Sunday, December 31, 2006

Bunyan on Prayer, Thought for the New Year

My friend Archie Parrish included this great thought from John Bunyan in his most recent prayer letter from Serve International. We would do well to heed it in the New Year.

"You can do no more than pray before you pray; but after you pray you must do more than pray." No wonder Bunyan, and Matthew Henry following him, loved the old Latin motto Ora et labora. Pray and work!

One could choose worse mottoes for the year to come. Let's make this one a byword for our congregation.
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Friday, December 29, 2006

Facing a New Year


When my daughter, Hannah, graduated from High school we wanted to do something special to celebrate. So, we flew to Northern California. We stayed with close friends, Gary and Chris Smith, who live on, own, and operate, a vineyard. We found no shortage of intriguing people and unique places.

One location stood out: Donner Memorial State Park. The Donner Party was a group of American families who got caught up in the “westering fever” of the 1840s. They heeded the call of California. Filled with the trepidation and excitement that attends the promise of a new beginning, 33 people departed Springfield, Illinois in mid-April, 1846, bound for Northern California. The shortcut at “Hastings Cutoff” seemed like a common sense option at the time. They never envisioned the nightmare of becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains and resorting to cannibalism.

Today, a monument marks the spot. The plaque on the monument reads, “Virile to risk and find; Kindly withal and a ready help. Facing the brunt of fate: Indomitable—unafraid.” This certainly gives us a sense of the western, pioneering spirit that we prize as Americans. But “Virile” when facing risk? “Indomitable” and “unafraid” when facing “fate”? Will we never learn?

Contrast this with the disposition of the Psalmist:

42:[5] Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.

[11] Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance, and my God.

43:[5] Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him,
The help of my countenance, and my God.


The Psalmist examines his hopes, “Why are you in despair, O my soul?” and preaches to himself, “Hope in God.” He stops listening to his heart and starts preaching to, and reminding, his heart.

Let us face the new year and “run with endurance the race that is set before us, [2] fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. [3] For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:1-3).


A rescue party is coming. Hope in God!
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Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas!

Cindy Mercer Photography

"Christmas Day"


A baby is a harmless thing
And wins our hearts with one accord,
And Flower of Babies was their King,
Jesus Christ our Lord:
Lily of lilies He
Upon His Mother's knee;
Rose of roses, soon to be
Crowned with thorns on leafless tree.

A lamb is innocent and mild
And merry on the soft green sod;
And Jesus Christ, the Undefiled,
Is the Lamb of God:
Only spotless He
Upon his Mother's knee;
White and ruddy, soon to be
Sacrificed for you and me.

Nay, lamb is not so sweet a word,
Nor lily half so pure a name;
Another name our hearts hath stirred,
Kindling them to flame:
'Jesus' certainly
Is music and melody:
Heart with heart in harmony
Carol we and worship we.

Christina Rossetti


From "Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity"


This is the Month, and this the happy morn

Wherein the Son of
Heav'ns eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heav'ns high Councel-Table,
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside; and here with us to be,
Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,
And chose with us a darksome House of mortal Clay.

John Milton

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Friday, December 22, 2006

A Lover's Quarrel with the World

Cindy Mercer Photography

I am especially mindful of it at Christmas. Many have embraced it. It feeds on Darwinian theory, post-Kantian philosophy, the harsh realities of modern urban and industrial life, and the tidal wave of technologies. Many learn it when they became “too mature” to read fairy tales. The new literature professor introduces them to it through Emily Dickinson, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Richard Rorty. Bishop Spong convinces them of it through his argument that the biblical account of creation and fall is “pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.” Richard Dawkins helps clarify it when he preaches that only a fool would believe “The God Delusion.” What is it?

Max Weber called it “The disenchantment of the world.” Herman Melville refers to this disenchantment in Moby-Dick: “Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must go there to learn it.” Robert Frost composed a song of disenchantment:

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
………………………………………………
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.


If the cosmos is mindless machine, nature reveals nothing, God is wish-fulfillment, and there is no one out there, what are we to make of this “diminished thing”? This tormented Frost. Later, in “The Most of It,” he wrote,

He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree–hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder–broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter–love, original response.


Unlike many of his “enlightened” contemporaries, Robert Frost could not accept the silent melancholy of a disenchanted world and the hopeless, echoing sound of his own voice. He longed for “counter-love, original response.” As far as I know, he never found it. He continued his “lover’s quarrel with world.” This seeking of wonder, beauty, and “original response” sounds notes of humility, loss, and deep sadness in Frost’s poetry as a whole.

He never found what G.K. Chesterton, a liberal Unitarian turned Christian, found:

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood on Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.



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Wednesday, December 20, 2006

From "Me" to "You"


Congratulations! You are person of the year!

Tom Wolfe was an avid reader. Early on, he knew he wanted to be a professional writer. He graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1951 and earned a Ph.D. in American Studies at Yale University in 1957. He went on the serve as a reporter for the Springfield Union, the Washington Post, and the New York Tribune. The rest is history. His essays and novels have introduced “household name” phrases into our language, “the right stuff,” “radical chic,” and “good ol’ boy,” to name a few.

Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter & Vine, Wolfe’s 1975 collection of essays, introduced a phrase that would characterize a generation of Americans: “the Me decade.” Wolfe's coinage, “the Me decade,” was soon transformed into “the Me generation” in popular parlance. Now, “Me” is “You.” Time magazine's “Person of the Year” is “You,” which is really “Me,” which is more specifically, “Everyone.” The issue includes a mirror on the cover so readers can reflect upon their favorite subjects. Little did I know when I wrote “Reflecting of Narcissus” in November that Time would so soon provide such an unmistakable case in point.


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Monday, December 18, 2006

The Death of Homo Sapiens

Cindy Mercer Photography

“A maximum of six people are usually invited to watch, but from a carefully judged distance so as not to fret or disturb the mother. And afterwards, if all goes well, there is a celebratory meal, often with champagne.” This new birth, this celebration of life, soon to be followed by a ritual christening with family and close friends, takes place in Oxford, England in 2021. The “child” is a kitten, yes, a kitten.

On December 25, Children of Men, a movie based on P.D. James’ 1992 novel, The Children of Men, will be released across the nation. James takes her title from Psalm 90, which is contained in a burial rite in The Book of Common Prayer:

Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were born,
Or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.

Thou dost turn man back into dust,
And dost say, "Return, O children of men."
For a thousand years in Thy sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night.

James, a committed Christian, points her readers to a future world (2027 in the film version) in which all human beings are infertile. The cause of this malady eludes the lords of science. Soon, like other forgotten animal species, homo sapiens will be extinct. In this context, even the birth of an animal evokes wonder and celebration.

How do people attempt to come to terms with this bleak future? They seek “protection, comfort, pleasure”—at any price. If this means submission to an all-powerful “Warden” because he promises to keep the lights on and provide hot water, so be it. If compulsory reproductive examinations, state-sponsored porn shops, prison camps, and the practice of euthanasia and slavery are necessary to pacify the majority, why not?

What happens to watered down Western Christianity as this crisis intensifies? It evaporates. It is empty, meaningless. It reveals itself for what it is, “chaff which the wind drives away.” James’ portrayal of humankind in its last desparate days is unnerving. Reading through this book provoked in me a repeated response: “That’s true—now.”

Don’t be misled. This is not another lamentable contribution to that forgettable genre, “Christian fiction.” Although The Children of Men is not an overt apologetic for Christianity, its unsettling vision of narcissism and its complex, imaginative depiction of sin, death, redemption, life, sacrifice, and love may just change the way you see the world—on the spot. The book is replete with biblical themes. I have not seen the movie, but let us hope it is true to the book (I have my doubts). Read the book; consider the movie.

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Wednesday, December 13, 2006

"Packing" for Christmas


My copy of Knowing God is worn out. It cost me $3.95 in 1979--I've gotten my money's worth. As many of you know, J.I. Packer often refers to himself as “Packer by name” and “packer by trade.” He has the gift of profound theological insight coupled with articulate expression. His writings are “packed.” The following section from chapter 5, “God Incarnate,” is a must for the Christmas season. It is simply great stuff. I read it every year at this time.

“We see now what it meant for the Son of God to empty Himself and become poor. It meant a laying aside of glory (the real kenosis); a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony—spiritual, even more than physical—that His mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. (See Luke 12:50, and the Gethsemane story.) It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who ‘through his poverty, might become rich.’ The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—cause at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world ahs ever heard, or will hear.”

“We talk glibly of the ‘Christmas spirit,’ rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of Him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.”

“It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians—I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and the most orthodox Christians—go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet them) averting their eyes and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians—alas, they are many—whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bring up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.”

“The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor—spending and being spent—to enrich their fellowship, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others—and not just their own friends—in whatever way there seems need. There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things He will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit. ‘Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.’ ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’ ‘I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart’ (Psalm 119:32).”



From J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1979), 55-56.
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Monday, December 11, 2006

The "Commercial Racket"

Not long ago, I concluded a season of postgraduate study. Part of that work included reading everything C.S. Lewis ever wrote, excluding all of his letters. Whether you enjoy reading Lewis, find him exasperating, or land somewhere in between, the word “grumpy” probably doesn’t enter your mind when you think of Lewis.

That was true for me, until I discovered a short essay that Lewis wrote for the December 1957 edition of the publication, Twentieth century.
Here, C.S. Lewis is clearly, and quite uncharacteristically, grumpy. Why? Christmas, more specifically, the “commercial racket” that attends it. Lewis affirms that the celebration of Christmas for Christians is “important and obligatory.” He embraces the celebration, merry-making, and hospitality that characterize the season. But his denunciation of the commercialization of Christmas is scathing.

From "What Christmas Means to Me":

The interchange of presents was a very small ingredient in the older English festivity. Mr. Pickwick took a cod with him to Dingley Dell; the reformed Scrooge ordered a turkey for his clerk; lovers sent love gifts; toys and fruit were given to children. But the idea that not only all friends but even all acquaintances should give one another presents, or at least send one another cards, is quite modern and has been forced upon us by the shopkeepers. Neither of these circumstances is in itself a reason for condemning it. I condemn it on the following grounds.

1. It gives on the whole much more pain than pleasure. You have only to stay over Christmas with a family who seriously try to ‘keep’ it [in the commerical sense] in order to see that the thing is a nightmare. Long before December 25th everyone is worn out—physically worn out by weeks of daily struggle in overcrowded shops, mentally worn out by the effort to remember all the right recipients and to think out suitable gifts for them. They are in no trim for merry-making; much less (if they should want to) to take part in a religious act. They look far more as if there had been a long illness in the house.

2. Most of it is involuntary. The modern rule is that anyone can force you to give him a present by sending you a quite unprovoked present of his own. It is almost a blackmail. Who has not heard the wail of despair, and indeed of resentment, when, at the last moment, just as everyone hoped that the nuisance was over for one more year, the unwanted gift from Mrs. Busy (whom we hardly remember) flops unwelcomed through the letter-box, and back to the dreadful shops one of us has to go?

3. Things are given as presents which no mortal ever bought for himself—gaudy and useless gadgets, ‘novelties’ because no one was ever fool enough to make their like before. Have we really no better use for materials and for human skill and time than to spend them on all this rubbish?

4. The nuisance. For after all, during the racket we still have all our ordinary and necessary shopping to do, and the racket trebles the labour of it. We are told that the whole dreary business must go on because it is good for trade. It is in fact merely one annual symptom of that lunatic condition of our country, and indeed of the world, in which everyone lives by persuading everyone else to buy things. I don’t know the way out. But can it really be my duty to buy and receive masses of junk every winter just to help the shopkeepers? If the worst comes to the worst I’d sooner give them money for nothing and write it off as a charity. For nothing? Why, better for nothing than for a nuisance.



Taken from C.S. Lewis, “What Christmas Means to Me,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 304-305.


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Wednesday, December 06, 2006

"I lock my door upon myself"

Cindy Mercer Photography

My wife loves doors. Yes, doors, old doors primarily, doors with character. She has taken hundreds of photographs, from around the world, of doors. For me, it's been an acquired taste.

Doors communicate. They bid welcome and convey rejection. Open doors invite the fellowship and hospitality of home, family, and church. At times, we pass through them racked by the fear and anxiety that attends personal confrontation or an unknown future. Closed doors announce security, privacy, and safety, or they declare exclusion, condescension, or even mystery.

The Scriptures are rich with door and doorway imagery. One must pass through doorways to enter the courts of the temple area and the Holy of Holies. The closed door of the ark signals safety for Noah and his family (Gen 6:16; 7:16), the blood-signed doorposts set the Israelites apart on the evening of the Passover (Ex. 12:22–23), and Paul writes that “a great door for effective work has opened to me” (1 Cor. 16:9). The “ancient doors” are commanded to be lifted up so the King of glory may come in (Ps. 24:7, 9).

During this hectic season, no doubt replete with comings and goings, let Christina Rossetti’s haunting lines remind you that no matter whom you shut out or let in, there is in the end only one door that matters, the “One” who breaks the yoke of sin, frees us from ourselves, and calls us to His praise and glory. It is He who declares, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9).

WHO SHALL DELIVER ME?

God strengthen me to bear myself;
That heaviest weight of all to bear,
Inalienable weight of care.

All others are outside myself;
I lock my door and bar them out
The turmoil, tedium, gad-about.

I lock my door upon myself,
And bar them out; but who shall wall
Self from myself, most loathed of all?

......................................................

God harden me against myself,
This coward with pathetic voice
Who craves for ease and rest and joys.

Myself, arch-traitor to myself;
My hollowest friend, my deadliest foe,
My clog whatever road I go.

Yet One there is can curb myself,
Can roll the strangling load from me
Break off the yoke and set me free.

Christina G. Rossetti (1876)
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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Splendor in the Ordinary

Cindy Mercer Photography

To what do I direct my energies? What do I value and how do I show it? Where do my thoughts run? ’Tis the season for some “perspective” quotations. I have randomly listed some of my favorites.

“He has made earthly blessings for our benefit, and not for our harm.”

John Calvin

To Christ: “This is the happy life—to rejoice in you and to you and because of you.”

Augustine

“If you marry the spirit of the age, you’ll soon be a widow.”

G.K. Chesterton

“That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.”
“Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Henry David Thoreau

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.”

Will Rogers

I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.

Forrest Gump

“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, ‘Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.’”

C.S. Lewis

“So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.”

Wendell Berry

“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.”

Martin Luther

We love the things we love for what they are.

Robert Frost

“Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm rising; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God, so to speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm.”

Jonathan Edwards

Deep within Mordor, Sam and Frodo feel doomed. Hope is all but lost. Yet amidst such apparent hopelessness, Samwise Gamgee—the peasant hobbit who, despite his humble origins, has gradually emerged as a figure of great moral and spiritual insight—beholds a single star shimmering above the dark clouds of Mordor: “The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.... Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master's, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep and untroubled sleep.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

Things that cancer cannot do:

It cannot cripple love
It cannot shatter hope
It cannot corrode faith
It cannot destroy peace
It cannot kill friendship
It cannot suppress memories
It cannot silence courage
It cannot invade the soul
It cannot conquer the spirit
It cannot steal eternal life

Anonymous

Keep deception and lies far from me,
Give me neither poverty nor riches;
Feed me with the food that is my portion.

Proverbs 30:8



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Monday, November 27, 2006

Reflecting On Narcissus

Cindy Mercer Photography

“Why, beautiful being, do you shun me?” Narcissus asks. “The nymphs love me, and you yourself look not indifferent upon me. When I stretch forth my arms you do the same; and you smile upon me and answer my beckonings with the like.” He pleads: “Stay, I entreat you! Let me at least gaze upon you, if I may not touch you.”

Narcissus is in love for the first time, so says the Greek myth. What a catch he is. He is beautiful beyond words, and he knows it. Many a female admirer has met with his haughty condescension. Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, has had enough. She curses Narcissus with himself. The next time he stoops to admire his reflection in one of the mountain pools, he will never be able to tear himself away. He becomes so consumed with himself that he loses all thought of food or rest, and he pines away and dies. He literally admires himself to death. This is the bleak picture of Narcissism.

Christians look for a different reflection. In Psalm 95:1-7, the Psalmist writes,

O come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
[2] Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
[3] For the Lord is a great God,
And a great King above all gods,
[4] In whose hand are the depths of the earth;
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
[5] The sea is His, for it was He who made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
[6] Come, let us worship and bow down
Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
[7] For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.

This Psalm tells us that our worship is response, response to God’s revelation of Himself as King, Creator, and Shepherd. As John Piper writes, “Worship is gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of His worth.” C.S. Lewis reminds us that praise is “inner health made audible.” He continues, “Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”


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Sunday, November 26, 2006

Biblical Priorities for a Healthy Church (4)

What in the world is so important about doctrine?
Biblical Priorities for the Life of Our Church (4) Biblical Doctrine
Titus 1:1-2 and 2 Timothy 1:13-14
Introduction (review):
1. On October 22, we began a new series of topical-expository messages on Biblical Priorities for the Life of Our Church.
2. In our first message in this series, "Where in the world in the Church?," we considered the context in which we live and minister, and we agreed that the Bible teaches us that it is important for us to be aware of our contemporary context, to understand our times (see, e.g. 1 Timothy 3:1-7, 1 Chronicles 12:32 and Matthew 16:3/ Luke 12:56). We also argued that there at least three huge factors impacting the church in our day: individualism, relativism, and consumerism. We also said that these cultural myths and assumptions have a massive influence on the church, and often unhelpfully impact the way we view what the church is, should be, does and believes, as well as the way we participate in the life of the church and the way we engage the culture.
3. So how do we compete with this? How do we resist the siren song of the culture? How do we keep from caving in and copying the world? The Bible’s answer is primarily that we do so by having our hearts and minds captured by the word of God. And this has to work it’s way out primarily in the faithful exposition of God’s word - biblical preaching. So that was the focus of our second message in this series.
4. As we studied 2 Timothy 4:1-4 and noted Paul’s emphasis on the importance of preaching, we also suggested five ways that we as hearers of the word can better profit from the message preached. 1. Listen as if your life depended on it (Matthew 4:4). 2. Recognize the seriousness of your life situation (Ephesians 6:12). 3. Realize that it is God’s word you need in such a circumstance (Psalm 119:105). 4. Understand that it is God’s help that you need (Psalm 40:17). 5. Appreciate that communion with God is your goal (Psalm 27:4; 42:1)
5. This last observation on how to benefit from the preaching of God’s word led us, naturally, to focus on the subject of worship. Having communion with God as our goal is closely connected with valuing God above all else as our end (and not simply viewing him as a means to an end). Thus, true believers all have a passion for worship.
6. We learned that worship takes place in two arenas, all-of-life and the gathered congregation, and flows from a heart that has received God’s grace and desires God.
7. We see a good, brief, biblical definition of worship in Psalm 29:2 - "giving to the Lord the glory due his name." We see an emphasis on all-of-life worship in the OT and NT in Jonah 1:9 and Romans 12:1-2. We see the emphasis on gathered or congregational praise in the OT and NT in Psalm 100:2 and Hebrews 10:25.
8. We said that: a healthy church is filled with believers who by God’s grace have a passion for biblical worship. They live to glorify God in all of life and they love to gather with the saints to meet with him. And we argued that this passion will manifest itself in at least four ways: I. Glorifying God (Worship in all of life); II. Desiring God (God as the object of our worship); III. Following the Bible (God-directed worship, in form and content); and IV. Loving the Lord’s Day (God-centered view of Sunday).
9. Tonight, we move to a fourth priority of a healthy, biblical church: a delight in biblical truth, teaching and doctrine.
10. The study of theology (call it what you will: doctrine, biblical teaching, biblical truth, etc.) is in fact that most practical study that a person could ever undertake. Because’s God’s truth is intended by God to serve the interests of his glory and the well-being of his people.
11. One mark of a healthy biblical church is that it will be filled with members who love the truth, know that it is important, and are being transformed in their discipleship by it.
12.
So, those who just do not care about doctrine, are missing out on a blessing. They may consider doctrine extraneous to authentic Christian experience, irrelevant to their daily practice, and entirely too cold and speculative for their tastes, but every day of our lives, our choices, our attitudes, our words, our motives are based on our theology! We can't escape it. What we believe affects how we live. Bad theology leads to bad practice. Good doctrine aids us in our duty and helps us interpret our experience, and bad doctrine distracts us from our duty and confuses us about our experience. That’s why every Christian needs to be thoroughly grounded in Christian doctrine. We need to know biblical truth (doctrine) in order to live the Christian life (discipleship). God’s truth is for people! It is good for us and makes our lives better.
13. Paul explains to both Titus and Timothy the importance of doctrine in the Christian life when he says:
Titus 1:1-2 1 Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, 2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, . . .
2 Timothy 1:13-14 13 Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
The well-formed Christian life consists of three parts: doctrine, devotion, duty (or you could call the three parts: theology, experience and practice - corresponding to the three functions of the soul, thinking/believing, desiring, willing.

Five problems in relation to these three components of the Christian life dog the church today: (1) nominalism, (2) doctrinal formalism, (3) doctrinal deviation, (4) non-doctrinal moralism, (5) doctrinal indifference.

PROBLEM ONE: Nominalism – "in name only" Christianity
PROBLEM TWO: Doctrinal formalism – "dead orthodoxy"
PROBLEM THREE: Doctrinal deviation -- "denying, undermining, perverting the truth"
PROBLEM FOUR: Non-doctrinal moralism – "duty disconnected from grace and the Gospel"
PROBLEM FIVE: Doctrinal indifference – "often rootless, individualistic experientialism"
How do we help make sure doctrine doesn't "go bad on us"? By turning our study of doctrine into prayer (of adoration, confession, thanksgiving and petition) and by engaging in self-examination in connection with all our doctrinal study (asking ourselves if we are growing in the graces that the truth we are studying is designed to promote).

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Saturday, November 25, 2006

Biblical Priorities for a Healthy Church (3)

How in the world should the church worship?
Biblical Priorities for the Life of Our Church (3) Biblical Worship
Psalm 29:2; Jonah 1:9 and Romans 12:1-2; Psalm 100:2 and Hebrews 10:25

Introduction (review):
1. On October 22, we began a new series of topical-expository messages on Biblical Priorities for the Life of Our Church.
2. In our first message in this series, "Where in the world in the Church?," we considered the context in which we live and minister, and we agreed that the Bible teaches us that it is important for us to be aware of our contemporary context, to understand our times (see, e.g. 1 Timothy 3:1-7, 1 Chronicles 12:32 and Matthew 16:3/ Luke 12:56). We also argued that there at least three huge factors impacting the church in our day: individualism, relativism, and consumerism. We also said that these cultural myths and assumptions have a massive influence on the church, and often unhelpfully impact the way we view what the church is, should be, does and believes, as well as the way we participate in the life of the church and the way we engage the culture.
3. So how do we compete with this? How do we resist the siren song of the culture? How do we keep from caving in and copying the world? The Bible’s answer is primarily that we do so by having our hearts and minds captured by the word of God. And this has to work it’s way out primarily in the faithful exposition of God’s word - biblical preaching. So that was the focus of our second message in this series.
4. As we studied 2 Timothy 4:1-4 and noted Paul’s emphasis on the importance of preaching, we also suggested five ways that we as hearers of the word can better profit from the message preached. 1. Listen as if your life depended on it (Matthew 4:4). 2. Recognize the seriousness of your life situation (Ephesians 6:12). 3. Realize that it is God’s word you need in such a circumstance (Psalm 119:105). 4. Understand that it is God’s help that you need (Psalm 40:17). 5. Appreciate that communion with God is your goal (Psalm 27:4; 42:1)
5. This leads us naturally to today’s focus: worship. True believers all have a passion for worship. Worship takes place in two arenas, all-of-life and the gathered congregation, and flows from a heart that has received God’s grace and desires God.
6. We will see the emphasis on all-of-life worship Psalm 29:2 and Romans 12:1-2. We’ll see the emphasis on gathered praise in Psalm 100:2 and Hebrews 10:25.

A healthy church is filled with believers who by God’s grace have a passion for biblical worship. They live to glorify God in all of life and they love to gather with the saints to meet with him.

This passion will manifest itself in at least four ways:

I. Glorifying God (Worship in all of life)
*Psalm 15

II. Desiring God (God as the object of our worship)
*Psalm 63:1-5

III. Following the Bible (God-directed worship, in form and content)
John 4:24

IV. Loving the Lord’s Day (God-centered view of Sunday)
*Revelation 1:10

M’Cheyne "A well-spent sabbath we feel to be a day of heaven upon earth . . . we love to rise early on that morning, and to sit up late, that we may have a long day with God"
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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

"I Like Monotony"

"P.D. Mercer"


I was ready. This morning's blog was to be a meditation upon a culture that produces anxiety and dissatisfaction as it embraces image management and self-fashioned lifestyles. In a postmodern world, we're not supposed to be thankful for grace; we're supposed to be courageous self-actualizers. "America is a country," writes Ralph Wood in Contending for the Faith, "in which no one can be too slender or too rich." "We have all become consumers within the marketplace of personal choices; no matter how contradictory." Our "consumerist culture of comfort and convenience" has conspired to produce more sophisticated consumers not more virtuous disciples. I was ready.

Then, I lost my dog. He's nothing special, a small, five-year-old Boston Terrier who answers to "puppy"--we're not very creative with names. But he's ours; and he's gone. We prayed, emailed the Belhaven neighborhood association, then took to the streets with several flashlight wielding neighbors. Nothing, not a trace. We fell into our beds exhausted and brokenhearted. Some of you know the feeling.

This morning the sun came up early--in more ways than one. The phone rang. P.D. had wandered his way into the embrace of a loving family a few blocks away. After enjoying a good meal, he spent the evening romping on the floor with two young children before settling in for the night under the toasty covers of the master bed. He's home now. I'm glad he can't talk, I suspect he would have refused to come home.

"I like monotony," C.S. Lewis told Time magazine in a 1947 interview. He is not saying that he likes boredom. He is calling us to reject being herded like proverbial sheep through the chute of discontentment, covetousness, and greed. He emphasizes that every ordinary moment of every ordinary day is charged with eternal significance. There is no such thing as an ordinary day or a mere mortal. What do we expect when lift our eyes in prayer to God? We expect and desire daily, hourly grace.

Psalm 123:1-2:

To Thee I lift up my eyes,
O Thou who art enthroned in the heavens!
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress;
So our eyes look to the Lord our God,
Until He shall be gracious to us.

This Thanksgiving, don’t miss the significance of every breath you take, of faithful friends, good conversation, a moving memory, a long walk, an autumn afternoon sunset, a weekend at deer camp, hot coffee, tailgating, or the return of a lost dog!

Hear Lewis:

Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment 'as to the Lord.' It is only our daily bread that we are encouraged to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

Happy Thanksgiving!
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