empowered to joyfully wait for the Lord. The Lord who's name is trustworthy because of who He is; because He is holy.
In great wisdom John Calvin comments on this psalm:
Surely God shall always be our joy; surely his holy name shall be like an impregnable fortress for our refuges. Whence is it that believers continue perseveringly to call upon God, but because, satisfied with his favor, they have always, amidst their sorrows and griefs, this comfort, which is sufficient to maintain their cheerfulness? Justly, therefore, do believers affirm, in the first place, that their heart rejoices in the Lord; because, freed from wandering after the fascinations of the world, they neither waver nor hesitate at every change of fortune, but place the whole felicity of their lives in enjoying the free and paternal favor of God.God is our almighty help and unconquerable shield. Believing this, we can trust Him and we will not be disappointed. To put our hope in man is to continually be disillusioned, naked, and abandoned. O, what misery that is! Yet to hope in the Lord is endless joy and gladness. We are freed from the empty promises of the world - we need not stand on them any longer! Instead, we are called to put the hope of our hearts and lives in the hands of our loving Father who's name is holy.
All Nations
Philippians 2
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (v. 2:1-9)
As the body of Christ, our mind is meant to be the same; it is meant to be one. And our singular, unified mind comes from Christ Jesus who perfectly taught and modeled how we ought to think. His thinking was grounded in selfless humility. GOD - was humble. And this humility in thinking led to humility in action - He "made himself nothing". Humility is a requirement of service, sacrifice, and obedience to God which Jesus fulfilled to the point of death.
Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (v. 10-11)
At the name of Jesus Christ every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. In other words, every one will be humbled before Jesus. There will be no exception. However, we will either do it for our eternal joy or our eternal torment, dependent on personal faith in Jesus Christ during this life time. Either way, every one will be humbled and Jesus Christ will be highly exalted to the glory of God the Father!
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. without blemish. (v. 12-18)
Just as Jesus' humility of mind led to humility of action (service, sacrifice, and obedience to God) our humility before Him should also lead to obedience. And this is what our obedience should look like: working out our salvation with fear and trembling, doing all things without grumbling or questioning, shinning as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, rejoicing with gladness. This obedience is lived out by the "children of God". This obedience is lived out "in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation" - that is where we shine. This obedience is lived out at all times. This obedience is lived out through God's strength, "for it is God who works in you". And this obedience is "to the glory of God the Father".
I am a child of God, living in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, called to shine as a light to this world, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father. I have the opportunity (and with God, the ability) to lose my life for Christ's sake and therefore save it.
"GO therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
The question isn't "Should I go?" but "Where should I go?"
The 10/40 Window
The 10/40 Window is home to the majority of the world's unevangelized (crooked and twisted) countries. While it constitutes only 1/3 of earth's total land area, nearly 2/3 of the world's people reside in the 10/40 Window... How could I not go?
Wrecked and Repentance
Wrecked into Redemption: IndyCC 2009
On my drive home from IndyCC I listened to Matt Chandler's sermon series on Repentance and I felt like it was meant to fit with, and expound upon, the conference. Listen to or read Chander's sermons below:
Repentance (Part 1) A Jealous God
PDF Notes (Part 1)
Repentance (Part 2) Good Guilt
PDF Notes (Part 2)
Repentance (Part 3) A Theology of Struggle
PDF Notes (Part 3)
On my drive home from IndyCC I listened to Matt Chandler's sermon series on Repentance and I felt like it was meant to fit with, and expound upon, the conference. Listen to or read Chander's sermons below:
Repentance (Part 1) A Jealous God
PDF Notes (Part 1)
Repentance (Part 2) Good Guilt
PDF Notes (Part 2)
Repentance (Part 3) A Theology of Struggle
PDF Notes (Part 3)
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