Monthly Archives: October 2013

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There is a Traitor Within

John Owen Temptation

In his great work on temptation John Owen begs his readers to consider that, in and of themselves, they have no strength or power to withstand temptation. He says, “Confidence of any strength in us is one great part of our weakness.”

To prove his point he offers the following analogy:

If a castle or fort be never so strong and well fortified, yet if there be a treacherous party within, that is ready to betray it on every opportunity, there is no preserving it from the enemy. There are traitors in our hearts, ready to take part, to close, and side with every temptation, and to give up all to them; yea, to solicit and bribe temptations to do the work, as traitors incite an enemy. Do not flatter yourselves that you should hold out; there are secret lusts that lie lurking in your hearts, which perhaps now stir not, which, as soon as any temptation befalls you, will rise, tumultuate, cry, disquiet, seduce, and never give over until they are either killed or satisfied. He that promises himself that the frame of his heart will be the same under a temptation as it is before will be woefully mistaken.

Trust not in your own power and your own heart. Trust in Christ’s power that is in you.

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3 Books Every Pastor Should Read on Worship

Books are some of the best friends a pastor can have. How to know which friends to have is quite difficult, for as the inspired Preacher said, “Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). I recently suggested three books every time-strapped and budget-strapped pastor should read on pastoral ministry, preaching, and prayer.

In light of my post “Preaching Pastors as Worship Pastors” it seems wise to let the next installment of “3 Books Ever Pastor Should Read” be on the topic of worship.

41anShWMyZL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_Give Praise to God: A Vision for Reforming Worship. This is a Festschrift in honor of James Montgomery Boice, a man who loved to worship. Eighteen different chapters are offered under four parts: 1) The Bible and Worship, 2) Elements of Biblical Worship, 3) Preparing for Biblical Worship, and 4) Worship, History, and Culture. Lig Duncan’s two chapters alone are worth the price of the book as he answers the question “Does God Care How We Worship?” with clarity and power. He helpfully encapsulates Reformed worship as being simple, biblical, transferable, flexible, and reverent. Other chapters of contemporary importance are Rick Phillips’ work on The Lord’s Supper, Terry Johnson’s discussion on singing the psalms, and Bob Godfrey’s evaluation of worship and the emotions. This book covers an astonishing amount of ground on the topic of worship and every chapter drips with biblical conviction. A most invaluable addition to your library.

41NOBZWpRYL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_Engaging with God: A Biblical Theology of Worship by David Peterson. Peterson’s seminal study on worship must be reckoned with. He defines worship as “an engagement with God on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible.” He then moves on to show the nature of worship according to the Old and New testaments. He talks of worship in the New Covenant primarily as service and edification, thus he minimizes – somewhat unfortunately – the worshipful nature of a congregation’s public gatherings. He understands this reality, but in some ways is reacting against the Australian milieu in which he writes. Petersons’ tone is irenic and responsible, I don’t know of another resource that will so ably provide a pastor with the biblical foundation for understanding worship.

41BD8kstwuL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_Rhythms of Grace: How the Church’s Worship Tells the Story of the Gospel by Mike Cosper. I bought this book thinking it would be a decent addition to the conversation on worship, but oh how I underestimated Cosper! He brings together the best of all that has been published on worship and then puts his Cosper-like curve on the subject. The “One, Two, Three” framework he offers is quite useful: worship has one object and author (God), two contexts (gathered and scattered), and three audiences (God, the church, and the watching world). Every pastor and church member should read chapter nine,”Sing, Sing, Sing,” which offers uncommon wisdom on the topic and rightly challenges Christians to move from being a critic to a participant. An excellent work not to be underestimated.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice by Bryan Chapell. The prose is dry and the structure is one of a textbook. Yet, Chapell’s historical sensibility and clear grounding in Scripture will help every pastor examine his church’s liturgy.

Worship Matters: Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God by Bob Kauflin. The book is directed mostly toward music leaders, but Kauflin’s wisdom is always a joy to hear or read.

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Books for Elder Training

Pastoral Ministry

The pastoral epistles1 are best friends to a young pastor like myself. With only nine months of lead pastor ministry under my belt I find myself always turning to these friends for wisdom.

One particular area of focused study in recent months has been Paul’s instruction regarding the installation of elders. Everyone seems to know the qualifications Paul gives for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, but fewer know – or at least talk about – Paul’s wisdom about installing such qualified men. In Titus 1 Paul said to his young church planter, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might . . . appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (1:5). The first thing we see is Titus exhorted to urgency as Paul apparently doesn’t want Titus to be lazy in the appointment of elders. But Titus 1:5 needs to always be balanced by 1 Timothy 5:22, where Paul says, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands.” So, be urgent and patient. From these two passages I get my conviction that churches should be patiently urgent in installing men for elder leadership.

At our church, this maxim has played out in us spending eight months observing which men are qualified and already doing the work of eldering. We identified those men and then put them in five-months of “elder candidate training.”2 The training involves, on average, three monthly meetings3 along with many books to read, lectures to listen to, and response papers to write. I am always fascinated with and challenged by the resources other churches use for elder training, so I thought it could be useful to provide a list of the books we are using at IDC.

Most of these books are read in their entirety, but from a few we are only reading selected chapters.

BIBLE & THEOLOGY

  • IDC Elder Confession of Faith4
  • The King in His Beauty by Tom Schreiner
  • God’s Big Picture by Vaughn Roberts (UR)5
  • Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves (UR)
  • What is Reformed Theology? by RC Sproul (UR)

ECCLESIOLOGY

  • What is the Mission of the Church? by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert
  • A Display of God’s Glory by Mark Dever
  • The Deliberate Church by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander
  • What is a Healthy Church? by Mark Dever (UR)

PASTORAL MINISTRY

  • The Shepherd Leader by Timothy Witmer
  • Faithful Preaching by Tony Merida        
  • Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons by Thabiti Anyabwile (UR)

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

  • The Practice of Godliness by Jerry Bridges
  • Humility by CJ Mahaney (UR)
  • The Gospel & Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever (UR)
  • Sex, Romance, & The Glory of God by CJ Mahaney (UR)
  • A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home by Jason Helopoulos (UR)
  • Mortification of Sin by John Owen (UR)
  • Rhythms of Grace by Mike Cosper (UR)
  • The Secret Key to Heaven by Thomas Brooks (UR)

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  1. 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus. ↩
  2. We are about to wrap up our second month. ↩
  3. The meetings normally run about three hours. ↩
  4. An adaptation of the 1689 Baptist Confession. ↩
  5. “UR” signifies a book read for The Upper Room, a monthly gathering for all the men in our church. It’s aim is to disciple men to lead in the home and the church. ↩
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Preaching Pastors as Worship Pastors

Preaching Pastors as Worship Pastors

Each week I have the joyful responsibility of deciding what songs our church will sing during gathered worship. Many curious church members have asked why I, the preaching pastor, make such decisions.

In their book, The Deliberate Church, Mark Dever and Paul Alexander offer the following perspective,

You, the pastor, must be theologically discerning in what you encourage and lead your congregation to sing. It also means you must show courage in not allowing yourself to be guided by the musical preferences of the culture or the congregation, or even the passion of a music director, but rather by the theological content of the songs and their edification potential. Edification – building people up – happens when people are encouraged to understand and apply the Gospel more biblically, not necessarily when they are led into an emotional experience or encouraged to identity temporary emotional expressiveness with worship.

Lyrics set to music have formative power because they are memorable. Use songs that fill our minds with God’s character, that form our worldview by God’s truth, and that teach us about the biblical meaning and personal implications of His Gospel. Just as with prayer, so here, everything that happens up front in corporate gatherings is a function of the teaching ministry of the church. As the main teaching pastor, it is therefore your responsibility to shepherd the congregation into the green pastures of God-centered, Gospel-centered songs, and away from the arid plains of theological vacuity, meditations on human experience, and emotional frenzy. The best of the hymns and the best of the more modern worship choruses are those that direct our focus away from ourselves and onto the character and Gospel of God. Practice discerning the difference, and be careful about what you’re teaching through the music you encourage people to sing. If at all possible, refuse to pawn this responsibility off to someone else. God will hold us accountable for this aspect of our teaching ministries as well – even if we do delegate it (Heb. 13:17).

– Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel, 84-85.

Preaching pastors – and any installed elders – are charged with overseeing all aspects of the church’s teaching ministry. Songs teach the congregation (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). Therefore, preaching pastors ought to ordinarily oversee the selection of songs for their congregation’s gathered worship.

Preaching pastors are worship pastors.

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Reasons and Rules for Preaching Christ

photo(15)Thomas Brooks is probably my favorite Puritan author. There is a warmth, clarity, and verve about his prose few Christian authors have ever been able to match. Spurgeon said he was excessively “sweet and sparkling” in his use of language.

His best known work probably is Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, but The Privy Key to Heaven or Heaven on Earth have also been reprinted for centuries. Tucked away in volume three of his collected works is a masterful meditation on Christian humility from Ephesians 3:8 entitled, “The Unsearchable Riches of Christ.” The majority of Brooks’ work is taken up with the first part of Ephesians 3:8 and Paul’s confession that he “is the least of all the saints.” But patient reading is rewarded for at the end Brooks reaches the topic of humble Christ-centered preaching. And oh how the sparkling doctor shines!

This section on preaching is fueled by Brooks’ belief, “That it is the great duty of preachers to preach Jesus Christ to the people.” He then moves to the “why” and “how” of preaching Christ, by first giving 5 reasons:

  1. It is the only way to save and to win souls to Jesus Christ.
  2. It is the choicest and chiefest way to ingratiate Christ with poor souls.
  3. The preaching of Christ is the only way to preach down anitchrist, or whatever makes against Christ.
  4. The Christ-less preacher contracts the blood of souls.1
  5. The preaching of Christ contributes most to people’s comfort here and to their reward hereafter.

“It is only the preaching of Christ, that allures and draws the souls of men,” Brooks writes. This kind of allurement and drawing of souls to Christ means, according to Brooks, preaching marked by 11 adverbs. The preacher must preach Christ:

  • Plainly
  • Faithfully
  • Humbly
  • Wisely
  • Boldly
  • Consistently
  • Exemplarily
  • Experientially
  • Rightly
  • Acceptably
  • Constantly

Brooks knows that such exhortation might be simultaneously encouraging and discouraging for some. So he goes on to make a “counted presumption” that his readers will allow him to “propound a few rules for such to observe that are willing to preach Christ to poor souls.” He offers three:

  1. If you would preach Christ to the people, according to the rules last mentioned, then you must get Christ within you. “There is nothing that makes a man indeed so able to preach Christ to the people, as the getting Christ within him . . . Nothing will make him so wise, so painful, so watchful, so careful to win souls, as Christ within; nothing will make a man strive with sinners, and weep over sinners, and wait upon sinners for their return, as Christ within.”
  2. They that would preach Christ to the people must study more Scripture truths, Scripture mysteries, than human histories. “They must study God’s book more than all other books . . . Let the word be so concocted an digested by you, as that you turn it into a part of yourselves.”
  3. Such as would preach Christ aright to the people had need to dwell much upon the vanity of human doctrines. “Human doctrines to not discover sin in its ugliness and filthiness as the Scriptures do. Human doctrines have no humbling power in them. Human doctrines are so far from enriching the soul, that they usually impoverish the soul. They make men-pleasers of men rather than pleasers of God; yea, they make men set up themselves and others, sometimes in the room of Christ, and sometimes above Christ.”

5 reasons, 11 adverbs, and 3 rules for preaching Christ. This is Puritan meditation at its finest.

  1. Here he channels what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.” ↩
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5 Means to Excellence in Public Prayer

photo(14)I didn’t grow up in churches where the pastor engaged in extended public prayer during the week’s worship gathering.

Most churches I have been a part of (as a member or pastor) treated prayer mostly as a transitional element, a way to move somewhat seamlessly from song to sermon and then back to song. Over the years I’ve had peculiar interest in studying what the Bible says about corporate worship and what history reveals about the church’s worship. It didn’t take very long to see the Bible and church history unveil a prominent place to public prayer. Yet, I still really didn’t know of any churches that had a distinct time in their weekly worship for a pastoral prayer . . . then I went to Capitol Hill Baptist Church.1 Their service had lots of public prayer; lots of long public prayer.2  It was a joy to experience!

As a result of these studies and experiences, we planted Imago Dei Church with a hope that God would mold us into a praying church. A reflection of that desire is seen in our weekly liturgy as we have set times for both public and private prayer. In the middle of our service I get up and offer a pastoral prayer – mostly a prayer of intercession – for six to seven minutes. I think it might be the most daunting thing I do each week, thus I am always looking for ways to grow in this area.

Enter Samuel Miller’s Thoughts on Public Prayer. I finished the book this week and Miller’s work ends with a thunderous chapter entitled, “The Best Means of Attaining Excellence in Public Prayer.” He organizes his thoughts under five primary means leading to excellence in public prayer. I needed to read them and maybe they will be of profit to you as well.

SAMUEL MILLER’S FIVE MEANS TO EXCELLENCE IN PUBLIC PRAYER

  1. None can hope to attain excellence in the grace and gift of prayer in the public assembly, unless they abound in closet devotion, and in holy communion with God in secret.
  2. Not only read, but study some of the best books which have treated the subject.
  3. Store your mind with the language and riches of the word of God.
  4. When any dispensation of Providence occurs,3 which appears to demand special attention in the devotions of the sanctuary, to make prompt and special preparation for presenting that object in public prayer in the most simple, scriptural, and edifying form.
  5. Cultivate the habit of devotional composition; i.e. consider writing out your prayer.

Eventually I hope to post choice excerpts from Means #1 as Miller’s thoughts on the subject are invaluable, but in posting this I am freshly reminded of my need to spend time in the closet. Off I go.

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  1. I’ve since come across many more churches that have extended times of public prayer. ↩
  2. Mark Dever, pastor at CHBC, was once asked about the church’s practice of corporate prayer and he said: “At Capitol Hill Baptist we will always have a prayer of praise (which is focused on some aspect of God), a prayer of confession (where we confess our sins), a prayer of intercession/pastoral prayer (where we pray through various concerns that we have as a church family), and a brief prayer of thanks. There will also be a prayer after the sermon in which we try to pray certain truths into our hearts; and there will sometimes be a brief prayer of invitation for God’s presence at the beginning of our service.” ↩
  3. This would any unusual event in the life of the church, country, or world. ↩
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A Forgotten Yet Faithful Minister

Saint Paul in PrisonScripture memory reveals unseen treasures in ways few other methods of study and meditation can.

Case in point: Epaphras. Two years ago I decided to memorize the book of Colossians and I found myself regularly amazed at truth I never really saw before. One such revelation was this man named Epaphras. He only shows up three times in all of Scripture and two of them are in Colossians:1

  1. “You learned [the grace of God in truth] from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.” – Col. 1:7-8
  2. “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” – Col. 4:12-13

If you try to summarize everything these four verses say about Epaphras the summary might go something like this, “Epaphras was a faithful minister of Christ who taught the gospel, prayed, and worked hard.” Oh, what a three-pronged challenge to faithful pastoring! Let me work out this summary sentence on faithful ministry a bit more.

“He was a faithful minister who taught the gospel.” Paul kicks of Colossians 1 by sharing his delight in the young church’s faith in Christ and love for one another, things fueled by their hope in heaven. He continues to say that their hope came from hearing “the word of truth, the gospel,” and this they heard from Epaphras. This forgotten saint reminds every pastor that his ministry is to be preoccupied with that which if of first importance, the gospel. The Colossians not only “heard” the gospel, but they “understood” it as well. A preacher doesn’t minister the gospel with the sole aim of being heard; no, he must long to be understood as well. Such understanding can only come from the Spirit’s work, thus the faithful minister must be distinguished as a Spirit-dependent man. Like the sower in Mark 4:1-9, the pastor offers the seed of the gospel to everyone who will listen – even those who won’t listen – and prays for the Spirit to give them understanding.

“He was a faithful minister who prayed.” He not only prayed, but prayed with peculiar devotion.  4:12 says Epaphras was “always struggling.” The Greek for “struggling” is ἀγωνιζόμενος, more literally translated as “agonizing.” Faithful ministry, according to Epaphras, includes agonizing prayer for the flock to “stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” The energy of Epaphrus’ praying is challenging, but so to is the content of his praying. Any pastor who makes small advancement in prayer knows how easy it is to let somewhat secondary concerns dominate his prayers for the flock. Epaphras was consumed with pleas for his people to stand mature in Christ and assured in God’s will. This even echoes what Paul said earlier in the book. In 1:28-29 Paul says he proclaims Christ in order to “present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” He then proceeds in chapter 2 to place more detail on the nature of his struggle, or agony. He agonizes for the Colossians “that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

So preach the gospel with the aim of being understood, agonize in prayer for maturity and assurance in Christ, and thirdly . . .

“He was a faithful minister who worked hard.” Epaphras bears the apostolic testimony that he “worked hard” for Christians in Colosse, “Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” Pastoral ministry hides lazy men quite well. The average size of the average congregation in our country means most minister work away from accountable eyes. As a church planter leading a small church I know just how easy it is to waste away the hours of each day and have few people know I’ve done so. But God will not suffer lazy shepherds, they are of all men to be diligent in faithful enterprise. Notice that Epaphras was not only commended for hard work in Colosse, but hard work in Laodicea and Hierapolis. These three cities made up the ancient Lycos Valley in modern day Turkey. Laodicea was 10 miles northwest of Colosse, and Hierapolis is thought to be about 13 miles northeast of Laodicea. So Epaphras was faithful to not only make the gospel known in Colosse, but also in the main cities nearby. The hard work of ministry should include working for gospel advancement in the surrounding areas of our immediate city or town. May God give us hearts for those near and far, and the energy to work hard for His glory everywhere we can.

“Epaphras was a faithful minister of Christ who taught the gospel, prayed, and worked hard.” He is a forgotten minster worth remembering.

  1. The other time is in Philippians 1:23 where we find he was with Paul in prison. ↩

It is the indispensable duty of every minister, previously to his entering on his office, to prepare and qualify himself for public prayer, as well as for preaching. He ought, by a thorough acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures; by reading the best writers on the subject; by meditation; and by a life of holy communion with God in secret, to endeavor to acquire both the spirit and the gift of prayer.

Thoughts on Public Prayer by Samuel Miller (Harrisonburg: Sprinkle, 1849), 260
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3 Truths About the Christ-Centered Church

church_coverJesus came to inaugurate God’s kingdom in this world and it was the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable revolution the universe has ever seen.1

In Mark 3:7-12 we find that virtually all of Israel has followed Christ into the wilderness, reminding us of a time when Israel followed another redeemer, Moses, into the wilderness. It was there that God constituted His people as a nation at Mt. Sinai. Thus it should be no surprise to us when we hear in Mark 3:13-19 Jesus went up to a mountain to reconstitute God’s people. He did this by calling twelve men to follow Him as apostles.

A first century Jew would have immediately recognized a connection with the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus could have chosen any number of apostles, but He picks twelve, indicating to us there is an organic connection, and I would argue, an organic fulfillment and spiritual restoration of Old Testament Israel. We see this truth in Matthew 19 as it is the twelve apostles of Christ, not the twelve patriarchs of Israel, who will sit alongside Jesus at the time of judgment. As Mark 1 shows, Jesus is the true Israel, thus those called out by Him and united to Him are part of true Israel. The calling of the twelve signifies then the recreation and fulfillment of God’s covenant people, what Galatians 6 calls, “the Israel of God.”

This mountainside event has much to tells us regarding the Church of Christ. Three things are worth our meditation.

First, Christ calls His church. “He called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him” (Mark 3:13). The doctrine of God’s sovereign election and sovereign calling is a divisive one and a debated one. Yet, how can we deny, according to this text, that Christ’s sovereign choice is not the cause of Christ’s church? Let the church see the comfort and joy found in Christ’s calling. There on that mountainside was a group lowly, shunned, or outcast men in Jewish society, and a rabbi calls them unto Himself. Can you imagine the joy and delight they would have experienced in that moment? The sovereign selection of Christ is the ground for our highest praise! Our church’s confession (New Hampshire Baptist Confession) understands this for it says God sovereign choice “utterly excludes boasting, and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, trust in God, and active imitation of his free mercy.” Few truths are sweeter to the Christian’s soul than the calling of Christ.

If you are not a Christian hear the call of the gospel that comes from Christ’s word and spirit. You were created to glorify God in knowledge, love, and obedience. But you have disobeyed God, loved things in the world, and cared little for who He is. The Bible says the just God of the universe will condemn you to eternal death for your sin. But because He loved sinners, and knew sinners can do nothing to earn their salvation, He sent His son, this Jesus Christ, to die in the place of sinners. He was crucified so that God’s wrath against every sinner who believed in Him would be satisfied. Then He rose again, guaranteeing that all who trust in Him will find new life. We may not be on a mountain today, but He calls to you from His word and through His Spirit. Will you come to him?

Second, Christ centers His church. Mark 3:14 literally reads in the Greek, “And he made [created] twelve, so that they might be with Him.” One commentator says, “The simple prepositional phrase has atomic significance in the Gospel of Mark.” 2 The atomic significance is found in the truth that being with Jesus is the center of Christian discipleship. He was with the twelve physically, but is with us today through His word and spirit. He centers His church and dwells with His people through the ordinary means given to us: the reading and preaching of His word, prayer, fellowship, songs, and sacrament. If these are the ordinary means by which Christ centers His people, we must be again reminded of how vital gathering with the church is to our discipleship. Missing out on the Saturday gathering means missing out on the power packed means of grace given so that we might be with Christ. To regularly shun the corporate gathering is to regularly shun the atomic power of discipleship. The elements of a church’s corporate gathering are like spiritual sticks of dynamite laid on top of our soul. The Spirit intends to place them there and light ’em up as He molds us into the image of Christ.

Third, Christ commissions His church. “He made the twelve, so that they might be with him and send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (Mark 3:14-15). In some respects this preaching and authority to cast out demons was unique to the original apostles as Hebrews 2 and 2 Corinthians 12 make clear. Although our commission is not apostolic, we have the similar commissioning priorities: communion with God, speaking of the good news, and opposing evil in this world. If we think of the Great Commission – making disciples of all nations – as a three-legged stool, then these priorities are the three legs: 1) communion with Jesus, 2) speaking of Jesus, and 3) fighting the good fight against sin and evil. Faithfulness to our commission means faithfulness to these priorities.

Do you see how radically Christ-centered the church must be? He calls, centers, and commission His people.  If we tried to sum up our three truths in one sentence we could say the church is called by Christ, to be with Christ, in order to go for Christ.

  1. This is an excerpt from my recent sermon on Mark 3:7-19. ↩
  2. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, 113. ↩