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Time to Intrude

The Great Intrusion

Satan’s wormy deceits are rarely little more than efforts to get us to believe the same ol’ thing: that we are autonomous. He wants us to believe we aren’t accountable to anyone but ourselves, that we are the only sovereign over our soul.

And prayer is the great intrusion upon Satan’s self-sovereignty campaign. It’s one way to whip the Worm.

Here’s how it works.

ANNOUNCING HIS GLORY

Although it can’t properly be called “proclamation,” prayer does preach. It announces to our souls and to the cosmos that God is the only Sovereign in the universe. He alone lives in total self-sufficiency and independence. He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything, but He gives life and breath to all things. He created all things and sustains all things, thus He is able to provide all things.

He alone is the sovereign God of all, so we announce His all-knowing, almighty character by bowing down to pray.

RENOUNCING OUR GREATNESS

Prayer not only announces, it also renounces. It is the ordinary work of renouncing our own self-sovereignty project. We are weak, needy, and utterly helpless to change any of the spiritual conditions we face. Great knowledge and power is beyond our grasp. The treasures of wisdom and knowledge are not in us, nor is unimpeachable goodness or justice.

So we pray to renounce any purported ability to govern or rule our lives.

THE GREAT INTRUDERS

I long to see a generation of pastors come to be known as The Great Intruders, brothers who storm the gates of hell each day in their prayer closets. Our daily intrusions on the Dark Kingdom prepare us to skillfully marshal the Lord’s army each Lord’s Day for that week’s offensive assault on the Worm’s castle.

Will you join me today and intrude upon the Dragon’s designs?

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Learning to Live

1 John Podcast

An excerpt from my recent sermon, “A Message of Light and Love,” on 1 John 1:1-4.

THE CENTER OF FAITH

John writes, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” So this prologue is all about “the word of life,” but what is the word of life? Look at how in 1:2 John gives a parenthesis of sorts to describe the word of life, he says, “the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.” It seems right to say in light of 1:1-2 that the word of life is a message and a man.

For those of you who’ve read John’s gospel you can’t help but see the similarities the two prologues have, for they focus on the man of Christ and the message of Christ, Him who was “from the beginning.” And that which was from the beginning, John says, “was made manifest.” The word of life came. I want you to see a couple things from these verses about Jesus’ coming.

  • His coming was historical. Twice John says the “life was made manifest.” Jesus, God of very God who has existed from eternity past, came to be born of a virgin. John says in his gospel prologue’s primary verse, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). Jesus appeared in history. Our faith is not based on mystical truth, theoretical belief, or subjective intuition, but on the actual – historical – life and ministry of Jesus Christ. This fact is oh so important in the letter because we will soon hear how the chief error coming from the false teachers among John’s flock was their conviction that Jesus didn’t really come in the flesh. He’ll say in 4:2, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”
  • His coming was experiential. John says he and the apostles “have heard . . . seen with our eyes . . . looked upon and . . . touched.” John’s experience of Jesus is a foundation for his authority in this letter.
  • His coming brings the eternal. At the end of 1:2 John writes we “proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father.” Jesus came from eternity in order to bring people into eternity. If you’re in here tonight and are not a Christian, I hope you will keep coming back for this series. Jesus brings eternal life, John says. Your sin will lead to eternal death, but if you trust in who Jesus is and what Jesus did – He will bring you into eternal life with the Father.

These three dimensions of Jesus’ coming not only mean Jesus is central to faith, but also that our faith is personal and is a proclamation. Notice how John gets to the heart of the matter at the beginning of 1:3, “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you.” A proclaimed Christ is the center of true faith and fellowship. Do you long for, pray for, and rejoice in the proclamation of Jesus? If you are a Christian, do you have increasing delight in hearing about Jesus? Are you more captivated with Christ this year than you were a couple years ago? Our weekly gatherings are where we rally around the announcement of a crucified King.

Which gets us then to a couple purpose statements we find in the last two verses of our text, the truth that Jesus is “The Center of Fellowship.”

THE CENTER OF FELLOWSHIP

Look at the end of 1:3. John says, we proclaim this word of life, “so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Now, we need to accurately get our heads around this idea of fellowship. In most circles today when Christians and churches talk about fellowship it normally doesn’t mean much more than church members hanging out while eating food. But the fellowship John desires is so much deeper in its spiritual soul. G. Campbell Morgan said the word “fellowship” is “a rich and spacious word, full of suggestiveness, almost impossible of full and final translation.” This is not the fellowship of shared identity like you might have with someone who went to the same university or college. It’s not the common association you have with people who root for the same sports team, no matter how emotional that unity could possible be. No, this fellowship is the living communion of people who have a shared, living experience of Jesus Christ. This means, when church members meet together and no one can speak of the way Jesus is moving, mending, and leading in our lives than we shouldn’t call it fellowship at all. When you meet with other Christians, what subjects dominate your conversation? The degree to which your conversations are Christ-centered is the degree to which you are experiencing real fellowship.

We need to recognize from the outset of this book that John is telling us true fellowship is more about corporate experience than personal experience. This letter is going to beat that drum until its truth pounds its way into our hearts. The Christian community is one where the force and energy of collective celebration in Christ supersedes personal preference about Christ. Jesus is the center of faith and fellowship.

THE STARTING BLOCKS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

The movie I watched, more than any other, in my childhood years was Chariots of Fire. Have you ever seen it? It’s tells the story of two sprinters competing at the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell a devout Christian from Scotland and Harold Abrahams, an English Jews who runs to overcome prejudice. Many scenes from the movie are indelibly inked on my brain, but for whatever reason one shot I thought about this week was when Abrahams takes a little handheld shovel to dig two holes in the track for his starting positions. Starting blocks didn’t come into popular use until 1937.

We know from the rest of the New Testament that the Christian life is a race, and I think our text gives us the two starting blocks for our race. If we are going to start well and thus run well, I believe our text is telling us we launch from two particular things.

Learn about Jesus rightly. He came from the Father to take on flesh in order to give us eternal life. AW Tozer once famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” I think John is saying, “The first thing that comes into our minds when think about Jesus is the most important thing about us.” Who is Jesus to you? Who is Jesus to us? Oh, may He be everything to you, to us! Furthermore, this tells us our faith is a thinking faith. Thinking rightly about Jesus is, literally, a matter of eternal life and death. And 1 John tells us our learning ought to lead to living. Which leads to the second starting block . . .

Live in Jesus joyfully. 1:3 tells us John is writing this message for fellowship, but notice he give another reason in 1:4, “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” Do you find an other-worldly joy when you are with the people of God, celebrating and exalting in out fellowship with the Son of God? Learn about Jesus rightly so you may live in Jesus joyfully.

These then are our starting points: learning about Jesus rightly and living in Jesus joyfully. For Jesus is the center of faith and fellowship.

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Recent Reads

I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

It’s been a long while, 28 days to be exact (a record for me), since I did a Recent Reads post. Although my posting has been more infrequent my reading hasn’t. With quite a few titles this time around my thoughts will be shorter than normal, but I hope they will be useful in some way nonetheless.

9780310517375mOrdinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World by Michael Horton. A needed book for our restlessly radical age. Ordinary is often brilliant and occasionally redundant. In other words, it’s typical fare for the good doctor from Westminster Seminary California. Not everyone will be convinced he strikes the appropriate biblical balance between ordinary and risky faith, but I think he succeeds. This one is well worth reading.

EYPLEnjoy Your Prayer Life by Michael Reeves. One my reading maxims is: “If Michael Reeves writes it, read it.” Enjoy Your Prayer Life is more a booklet than a book, but that’s not a disadvantage at all. With his usually color and pithiness Reeves illuminates the struggle of prayer in wise ways. The treatment largely expounds Calvin’s conviction of prayer being “the chief exercise of faith.” I could see this one being a great resource for pastors to continually – and freely – hand out in their churches.

HCMHabits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as Christian Calling by James Sire. Like Guiness, Noll, and Moreland before him, James Sire wants to rescue the mind for the glory of God. We are, after all, called to love the Lord will all our minds. Sire effectively and winsomely argues for pursuing an intellectual life unto the glory of God. Some of his counsel is curious, such as his rapturous affection for the lectio divina method of reading, but anyone concerned with the life of the mind would do well to consult this work.

TSISThey Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. All academic writing, Graff and Birkenstein say, is “argumentative writing. . . . And we believe that to argue well you need to do more than assert your own position. You need to enter a conversation, using what others say (or might say) as a launching pad or sounding board for your own views” (3). To help writers engage in this kind of conversation They Say/I Say is built around a series of templates designed to help the writer understand and employ “the deep, underlying structure, the internal DNA as it were, of all effective argument.” The templates are really, really useful. I imagine I’ll be returning to this resource often int he future.

RSResearch Strategies: Finding Your Way Through The Information Fog by William Badke. “Everyone does research. Some just do it better than others,” so says William Badke in the first sentence Research Strategies. Learning in “the information age” presents boundless opportunities for learning, but “faced with a humongous number of Internet sites, not to mention academic and commercial databases of increasing size and complexity, knowing how to navigate through the information fog isn’t something you can pick up easily on your own” (xvii). This textbook is no page turner (what textbook is?), but it abounds in up-to-date strategies for research students.

indexStylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword. Sword’s mission in Stylish Academic Writing is clear from the outset, “In this book, I argue that elegant ideas deserve elegant expressions; that intellectual creativity thrives best in an atmosphere of experimentation rather than conformity” (vii). Her agenda then is “transformative,” one she hopes will result in improved reading conditions for all. Her research into the writing styles of academics is fascinating and undeniably useful. One of the better works I’ve read on the subject.

QRSQuality Research Papers: For Students of Religion and Theology by Nancy Vhymeister. Catching on to a theme with these last few titles? Yep, these are all textbooks for an upcoming doctoral seminar on theological research. Quality Research Papers was originally written in Spanish for South American graduates students in 1980. Edits and additions were made throughout the years and in 2014 Zondervan published the third edition of Vhymeister’s work. Its purpose is simple: “to put several aspects of research writing – bibliography, search techniques, organization, and form – into a balanced perspective” (ix). Straight forward and simple.

HAPHistory of the American People by Paul Johnson. I bought History of the American Peeople on sale at Amazon several months ago for $8 and it might be my best ever use of eight greenbacks. Johnson’s tome is, in every sense of the word, magisterial. This is history at its finest. The story is told with compelling verve, the analysis is objective, and the research is immense. Johnson leaves no stone unturned in his account of our fine nation – politics; business and economics; art, literature and science; society and customs; complex traditions and religious beliefs are all given adequate space. An astounding accomplishment!

TEThe Escape by David Baldacci. Of all the various Baldacci series John Puller one is my favorite. Baldacci consumed much of last spring’s popular fiction reading and after several months with the author I knew I needed a break. The plots were becoming increasingly predictable which robbed joy from my pleasure reading. My expectations were thus quite tempered when I started The Escape, the third Puller title. Yet by the end I thought to myself, “This is the best Baldacci book I’ve ever read.” Enough said. Moving on . . .

BBrilliance by Markus Sakey. I don’t remember how I came across this title – I probably was mindlessly perusing Amazon – but oh! how glad I am that I did. When I saw Gillian Flynn call Sakey “the master of the mindful page turner,” and Michael Connelly write say he’s “one of our best storytellers,” I said, “I’m definitely in.” Creativity and thrills abound in Brilliance; Sakey clearly has talent to spare. This book is soooooo good. Once I put it down I turned to my wife and said, “I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun reading a fiction book.” I’d be surprised if you’d be able to start this and not race your way to the end.

BSA Better Life by Markus Sakey. I didn’t think my delight towards Brilliance could increase, but when I found out it was the first of a trilogy (“The Brilliance Saga”) the happiness multiplied exponentially. A Better Life picks up the story three months from where Brilliance left off and Sakey in no way disappoints. The story is full of texture, suspense, and roller coaster rides of fun. I can only hope the brilliant Mr. Sakey is racing to finish the trilogy’s final volume. Can’t wait!

MSGMy Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni. My holiday binge of mystery/suspense novels continued with Dugoni’s story of Tracy Crosswhite, a Seattle detective who’s been consumed for the last twenty years with the disappearance of her beloved sister. I must give Dugoni credit because two-thirds of the way through I was convinced I had his endgame all sorted, but he threw me an unexpected curve ball as the book ramped up to its conclusion. A breeze of a read, if it is a bit dark at points.

TCTerminal City by Linda Fairstein. Sometime last summer I watched an interview with Daniel Silva (author of the great Gabriel Allon series) and he recommended Terminal City as a wonderful summer read. Well, I got around to it in the winter, but it was wonderful nonetheless. This is the seventeenth (!) book in Fairstein’s series centered on one Alexandra Cooper. While Terminal City isn’t a work of historical fiction it still manages to pack in a stunning amount of history. All of it surrounding New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. The historical asides will undoubtedly stilt the narrative for some, yet I think they add peculiar flavor to the story. I did find the ending less than satisfying, but I can forgive that for a suprisingly informative work of fiction.

Click here to find other entries in the Recent Reads series.

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The Kind of Preaching We Need

Preach the Word 1

Mark Twain once wrote to a student, “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable.”

Now, I’m not one to argue with good Mr. Clemens (Twain’s real name), for he is right on the whole. Yet, there are indeed times when adjectives are not only useful, but vital. For instance, it’s a glorious thing to be called a preacher, but what kind of preacher do you want to be? This is where modern man’s adjectival tendencies can help.

WHAT KIND OF PREACHER ARE YOU?

As I listen to modern evangelical sentiment I hear two dominant descriptions for good preaching; descriptions many a pastor long to embody. These are desirable at a certain level, but they are – I believe – ultimately found wanting.

“He’s an entertaining preacher.” This is good to an extent; no preacher should aspire to be boring. Yet, the preacher is not fundamentally an entertainer, he’s a herald. Piper is classic on this when he says, “Laughter seems to have replaced repentance as the goal of many preachers. Laughter means people feel good. It means they like you, it means you have moved them. It means you have some measure of power. It seems to have all the marks of successful communication – if the depth of sin and the holiness of God and the danger of hell and need for broken hearts is left out of account.” “Entertaining” is normally synonymous with humor-filled, anecdote-saturated sermons. Comedians and thespians are entertainers, we preachers are not.

“He’s an authentic preacher.” Amen, let’s be authentic. Hypocrisy has no place at the sacred desk. My problem, generally, with this moniker is that by “authentic” most people seem to mean “he’s honest about his struggles.” I have many thoughts on this matter and might write more about it one day, but for now I must simply say the pulpit is not the pastor’s confessional. To ordinarily use the sermon as an occasion to reveal your brokenness can be wise. But it seems to be more often, unintentionally so, a way to put the messenger – not the message – in the spotlight.

If these two popular advertisements are not ideal, what heraldic description should we preachers desire? Many possibilities exist, but let me suggest one worth your consideration: “He’s a weighty preacher.”

How often do you hear preachers celebrated for their spiritual, sermonic girth?

SPIRITUAL WEIGHT-LIFTERS

Now I have heard, on occasion, a man described as being “a deep preacher.” While, on the face of it, “deep” seems akin to “weighty,” I don’t think they are actually close in meaning. In my experience “deep” preaching is normally layman’s code for, “That preacher, he’s really smart.” Preachers ought to be smart, but “smart” isn’t the adjective we want to reign supreme.

But “weighty”? That’s a word we ought want to fly over our preaching. Weighty means much more than “smart,” “erudite,” or “profound,” what people usually associate with “deep” preachers. “Weighty” is a God-praising, Christ-exalting, and Spirit-empowered adjective. Here’s why I feel I can say that with such certainty: our God is consumed with weight. Any Hebrew 101 student can tell you the Hebrew word for “glory” is kabod. And what does kabod literally mean? You got it; “weight.” Like Jonathan Edwards said, God’s glory is the weight of all that He is, the fullness of his understanding, virtue, and happiness.

So then, weighty preaching is glory-filled preaching.

Have you ever walked away from a sermon feeling the majesty of God and magnificence of Jesus  p r e s s i n g  on your soul? If so, you’ve sat under weighty preaching.

The preaching event, and I mean this reverently, is not unlike spiritual weight-lifting. A preacher is like a personal trainer who puts weights in the hands of his trainees. In this analogy weight isn’t a barbell packed with 45lb. plates, it’s the fullness of God – which comes through His word and spirit. And the trainee is a church member who, with the preacher’s help, finds his or her spiritual strength increasing over time. The preaching event is spiritual weight-lifting.

All this to say, just like a weightlifter experiences the heaviness of a squat or bench press, weighty preaching is something a congregation feels. And that happens when the following two things are true about a preacher and his sermon.

IT’S A WEIGHTY FEELING

His matter is weighty. Oh, how I wish we could take this for granted! But we dare not. Wherever the text is in sacred Scripture, it is part of the unsearchable riches of Christ. It has been breathed out by God for the exaltation of His name and the edification of His people. God’s truth is happily heavy. Every word of it. Our sermons then must reflect this in their matter. We don’t enshroud the weighty word of God with an airy atmosphere of light anecdotalism. We trim off sermonic fat in order to give ’em red meat for their soul.

And that which is heavy must be handled is a specific way. Here then is the second thing essential to weighty preaching.

His manner is weighty. The enemy of weightiness, clearly, is lightness. The people of God will never feel the weight of God if the preacher floats around like a leaf during delivery. We are heralds of the Holy, not simple hucksters of the happy. Let us be men rooted in reverence and full of fear – the soul-gripping, heart-panting fear of God. In our ascent to the sacred desk may we be like Moses in his descent from the sacred mountain: aglow with the glory of God.

So, yes, strive to be engaging and authentic in your preaching. But strive ever more for the weight of God to mark your matter and manner in preaching.

Our God is a consuming fire and He wants His shepherds to preach as those consumed . . . consumed with His glory. He wants weighty preachers. May He makes us all into such men.

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Rejoicing in Christ

9780830840229Our main avenue for discipling men at Imago Dei is the weekly gathered worship service. But it’s not the only avenue. Another road is something we call The Upper Room.

On the second Sunday of each month a few dozen men from our church get together to eat BBQ breakfast tacos and encourage each other in Christ. In 2013 our gatherings revolved around a particular book I had the men read each month.  Vaughn Roberts’ God’s Big Picture was the first title to step up to the plate. I remember feeling great joy as men, for the first time, were getting a sense of God’s unified movement throughout redemptive history. If you’ve ever read Roberts’ book you know it is gloriously accessible. It thus seemed like a safe bet for the men, many of whom hadn’t read a Christian book cover to cover in a long time.

INTO DEEPER DELIGHT

So it was with some trepidation I announced the second book to the brothers, Michael Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity. Would the men enjoy a dive into deeper theological waters? Or would it stifle the excited momentum we were experiencing? I had read Reeves’ book the year before and it opened new vistas of wonder in my understanding of God, and I longed for it to do the same with my flock. The book is short, but it does demand some level of serious attention. I waited with baited pastoral breath as I watched more than thirty men buy the book that day. Would it help them delight in the Trinity?

I didn’t take long to find out.

Within a few days I began to get texts and emails saying things like, “I’ve never understood God in this way!” “This may be the best book on knowing God I’ve ever read!” “The Trinity finally makes sense to me!” “I love God more than I did before I read this book.”

As the next few weeks went by I noticed the men kept buying up additional copies to give to family members and friends. Reeves’ clearly struck a chord of soul-satisfying joy in the souls of our men.

I have sense sat with great anticipation for Reeves’ next publication.

So it was with peculiar excitement I recently saw a publication date for Reeves’ next book to be published in America, Rejoicing in Christ. IVP is putting it out on March 13th of this year.

I have no doubt the book will lead countless lives to do exactly what the title says.

STARE AT THE SON

IVP’s summary says,

If we want to know who God is, the best thing we can do is look at Christ. If we want to live the life to which God calls us, we look to Christ. In Jesus we see the true meaning of the love, power, wisdom, justice, peace, care and majesty of God.

Michael Reeves, author of Delighting in the Trinity, opens to readers the glory and wonder of Christ, offering a bigger and more exciting picture than many have imagined. Jesus didn’t just bring us the good news. He is the good news. Reeves helps us celebrate who Christ is, his work on earth, his death and resurrection, his anticipated return and how we share in his life.

This book, then, aims for something deeper than a new technique or a call to action. In an age that virtually compels us to look at ourselves, Michael Reeves calls us to look at Christ. As we focus our hearts on him, we see how he is our life, our righteousness, our holiness and our hope.

Yes, let’s stare at the Son together. To whet your appetite even more, here’s an excerpt from the introduction. Oh! this book is going to be good.

Michael Horton writes, “If you want to love Christ more, you need a better view of him. Rejoicing in Christ gives you a front-row seat.” “This is a scintillating treatment of a vital subject,” says Robert Letham.

Like Reeves’ other popular works, this book is short (137 pages) and to the point, containing only five chapters:

Introduction: Christianity Is Christ
1. In the Beginning
2. Behold the Man!
3. There and Back Again
4. Life in Christ
5. Come, Lord Jesus!
Conclusion: No Other Name Under Heaven

Set aside some of your church’s book budget to buy multiple copies Rejoicing in Christ. The financial investment will surely reap an untold spiritual reward.

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Naturally Awful

LutherHave you ever heard the story of Martin Luther’s famous, yet apocryphal, devotion to prayer amidst the business of life?

The story usually has someone asking Brother Martin what he would be doing the next day. Luther answer this question by saying something like, “Work, work from early till late. In fact I have so much to do that I shall need to spend the first three hours in prayer in order to be able to get it all done.”

In his little book Enjoy Your Prayer Life Michael Reeves says, “Tales like this turn our bones to jelly because we know we’re not like that. So to prove we are all sinners, and therefore naturally awful at prayer, here’s a real quote from Luther that will comfort you.” At perhaps the busiest time of his life he wrote to his good friend Philipp Melanchthon:

You extol me so much . . . Your high opinion of me shames and tortures me, since – unfortunately – I sit here like a fool and hardened in leisure, pray little, do not sigh for the church of God . . . In short I should be ardent in spirit, but I am ardent in the flesh, in lust laziness, leisure, and sleepiness . . . Already eight days have passed in which I have written nothing, in which I have not prayed or studied; this is partly because of temptations of the flesh, partly because I am tortured by other burdens. – Luther’s Works, Vol. 48

Reeves concludes, “Even Luther, a man who valued prayer very highly, was a real person, a real sinner.”

And real sinners will always struggle at prayer.

So let us take heart. Our struggles are not unique; they need not cripple us. May you rise today with the Spirit’s power and storm the throne of grace. The Father delights to hear from His children, even those that haven’t spoken with Him in quite some time.

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4 Corporate Prayers

A Praying Church Podcast

30 I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, 31 that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, 32 so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. 33 May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. – Romans 15:30-33

WRESTLING TOGETHER IN 2015

My adjustment of 15:30 says, “I urge you, Imago Dei, by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in prayer to God for me—and not just for me, but for the entire mission and ministry of this church.”

What Paul has in mind, in our text, for Christians is a soul-aching, heart-burning wrestling in prayer. It’s devoted. It’s persistent. Faith fills it; dependence motivates it; love controls it. But in many ways, I won’t be able to get you to join in the struggle unless you see and agree with the needs I’m about to line out.

Think about it this way: consider the last time in your life when you were zealous in prayer. What as driving that unusual zeal? I bet it was unusual need. One such instance in my life that came to mind this week was earlier this year when an old childhood friend died in a car accident. He left behind a young wife and a son who was just a few months old. The notion of a child growing up and never knowing his dad was gripping – maybe even crippling – and that need compelled unusually earnest prayer.

Urgent need drives urgent prayer. Here then are four urgent needs we, the elders at IDC, are wrestling for in prayer this year and we are urging our church, by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with us in prayer.

Devotion to gathered worship. As best as we can tell it seems that a large subset of our members will miss, for one reason or another, at least 20 out of the annual 52 Saturday gatherings. This is something we must pray about. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” In light of this verse, one of the things we covenant to as a church is, “We will not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.”

We are encouraging our congregation to examine its orientation toward Saturday night. We are not expecting every member to get a “Perfect Attendance” ribbon at the end of each year, instead – because of Hebrews 10:25 and our church covenant – I want to encourage them to an ordinary prioritization of gathered worship. The corporate gathering is the ordinary means by which Christian discipleship occurs, it is the power center of a local church’s mission, and it is the hub around which our church unity revolves. So to be gone from gathered worship with great frequency means not only missing out on this “atomic power” of discipleship, but it also means putting one’s soul in a dangerous place. As Hebrews 10 says, it’s commitment to corporate worship keep us close to Christ as we await His return.

Zeal in evangelism. The Risen Christ gave us clear marching orders for our corporate mission, “Go into all the world and make disciples by proclaiming the gospel of Christ in the power of the Spirit.” We are praying this year for God to awaken our hearts to the glory of Christ and the plight of men. In the next five years 50,000 people are projected to move into McKinney, with almost another 50,000 coming in the five years following. We stand on the precipice of an unusual opportunity for gospel proclamation. But even if such statistics weren’t true, evangelistic opportunities abound in our area for so many of us. Here then is the primary prayer: that every church member at IDC would share the gospel more in 2015 than any other year to date. Some in our church may just we wading into the evangelism waters, while others might be swimming in the deeps for the first time. The coresponding prayer is for God to awaken our eyes not only to the local need, but to the global need and some would be compelled to go to the nations.

Delight in discipling relationships. Jesus didn’t merely tell us to proclaim His gospel by His spirit, we do that disciples would be gathered into churches so they might worship the Lord and obey His commands; that they might grow as disciples. We long to be a disciple-making church and evangelism is the door that opens unto the house of discipleship. The weekly gathering is like the furnace room, but it’s not all. So we are praying for broad relationships among church members to build one another in Christ. Be it through a small group, regular hospitality, The Upper Room, Women Discipling Women, or just casual, yet regular meetings to discuss spiritual things. We are praying for great delight this year in discipling relationships.

Supernatural provision of a permanent home. The first three are spiritual realities and the final one is a physical reality. And here’s why I add the adjective of “supernatural” to God’s provision of a permanent meeting space. Clearly any provision of a space will be a work of God, but supernatural helps – I hope – us understand how much we need His mighty hand to move in this area. One of the top developers in the metroplex recently told me McKinney is probably the hottest market in the entire country. We are indeed small fish in an ocean of whales right now. But our God rules over even the whales of real estate. Just as a young family inevitably longs for their first home after renting a space, so too do we long for a place where we can call home. With patience and wisdom we look to him to direct our steps. So we are asking the church to pray for the elders and the Future Building Team as we labor and lead in this area.

— This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “A Praying Church.” —

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A Wedding Exhortation

Two Become One

For Jacob and Haley.

We gather today as observers of a wedding because God loves to make new things. We are witnessing before our very eyes the formation of a new household through a new marriage. It’s wise for us, especially in the shifting shadows and institutions of the world we live in, to understand what we are watching tonight and why we are watching it. What I first want to do, then, is briefly outline what the Bible understands marriage to be – I want to help us all meditate on that. After, I want to encourage Jacob and Haley individually in the God-given design of husband and wife.

To the Witnesses

It is a wondrous thing to know a God who providentially rules and governs everything in the universe. Ephesians 1 tells us he works all things to the counsel of his will, to the praise of His glory. So then it is no accident we are here tonight; God has been on the move in the lives of Jacob and Haley.

Marriage is not something we create, but it is something God purposes to sing and shout His grace. It began all the way back in the Garden of Eden. Right after the Lord created Eve, the Bible says something surprising. Adam had found no helper suitable to him among all the beasts that he had named, it was not good for him to be alone, and so God caused a deep sleep to come upon him, removed a rib from his side, and fashioned a woman out of it. God then presented the woman to the man, and his first words—the first human words uttered in the Bible—were words of poetry in praise of the gift he had been given. And what does the next verse say? It says that every marriage after that point should in some fashion be an imitation of this one. It uses the word therefore. Here it is: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). God gives us four vital elements of marriage in this one verse. It is an exclusive relationship. It says that a man shall cleave to his wife. The baseline pattern is one man, one woman, one time. Second, marriage is a public relationship. Notice that it says that a man shall leave his father and mother. This is something that people notice. It is public. Third, it is a permanent relationship. The text says that the man is united to his wife. He cleaves to her. Jesus, later in quoting Genesis 2 says, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” And fourth, marriage is a united relationship; the two become one flesh. Thomas Adams said, “God by creation made two of one, so again by marriage He made one of two.”

So these are the normative parts of marriage: it’s an exclusive, public, and permanent union. But we must add a fifth. It is a gospel-declaring relationship. Paul too quotes Genesis 2 (in Ephesians 5) and says the marriage relationship reveals to the world the relationship between Christ and his church. The Bible tells us every person is born in sin and are thus under the wrath of God. They can do absolutely nothing to remedy the Black Plague of Sin that mars their soul. But God, in His great love for sinners like you and me, sent His Son Jesus Christ to live the perfect life we were supposed to live and die the death we were supposed to die. Three days later He rose again and now reigns at the Father’s right hand. He reaches down and gives eternal life to all who turn from their sin and trust in Him. This is the gospel, the good news. By His blood He ransomed His church, which the Bible also calls His bride.

And marriage, under the gracious sovereignty of God, is meant to declare and display this good news through the relationship between a husband and wife. Now we give our attention to the about-to-be husband.

To the Groom

Jacob, your role as a husband is clear as crystal: in your love and leadership of Haley you are to reflect the love and leadership of Jesus over His church. This means foundationally that you are to love Haley with a love that knows no height, breadth, length, or depth. It is a love ordinarily typified by sacrifice. You must give yourself every day to see your Haley grow and increase in the grace and knowledge of God. This assumes therefore that you are growing as well. Do not let your affections for the Lord run dry, for the minute your affectional-river drains is the minute your leadership of Haley runs on the fumes of small smoke, rather than the full flame of God. Be diligent to cultivate a deeper sense of the unsearchable riches of Christ. And keep everything in proper proportion. Haley, as wonderful as she is not meant to satisfy you, she is meant to come alongside you and help you glorify God, help you together find nothing more satisfying than our great God.

To the Bride

Haley, the kindness of God means we also don’t have to guess at what He wants you to be as a wife. Just as the church serves, submits, and dedicates herself to the Lord Jesus, so too are you to give of yourself to follow Jacob – wherever our good God leads. You are both created in the image of God and thus stand before Him as equals in Christ, yet your roles are different. To submit to Jacob as the church submits to Christ means you have a growing inclination to follow Jacob’s leadership and a delighted disposition to yield to his decisions. Doing this, you will glorify God by relating to your husband the way that the church is to relate to Christ. If you are walking with God—constantly thanking Him for His moment-by-moment grace and continually calling on Him for help—you will find your God-appointed role to be like rich, fertile, pleasant soil, and like a beautiful flower of a wife you will flourish.

To You Both

William Carey once said, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” God is giving you a great thing in this marriage. You must now use this marriage to do great things for God. You must remember, great things are never easy things. When you step down from this stage as husband and wife you enter a spiritual battlefield unlike any other you’ve ever faced. Marriage is meant reveal the gospel and the Snake hates the gospel. He will launch a frontal assault to destroy your joy in marriage so that God will not get the glory He must receive. But do not fear the bared teeth and destructive pursuit of this roaring lion named Satan; Jesus, the Lion of Judah, has conquered. Your marriage is one to be lived as a visible announcement to the world of Jesus’ victory.

So then, let me end by encouraging you to pray for and pursue four things at you attempt great things through this great union of marriage.

Pray for and pursue holiness. Marriage is meant to make you holy, and holiness is the ultimate happiness. Jacob, what Haley needs from you more than anything else is your personal holiness. Haley, what Jacob needs from you more than anything else is your personal holiness. Strive with the Spirit’s power, through the word, for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord and no marriage can find its intended delight.

Pray for and pursue wisdom. When God set Solomon as king over Israel He appeared one night and said, “Ask what I shall give you.” Solomon said, “Give me now wisdom . . . for who can govern this people of yours, which is so great?” We can something similar about this covenant relationship. Who can glorify God in marriage, which is so great? Those who are wise in Christ. The treasures of wisdom are hidden in Christ and they come from the fear of God; get those treasures through that fear.

Pray for and pursue humility. Pride is Satan’s favorite tactic of assault; slay it with humility. Each of you, have the mind of Christ, and count the other as better than yourself.

Pray for and pursue joy. Joy in God is the fountainhead from which joy in each other flows. Sin and Satan will rapidly want you to be bored with each other and grow cold towards each other. If you let joy in God be your constant song you will then find your home to a symphony of love for each other and glory for God.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

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2015 Endeavors

2015 Endeavors

A few weeks ago I was at my local haunt – Rudy’s BBQ – having breakfast with a church member. Yes sir, only in Texas are BBQ breakfast tacos possible. I frequent the store so much one of the managers will start making my order the minute I walk in the door. When we arrived at the register and my tacos were ready for feasting my friend asked, “Do you ever change your order?” I answered tongue-in-cheekly, “I don’t believe in change.”

I love routines and habitual living. It’s rare for me to whimsically change a life pattern unless pressing external circumstances demand me to do so.

The beginning of a new year is one such regular occasion for changing the routine.1 At the beginning of each year I put down a short list of what I call “Endeavors.”2 The system of Endeavors was originally inspired by Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions and gives me foxhole friends for The Good Fight each year.

Here then are my three Endeavors for 2015 . . .

ENDEAVORS FOR 2015

I endeavor to memorize the books of 1 John and 2 Timothy. Next weekend at IDC, Lord willing, we will begin a four-month sermon series through the book of 1 John. I’ve thought in recent weeks, “I might as well memorize it.” I know preaching through the book will make memorizing it easier than it might be otherwise. Since I hope to have 1 John cemented by the end of May, my goal for the rest of the year is to write 2 Timothy on my heart. I’ve long desired to memorize all the pastoral epistles and last year I did 1 Timothy, so Paul’s second letter to his “true child in the faith” is the next logical step.

I endeavor to read Herman Bavinck’s four-volume Reformed Dogmatics. I’ve always advocated the patient, systematic reading of classic works of theology. A few years ago I tackled Calvin’s Institutes and a Brakel’s The Christian’s Reasonable Service, last year I took on the collected works of George Swinnock. Throughout 2014 I considered which set in my study needed slow reading in 2014 and the answer was unmistakable: Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics. By my calculations, seven pages per day will get me through Bavinck’s work with several weeks to spare.

I endeavor to integrate regular fasting into my life and ministry. For a variety of different reasons I’ve never been consistent in the discipline of fasting. Most centrally is the fact I usually only eat one meal a day (a pattern I probably should address in and of itself). Thus, fasting has always seemed to lose some of its weight because I float through most of each day without hunger pains. Nevertheless, I’m endeavoring to rectify this glaring gap in my spiritual life. To begin, I plan to read Piper’s A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer, which I trust will set my course for faithful fasting in 2015.

I can’t wait to see what God will do through these practices. Anyone interested in joining me on the journey?

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  1. I just realized, in writing that sentence, how even changes to my routine are  . . . well, rather routine. ↩
  2. Click here to see the Endeavors from 2014. ↩
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160 Books Later

160 Books

Anyone who reads this here little blog knows I am something of a bibliophile. My days usually begin with The Book and end with another book.

Earlier this summer we had someone do a test on our foundation as it seemed to be sagging a bit. I joked with my wife, “It’s all those books we’ve accumulated at a rapid pace. The books are beating down the house.” Alas, the books aren’t winning, the inspector said our house is doing just fine.

I self-consciously set my reading course for 2014 to be one in which I would buy and read fewer books. But, as I stand here on this final day of 2014 and look at the sagging shelves in my study I’m confronted with the truth of it all: the shelves cry out in pain because I purchased and completed more books this year than any other.

160 books were read cover to cover. I bought more.

Much like my post on 2013’s total list, I’m left wondering today if all the reading is good or bad. Am I idolatrous or studious? Is 160 a consequence of worthy rumination or simply one worthy of remonstration? I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know: books build my soul in myriads of ways, but not as powerfully as The Book does. I think I held that perspective well this year, and I want to do so even more next year. My conviction then going into 2015 is going to be different than in years past. I really don’t care how many books I read as long as The Book receives my most ardent love and attention.