How to Tell the True Shepherd from the False (5)

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Today’s sermon on John 10:11-21 is now on the web. You can listen to it here.

We only managed to cover aspect #4 of the death of Christ that makes Jesus supremely excellent as the good shepherd – a global sacrifice. Jesus died for the world, Jew and Gentile alike, people without distinction, from every tribe, tongue, nation, and people group.

Here is the quote from John Piper and the story from him about Peter Cameron Scott, founder of the Africa Inland Mission,  that I shared to illustrate the powerful motivation that v. 16 is to global and local evangelization:

He had tried twice to serve in Africa but had to come home both times with malaria. The third attempt was especially joyful because he was joined by his brother John. But the joy evaporated as John fell victim to the fever. Scott buried his brother all by himself, and at the grave rededicated himself to preach the gospel. But again his health broke and he had to return to England utterly discouraged.

But in London something wonderful happened. We read about it in Ruth Tucker’s From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya.

He needed a fresh source of inspiration and he found it at a tomb in Westminster Abbey that held the remains of a man who had inspired so many others in their missionary service to Africa. The spirit of David Livingstone seemed to be prodding Scott onward as he knelt reverently and read the inscription,

OTHER SHEEP I HAVE WHICH ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD; THEM ALSO I MUST BRING.

He would return to Africa and lay down his life, if need be, for the cause for which this great man had lived and died.

Lord willing, next Sunday we will finish the discourse with a look at the last two aspects of the death of Christ that make Him so very good a shepherd of His sheep!

"I Can't Find Anything Wrong with You"

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Sweeter words a man has rarely heard.

They came from the lips of my ENT on Wednesday.

He spoke them after doing the upteenth exam on my mouth, tongue, and neck over the last five years, looking yet again for any evidences of cancer.

The verdict? I can’t find anything wrong with you. Good thing he wasn’t doing an exam on my sinful heart!

And so I graduate. I will miss the good doctor, but not the exams. He conveyed upon me the degree, Master of Life. Best one of the four I have ever gotten.

No need to see him or the radiation oncologist any more. Only my medical oncologist remains to sign off on the “cured” designation for my five year battle against head and neck cancer before the lot falls to my dentist alone to stand guard against another invasion of renegade cells.

Cool. Five years is a long time. I’ve dreamed of August 2010 many times. That God allowed me to make it and that we will celebrate that gift on the 29th at 6 PM at the SDA sanctuary AND that doc said he would come (please pray that he does) all have made for a very good month for me. I am grateful. Extremely grateful.

The poet, himself the beneficiary of his own miraculous deliverance from death, asked in Psalm 116:12, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?

The answer comes in vv. 13-14.

13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.

Oh, Lord God, make me faithful to do the same. Faithful to do the same.

Biblical Resolutions Distilled from a Battle With Cancer Continued

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A few posts back I introduced a new series of articles based upon my five year anniversary this August from finishing cancer treatment and remaining cancer-free.

When I first returned to the pulpit in November of 2005, I preached a series of three sermons from Psalm 116 entitled Seven Biblical Resolutions Distilled from a Battle with Cancer. You can listen to part one here.

I articulated this theme from the text in light of the apparent deliverance enjoyed by the psalmist from some recent life-and-death threat:

Deliverance by God from desperate straits warrants renewed resolves in a relationship with God.

In this post I want to address the first and arguably most important resolve toward God when He comes through big time in our lives.

First, resolved to delight in God (1a).

We needn’t look beyond the first few words of the psalm to sense the tenor of things in the sweet singer’s heart. I love the Lord. Actually the Hebrew text has no object. It begins with one word, the verb love. I love. We supply the object, Yahweh, from the clause that follows – because he has heard my voice. I love the Lord. Here is a man who is more in love with God than ever. The Law of God commands love for Him (Deut. 6:5). Passionate love. With all you heart and all your soul and all your might.

Emotions are no insignificant part of the spiritual life. The Bible has much to say about what you know AND what you feel. It mattered enough to Jesus to ask Peter three times on the shores of Galilee, Simon, do you love me more than these (John 21:15-17). Psalm 37:4 commands, Delight yourself in the Lord. You simply cannot read the psalms, a book of poetry and songs, without acknowledging the depth of emotions experienced by the believer in God.

It shocks me how indiscriminate I am with the word love. I say things like, I love food. I couldn’t say that for much of 2005. Nothing tasted as it should. Radiation had traumatized my taste buds. I forced myself to eat. I resorted to watching Emeril Live on the Food Network, imagining what it would be like to eat like that again. What astonished me about this was the level of grief I experienced over the loss of food – its taste, its fellowship, its uniqueness at a fine restaurant, its pairing with a glass of wine. The Lord took all that from me then. And the question that came to me with overwhelming force from the Spirit was, Curt, will you find your soul’s satisfaction in me even if eating is never quite the same passion for you? Do you love me more than steak, than pasta, than your wife’s to-die-for Black Magic cake?

To help me answer this, or at least put me on the road to the right answer, God gave me John Piper’s new book God is the Gospel to read at that time. He laments in the introduction:

We have turned the love of God and the gospel of Christ into a divine endorsement of our delight in many lesser things, especially the delight in our being made much of. The acid test of biblical God-centeredness – and faithfulness to the gospel – is this: Do you feel more loved because God makes much of you, or because, at the cost of his Son, he enables you to enjoy making much of him forever? Does your happiness hang on seeing the cross of Christ as a witness to your worth, or as a way to enjoy God’s worth forever? Is God’s glory in Christ the foundation of your gladness (pp. 11-12, emphasis added).

This is a God-centered psalm. Though the writer clearly appreciates God for His gifts, it is clear that he sees them as rays from the radiant beam of God’s goodness and follows them back to the source and proclaims his unadulterated love for Him first and last. No less than fifteen times he uses the personal name for God, Yahweh. He is enamored with God. God is his all-consuming obsession. He could easily sing with Asaph in Psalm 73:25-26 – Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

What song do you tend to sing these days? If God has rescued you recently in any way, shape or form, may I suggest to you that you should respond with a greater resolve than ever to delight yourself in Him?

How to Tell the True Shepherd from the False (4)

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This morning’s message from John 10:11-21 in now on the web. You can listen to it here.

Here’s how I concluded things, minus the quote by Matthew Henry, which I forgot to share:

We have three more specifics regarding the sacrificial death of Christ and what makes it supremely good to come – global, voluntary, and designed. These will have to wait for next time. Jesus claims to be the good shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. That which makes Him definitively good is that He lay down His life in a most loving, certainly substitutionary, purposefully particular death for His sheep that makes possible their abundant life. Have you believed in Jesus the Good Shepherd? He invites you to come by faith to Him. Turn from your sins, your trust in self, good works, or any false shepherd and put your trust in Him. You will know Him and He will know you even as the Father knows the Son and the Son knows the Father. If you already belong to His flock, then give thanks in light of this theological survey from the lips of Jesus in the good shepherd discourse, this commentary on the laying down of his life, that He has gifted you with so supremely good a sacrifice.  As Matthew Henry put it: Jesus Christ is the best of shepherds, the best in the world to take the over-sight of souls, none so skilful, so faithful, so tender, as he, no such feeder and leader, no such protector and healer of souls as he.

May you walk this week in the shadow of your good shepherd as He leads you along with the rest of His sheep.

Texts That Terrify

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Some passages of Scripture terrify (or at least they should) believers across the board.

For example, Matthew 12:36 warns, On the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak. If that doesn’t flat out scare you given the difficulties attached to taming the tongue (see James 3), I don’t know what will.

Other verses raise the hair on special interest heads only, like Hebrews 13:17.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

The church elder/pastor whose knees don’t knock at the prospect of giving an account to the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 4:1-4) at the last judgment for the quality of his watch care over the souls allotted to his charge best resign his office to trifle with lesser responsibilities.

Reading Timothy Witmer’s excellent book The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church recently reminded me of this sanctified terror shared by me and my fellow elders at Orlando Grace.

For this reason and others our elders and deacons opted to tackle this theologically sound and ecclesiologically practical resource in preparation for our annual leadership team retreat next weekend. Lord willing we will gather for a Friday night and Saturday morning to discuss Witmer’s book and evaluate our ministry of shepherding at OGC in light of it.

Witmer reveals his thesis early on in the introduction:

The simple thesis of this book is, “The fundamental responsibility of church leaders is to shepherd God’s flock.” After all, the word “pastor” comes from the Latin word meaning “shepherd.” However . . . shepherding is not merely the responsibility of those who are called to be pastors but also of those who are called to be elders or its equivalent in our churches. In fact . . . “shepherding” is at the very heart of the biblical picture of leadership. Unfortunately, this emphasis is missing in many churches (p. 2).

Thankfully, it’s not missing in our church. But could we do it better? Absolutely. Hence our desire to invest significant hours together next weekend to evaluate ourselves in light of biblical standards.

Will you pray for us that we hear God’s voice as to the action steps He desires for us to take to shepherd better the flock for which Jesus died at Orlando Grace?

After all, getting better at shepherding not only will make things go better for us at the judgment, if I read the rest of Hebrews 13:17 correctly.

It will result in great advantage to you, the sheep, as well.

Biblical Resolutions Distilled from a Battle with Cancer

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As August marks the five year anniversary of my finishing treatment for head and neck cancer, I find myself thinking a lot about that season in my life. I had no idea going in what a monumental deliverance God would work on my behalf through the process. It amounted, in my estimation, to nothing less than a rescue from the jaws of death.

For that reason I had little trouble deciding what text to preach from when I finally returned to the pulpit. God drew me to Psalm 116. You can listen to the first of these sermons here.

There the anonymous psalmist clearly celebrates a miraculous deliverance from some desperate straits. He uses terms that suggest he nearly lost his life. He thought he was a goner. For example, in v. 3 he writes, the snares of death encompassed me. And in v. 8 – you have delivered my soul from death.

He wrote the psalm post-deliverance to celebrate the miraculous intervention of God into his precarious circumstances. Laced throughout the text we find repeated resolves. This thing, whatever it was, made an astonishing impact on the writer. He recorded the specifics for the church in all ages.

From his example I drew this thesis for a series of three messages:

Deliverance by God from desperate straits warrants renewed resolves in a relationship with God.

When God intervenes in your plight and brings you through to the other side and you know that no one else but He could have engineered your deliverance, then it makes all the sense in the world to assess your relationship with Him and make serious resolves to strengthen it. There are seven in the text and, Lord willing, I will blog about them one-by-one throughout the rest of this month.

I continue to be grateful for length of days and look forward to our special celebration of thanksgiving for this miraculous deliverance on August 29!

Ministries of Mercy – Free Audio Book

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Christian Audio is giving away this month a free download of Tim Keller’s Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road.

I have read this book. It is an important contribution to the conversation about the need for believers to show mercy to the poor and compassion to the needy.

If you need motivation for showing the gospel through deeds of mercy and want help in building bridges into the lives of unbelievers, this will help.

Don’t forget to use the coupon code “AUG2010″ when checking out.

Also, for the month of August, you can get Ministries of Mercy for half price ($6.49) at Westminster Bookstore, if you prefer reading your books.

Take advantage of either deal while you can.

V-8 & Community Life

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With permission I post these reflections of one of our recently installed new members at OGC, Connie Wilder.

Are you ever amazed at the promises of God when they come to fruition? Don’t you just want to do the V-8 smack on the head and shout “Wow, I could have had these blessings all along!”?

Since becoming a member of the OGC community a mere three weeks ago, the flood of blessing inferred in community life has poured over me, filling my heart beyond my belief with the joy of my salvation.

I have shared in the Lord’s Supper with an inner humility and thanksgiving never before experienced.

I have heard the sharing of missionaries that has stirred my heart for the Gospel and the lost.

I have attended prayer meetings with a renewed passion and boldness and privilege to be in the throne room of God.

I have shed joyful tears as mothers and fathers brought their children to the “temple” to dedicate their families to serve and follow God.

I expect to witness the baptism of new believers later this month and anticipate a sense of celebration.

I toyed with this faithful body and pastor shepherd for years. I praise God for the words of life that finally convicted me of this need and lack in my obedience.

Wow, I could have had these community blessings for years.

Thanks, Connie, for sharing with us how God has worked in your life.

May we all learn and grow from your experience by faithfully giving ourselves with renewed zeal to the commitments and benefits of covenant community!

How to Successfully Run the Marathon of Faith

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This morning’s message by Kevin Wilhoit from Heb.12:1-3 is now on the web. You can listen to it here.

Kevin is a summer pastoral ministry intern at Orlando Grace working on his M. Div. degree at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando.

His proposition and main points are as follows:

Because we are weak and easily discouraged in our Christian life, we must run with endurance by embracing God’s provisions for perseverance.

They are two-fold.

First, the example of numerous champions of faith in the past. Kevin made application as to the importance of reading Christian biographies to this end.

Second, the ultimate example of Jesus Christ and His supreme excellencies, the only motive and means for endurance. Kevin stressed the importance of savoring Jesus as more than an example from which we should just get tougher in dealing with encouragement; he pointed us to the power of the gospel in our everyday experience.

He closed with this quote from the Puritan, Matthew Henry:

“The joy of the Lord will arm us against the assaults of our spiritual enemies and put our mouths out of taste for those pleasures with which the tempter baits his hooks.”

May we all look to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith as we run the race set before us!