A King Is Coming, But His Name Isn't William

Well, tomorrow is the big day. It's the royal wedding and millions will be watching all around the world. But why? What is at the bottom of such fascination with the wedding of a soon to be king and his princess? To be sure, some of it is wrapped around vanity and materialism, etc., But might it be that there is something in the human heart, a longing that is at the bottom of this excitement?

Mike Cosper writes about this today over at the Gospel Coalition. Here's his conclusion:

Blaise Pascal famously described our vain attempts to fill the infinite abyss inside us with anything but God. Perhaps the obsessive reading, watching, and waiting for Friday’s wedding comes from a similar place, an emptiness inside of us that hungers for the ultimate reign of our King Jesus.

In a few days, much of the Western world will gather around TV sets to watch the incredible spectacle that will surely unfold. There will be a grand processional, and ultimately, a bride will appear, dressed in white, to wed the heir to the throne. We can watch it with a grumpy cynicism; we can watch it with an idolatrous awe; or we can see it as a signpost, pointing to a wedding in which we’ll play a part, and whose King will never disappoint.

Why Not Just Say 'Believe?'

That's the question John Piper asks in the second chapter, "Conversion," in his foundational book, Desiring God. Piper argues that simply saying, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved," is somewhat empty. Not that the verse itself is empty of power and authority, but rather people's understanding of what it means to "Believe" is deficient. The "believe" that the Scripture speaks of is a belief or trust in Jesus Christ as Savior, Lord, and Treasure of your life--finding all of your joy, hope, and satisfaction in Him because of who He is and what He has done and from that flows a radically changed life that obeys the Lord out of joy and not duty.

Piper explains why just saying "Believe" is not enough:

"First we are surrounded by unconverted people who think they do believe in Jesus. Drunks on the street say they believe. Unmarried couples sleeping together say they believe. Elderly people who haven't sought worship or fellowship for forty years say they believe. All kinds of lukewarm, world-loving church attenders say they believe. The world abounds with millions of unconverted people who say they believe in Jesus.

It does no good to tell these people to believe in the Lord Jesus. The phrase is empty. My responsibility as a preacher of the gospel and a teacher in the church is not to preserve and repeat cherished biblical sentences, but to pierce the heart with biblical truth.

Pastors, Don't Listen to the 'Old Man'

From Jonathan Leeman's Reverberation: How God's Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action To His People:

"The 'old man' in each of us--to use Paul's language--continually tempts us to value or build our churches on other things, things we can see and measure. We want to rely on marketing research, personal charisma, good music, or other natural devices. Now, I'm not saying that 'natural' devices are bad, per se. But if we're relying upon them, there's no difference between us and the world. God means to challenge us right here. 'Is not my word like fire' he would say to us, 'and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.' (Jer. 23:29)...

The power of God's Word is a faith proposition. It takes faith to believe that invisible words and the invisible Spirit could give life to a valley of dry bones. By comparison, it takes absolutely no faith to believe in the power of beauty, intelligence, strength, style, or humor. These qualities are attractive, and we can literally watch them draw a crowd. We can watch them build a 'church.'"

Can the Gospel Get Worn Out?

Here's an excerpt from Jared Wilson's forthcoming book Gospel Wakefulness, posted at his blog here.

That last diagnostic question raises what I call the “Catch-22” of gospel-centrality.
As a pastor I am frequently faced with questions, either from curious people or from temptation from the devil, about the durability of the gospel week in and week out. It is the centerpiece of my preaching, the central theme of my ministry, the heart of my life, and the joy of my tongue and pen. Occasionally I am faced with this question: Can it not get worn out from all that use?

Here is the Catch-22 of gospel centrality: Whether one “gets it” or not, the prescription for preaching and all of life is still the gospel. The critic of the one-note Johnnyism of gospel-centrality just doesn’t get it. But the gospel is versatile enough for those who do and don’t. And there’s the awesomeness of the gospel-centered life! Those who haven’t yet experienced gospel wakefulness can only do so by hearing the gospel, and those who have experienced gospel wakefulness don’t tire of hearing it!

Either way, the gospel is the answer.

What a Relief!

Kevin DeYoung gives us some comfort with truth when we feel like we are doing all that we can do in service to the Lord, but still are not doing enough.

Read the relief he gives us here if you have ever felt like this:

I’m always trying to figure out how I can possibly be obedient to all that the Lord seems to want from us. At times it feels like God expects us to be 24-7 prayer warriors with a commitment to social justice and involvement in the pro-life cause and lead lengthy family devotions and mentor a young Christian and read five Christian books a month and work through Operation World and adopt a child from Africa. Have you ever thought, “Lord, I don’t have enough hours in the day to be obedient to all that you expect from me?” If you have, something is wrong with the way you use your hours or with your sense of God’s expectations.

God's Wonderful Gift

"God has given us a wonderful gift. He has given us His Word."

Thank you, Lord.

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Father, Thank You For THIS Day

Dear Father,

I want to thank you for THIS day. For on this day, thirty-two years ago, in Lynchburg, Va, you brought into this world a little baby girl. That little girl immediately and joyfully changed the lives of her parents in an instant. And most amazingly, on that day, you brought life to this little girl, a daughter of Yours. For on that day You brought into this world one whose name you had written from before the foundation of the world in the Lamb's Book of Life. Oh, Lord, how amazing is it to think that You not only knew her name would be there from eternity past, but You planned her name to be there from eternity past, for indeed You wrote it there. For this was one for whom Your Son would die and give His life for her sins. And in just a few short years later, her second birth would take place and she became a new creature. Oh, Lord that is the most amazing thing for which I am thankful for on THIS day.

But, Lord, if you would allow me a moment of personal reflection about THIS day, I would be so thankful. For on THIS day, thirty-two years ago, You brought this little girl to life. And in another state, there was a three year old little boy. The two knew nothing of each other, but one day the would. For many years later, in Your kind providence, they would meet and remarkably they would marry. For there were many things that could have kept them apart. For that matter, a simple strong wind could have blown a little piece of paper off of her car windshield that would have brought their lives down different paths. But that would not happen because You meant for these two to be together. And so remarkably, they would marry. These two would become one.

And she would change his life forever. She would make him so much better because You had fashioned her to be perfectly suited for him. Oh, how much joy she has brought to him. Oh, what love she gives to him. Oh, what sacrifice she makes for him. And the most beautiful thing about all that she does for him is that ultimately it is not about him, but about You. For she loves You so much that she loves him so much.

Not only would she change his life forever, but she would change the lives of two little girls and one little boy forever. For she would become the most amazing mother to them. She would sacrifice for them and love them more than they could ever imagine.

The world did not know what kindness and grace you were showing to so many people on that day thirty-two years ago today. It went unnoticed. But, oh Lord, now today there is no way that it can go unnoticed. For she has forever changed that man and those three little one's lives. And so, Lord, on this her birthday, on the day when she receives gifts from those who love her, there is no way to not notice the great gift you have given to us in her.

And so, Lord, on this day, I thank you for that little girl, who has now grown up to be the most amazing woman, wife, mother imaginable. Lord, on THIS day, I thank you for that little girl now all grown up, my wife, Holly Hinton Blinson. I love you Lord and thank you for your kindness of allowing me to love her and to be loved by her. Give her this day the desires of her heart!

'The Moment of the Upturned Face'

Roger Ellsworth speaks of what he calls the "moment of the upturned face" in his chapter of Dear Timothy: Letters on Pastoral Ministry, entitled "Preach the Word."

He describes it as the following:

This is what I call 'the moment of the upturned face.' I noticed it each time I take my place at my pulpit--that wonderful and awful moment when the people look up at me with anticipation. It is wonderful because the people are telling me that they are ready to listen to God's message for the hour. It is awful because it makes me conscious of my enormous responsibility.

There toward the back is the face of that one who often attends but does not yet know Christ and , immediately in front of him, the face of that one who is grieving over the loss of a loved one. Over there is the face of that teenager who is trying to determine what really matters. Halfway back on my right is the face of that person who has never been to church before but has come just this one time to see what it is all about. And there in front is that faithful member who is trying to find strength to go on.

All week long these people have heard what the myriad voices of our society have to say. Now they have come to church to find out what God says. I stand there with them looking at me and I tremble as I realize that I stand between heaven and earth. I breathe a prayer for God to help me and I begin. With God's help, the sermon takes life and those faces continue to be upturned. Some begin to nod in agreement and some begin to shine. And, as I leave my pulpit, I am aware that this was God's message and His moment. I know these people have heard from heaven, and I thank God that He made me a preacher.

Thank you, Lord.

Choosing to Be a Fool Over Being Cool

From Greg Gilbert's What Is the Gospel :

The message of the cross is going to sound like nonsense to the people around us. It's going to make us Christians sound like fools, and it most certainly is going to undermine our attempts to 'relate' to non-Christians and prove to them that we're just as cool and harmless as the next guy. Christians can always get the world to think they are cool--right up to the moment they start talking about being saved by a crucified man. And that's where coolness evaporates, no matter how carefully you've cultivated it.

Even so, Scripture makes it clear that the cross must remain at the center of the gospel. We cannot move it to the side, and we cannot replace it with any other truth as the heart, center, and fountainhead of the good news. To do so is to present the world with something that is not saving, and that is therefore not good news at all.

"I'm Really Concerned That He Isn't Boring"

That's a typical concern of Pastoral Search Committees that Chris Brauns addresses in his new book, When The Word Leads Your Pastoral Search: Biblical Principles & Practices to Guide Your Search. One reviewer of this book is right in commenting that there are other books/resources that Pastor Search Committees need to read in preparation for the task before them, but this is the first book they need to read. I couldn't agree more. As someone on the other side of the process, it's helped, challenged, and encouraged me greatly.

In addressing this concern of a "boring pastor" Brauns writes,

You cannot make it your central goal to call a pastor who will not bore you. The people in your community are drowning. They don't need someone to row out beside them and entertain them. They need the life preserver of God's Word. The people in your pews face great trials today and will in the days to come. Their most desperate need in life, even more important than whether or not they have a warm bed and food, is to hear from God. Whatever you do as a search committee, you must call a pastor who will preach the Word.

Redefining Extraordinary

Just finished reading Mike McKinley's excellent book Church Planting Is For Wimps: How God Uses Messed-Up People To Plant Ordinary Churches That Do Extraordinary Things.

Towards the end of the book, he gives a helpful new definition to "Extraordinary."

I want to redefine extraordinary. I don't think that it's wrong for church planters and church revitalizers to long for an extraordinary ministry. After all, we serve and extraordinary God who has procured an extraordinary salvation by extraordinary means. We should expect extraordinary things to happen when we serve Him. Yet we need to come to grips with the fact that the extraordinary things that God does may not be immediately and outwardly extraordinary in the eyes of other people.

What should we count as God's extraordinary work? It's not a stadium-sized building, a multi-million dollar budget, or satellite feeds to multiple venues. That's how the world measures and achieves extraordinary. Rather, it's extraordinary when God converts our neighbors, coworkers, children, friends, and family. It's extraordinary when proud, angry, selfish people have their hearts changed by the gospel. It's extraordinary when new churches selflessly invest their time, money, and prayers to establish and multiply even newer congregations. It's extraordinary when marriages are restored and cultural prejudices give way to unity in the gospel of Christ. It's extraordinary whenever God uses 'normal' pastors and church planters, faithful men with ordinary gifts and talents, to do all this work.

The Beautiful, But Hard Work of a Pastor

Brian Croft has an excellent post on the hard work of sermon preparation, but also how much of a blessing it is.

There is something special about the hard, time-sensitive labor that is preparing to preach God’s Word in a few days. It feeds and nourishes our own soul in a way that moves us to preach powerfully what we have found through intense study and prayer. I recently had a young man say to me, “I love to preach, but I hate to prepare.” This could have been his way of saying the labor to prepare is hard…because it is. Yet, there is a legitimate risk in the heart of every preacher to “love to preach, but hate to prepare.”

Dear brothers and fellow pastors, yes, the labor is hard. It is intense. It must be done in less than 6 days regardless what has happened to you in the week. Yet, we must see our preparation as a gift from God. It is the time where we study with an intensity that nothing else can produce. Through that study our hearts and mind are pricked, challenged, fed, broken, instructed, shepherded, and molded by God Himself through His Word to make us who God wants us to be when we stand before our people to preach His Word.

Truth in 'True Grit'

Holly and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last week. It was a great day that was capped off by great movie, True Grit. Sometimes you see a movie that has great acting, which True Grit does, and you leave the movie deceived into thinking that what impressed you most about the movie was the caliber of acting. But in reality what impressed you most about the movie was the underlying truths that the movie displays which are accentuated by the great acting. This is the case with True Grit. I walked out of the movie thoroughly impressed with the actors, especially Jeff Bridges, but even more drawn to the movie itself and the truths it exposed.

Mike Cosper comments at The Gospel Coalition Blog on the themes of revenge and hope in the movie. (If you haven't seen the movie, the following quote will be a bit of a spoiler.)

Cosper writes,

Even as Mattie Ross faces down her nemesis and defeats him in True Grit, she’s knocked backward into a pit by her weapon’s recoil. Revenge brings a cold comfort, resulting in an immediate descent into a snake-filled darkness. Her righteousness doesn’t result in a neat and tidy ending; it leaves her scarred, poisoned, and broken. Revenge, even petty revenge, never ends in as happy a way as we’d like, with a neat and tidy moment of “I told you so” justice. Instead, Like Mattie, we end our journey scarred both by victimization and retribution.

Perhaps that’s because what we need is retribution so vast that it calls for wrath that would overwhelm us. If our hunger for revenge were fulfilled, the result would be a flood that would drown even us, and our petty attempts at substitutes will ultimately be dissatisfying. The “justice” we hunger for would bring about our destruction. Thanks be to God—there’s a better retribution and a better rescue from the pit; one that emerges from the fringes, carries out justice, and saves us from the wrath we deserve.

Stanley Fish gives this excellent review of the movie here.

Here are a few excerpts:

The words the book and films share are these: “You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free with the exception of God’s grace.” These two sentences suggest a world in which everything comes around, if not sooner then later. The accounting is strict; nothing is free, except the grace of God. But free can bear two readings — distributed freely, just come and pick it up; or distributed in a way that exhibits no discernible pattern. In one reading grace is given to anyone and everyone; in the other it is given only to those whom God chooses for reasons that remain mysterious.

A third sentence, left out of the film but implied by its dramaturgy, tells us that the latter reading is the right one: “You cannot earn that [grace] or deserve it.” In short, there is no relationship between the bestowing or withholding of grace and the actions of those to whom it is either accorded or denied. You can’t add up a person’s deeds — so many good one and so many bad ones — and on the basis of the column totals put him on the grace-receiving side (you can’t earn it); and you can’t reason from what happens to someone to how he stands in God’s eyes (you can’t deserve it)...

they give us a better heroism in the person of Mattie, who maintains the confidence of her convictions even when the world continues to provide no support for them. In the end, when she is a spinster with one arm who arrives too late to see Rooster once more, she remains as judgmental, single-minded and resolute as ever. She goes forward not because she has faith in a better worldly future — her last words to us are “Time just gets away from us” — but because she has faith in the righteousness of her path, a path that is sure (because it is not hers) despite the absence of external guideposts. That is the message Iris Dement proclaims at the movie’s close when she sings “Leaning On the Everlasting Arms”: “Oh how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way / Leaning on the everlasting arms / Oh how bright the path goes from day to day / Leaning on the everlasting arms / What have I to dread what have I to fear / Leaning on the everlasting arms.”

The new “True Grit” is that rare thing — a truly religious movie. In the John Wayne version religiosity is just an occasional flourish not to be taken seriously. In this movie it is everything, not despite but because of its refusal to resolve or soften the dilemmas the narrative delivers up.

Bottom line, go see the movie.

Resting In the Shadowing Shelter of My Ever-Present Father

From Wrestling With An Angel, by Greg Lucas:

But perhaps the sweetest discovery of all was learning more and more about the character of my heavenly Father through the struggles of my disabled son. It is one thing to read about His faithfulness, to talk about His mercy, and to write about His grace. But to experience these things face to face requires a heavenly vision that can only be obtained by walking through the suffering of His providence and coming to the realization that the darkness I have experienced is actually the shadowing shelter of my ever-present Father.

It is in this shadow that I have wrestled with an angel until the breaking of today. And even though I now feel beaten and broken from battle, the limp that carries me away from this sacred place forever reminds me that I have been touched by the and of the Almighty. And by grace, I have prevailed.

Perspective In Trials

From Milton Vincent's A Gospel Primer for Christians:

More than anything else I could ever do, the gospel enables me to embrace my tribulations and thereby position myself to gain full benefit from them. For the gospel is the one great permanent circumstance in which I live and move; and every hardship in my life is allowed by God only because it serves His gospel purposes in me. When I view my circumstances in this light, I realize that the gospel is not just one piece of good news that fits into my life somewhere among all the bad. I realize that the gospel makes genuinely good news out of every other aspect of my life, including my severest trials. The good news about my trials is that God is forcing them to bow to His gospel purposes and do good unto me by improving my character and making me more conformed to the image of Christ.

Preaching the gospel to myself each day provides a lens through which I can view my trials in this way and see the true cause for rejoicing that exists in them. I can then embrace trials as friends and allow them to do God's good work in me.