My New Nickname

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My niece and her family attended OGC this AM. Sweet. They’re looking for a budget place to rent in central Florida. If you have a lead, please let me know.

Elise informed me that she dubbed me with a nickname. Something to do with warrior cats or some such that she is into. Never heard of it. She wanted me to guess. I didn’t have a clue. She said, It has something to do with you being a pastor. Still no clue. I gave up.

It’s Wild Breath. Really? I suppose that fits, in more ways than one, especially after this morning’s sermon in 2 Tim. 3:14-4:5. You can listen to the message in its entirety here.

Preaching warrants a certain wildness to it, I suppose. I kind of like it.

We heard a testimony from another wild breath type preacher this morning in the person of Pastor Matt Chandler of the Village Church in Dallas, Texas.

Here is the video of his entire presentation at T4G last week.

Pray for him. Pray for me. Pray for all of us who dare step into a pulpit to exposit the sacred writings before a holy God and His Son, the coming Christ.

As for the new nickname, I’m still kind of partial to PCBO – beloved ox. But I suppose it’s not bad to have two nicknames. PCWB it is as well. Thus saith Elise.

Sowing & Sleeping

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Day Two at T4G, The (Unadjusted) Gospel.

John MacArthur spoke this morning on Mark 4 in a message he called The Theology of Sleep.

He surveyed the entire chapter, calling it The Magna Carta of Evangelism by the Lord Jesus Christ, but he landed most of the time in his exposition on the parable (unique to Mark’s gospel) in verses 26-29.

26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Dr. MacArthur introduced his talk by sharing that he tends to sleep well. Wherever he goes all over the world, it just doesn’t seem to matter, he gets a good night’s sleep. I leaned over to my young friend Shane and said with a smile, I hate him. I don’t share that testimony much as I would like.

Pastor MacArthur went on to explain that he credits much of his non-insomnia experience to the theology of sleep he takes away from this pithy little story of Jesus. It’s another of Jesus’ kingdom parables. It begins with the familiar The kingdom of God is as or like. In this case he draws from the familiar realm of agriculture and the experience of the farmer in raising crops. Truth be told the farmer doesn’t do much. He does sow seed, hard work certainly, but beyond that, in this context, nothing more. He sleeps and rises, night and day, in the normal rhythms of life. As for the sprouting of the seed and its growth into a crop, the farmer is clueless – he knows not how. It just happens. From blade to ear then full grain in the ear, he remains out of the loop. The farmer waits around until the grain is ripe. Then he goes back to work, sickle in hand, for the time of harvest.

The point of the parable, particularly in light of our conference theme about the temptation to adjust the gospel by altering its content so as to somehow make our evangelism more effective in this postmodern age, is that in truth, like the farmer, we as sowers of the seed of the word of God have little to nothing more beyond that to do in terms of our contribution to someone coming to saving faith. That requires the power of God at work in the human heart. How that works we know not how. To use Jesus’ words in John 3 regarding spiritual birth. It’s like the wind. It blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes (John 3:8). So it borders on the ludicrous to think our methods and manipulation of the gospel will ultimately make the difference in a lost person’s life. Our job is to humbly, obediently, diligently, and confidently (four points the speaker further lifted from Mark 4) sow the seed of the gospel (unadjusted) and get ready to harvest if God gives the increase.

I don’t think Dr. MacArthur meant to belittle bridge-building ministries and relational connections in the evangelism effort. But his point was well taken. If anyone gets saved, the gospel and its power (Rom. 1:16-17) have to penetrate the human heart and turn it from stone to flesh. We simply act as the means of delivering the message at some point in the whole transaction. How are they to hear without someone preaching (Rom. 10:14).

Paul put it this way in 1 Cor. 3:6 – I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So church, let us engage lost people whenever we can by sowing the seed of the gospel.

Keep your sickle at hand in case God gives a harvest.

In the meantime, get some sleep.

Speak, O Lord

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We sang this tune by Getty and Townend today in one of our worship sessions at T4G.

I wrote in my notebook these words: BUILDING FUND CAPITAL CAMPAIGN THEME SONG.

Later in the afternoon I emailed Greg and asked him to help me make it happen. My desire is that we would sing this as a congregation each of the five weeks of the campaign.

Check it out. It expresses everything in our hearts as leaders about how and why we hope God will work in the five weeks beginning April 25.

Headed for T4G

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T4G stands for Together for the Gospel, a bi-annual conference that encourages pastors to take their stand together for the gospel.

I attended back in ’06 but missed two years ago. The image above shows the speakers at that conference in ’08.

This time around I felt strongly led to return. I don’t know of any other event of its kind that draws together like-minded reformed pastors and church leaders from a variety of traditions for the purpose of promoting modern reformation and fidelity to the gospel in the pulpit. I just couldn’t see how I could afford to miss another opportunity like this on my watch at OGC.

The theme of this year’s conference is The (Unadjusted) Gospel. Click below for a look at the brief promo video.

I leave early tomorrow morning and arrive home late Thursday night.

Would you please pray for me that I hear the Lord’s voice these next three days? Also, pray for my time with various folks I know who go to school there as well as other pastors with which I will be sharing fellowship. Pray that I might be refreshing to them like Onesiphorus of old (2 Tim. 1:16).

I am asking the Lord to make me a better pastor by the investment of resources required for attending such an event. I covet your prayers for the same.

I do hope to post on our blog from Louisville while I am there, Lord willing and time permitting!

J. C. Ryle & Passionate Preaching For Lost Souls

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Tomorrow, Lord willing, we step back into John’s gospel and the 6th sign, the healing of the man blind from birth in John 9:1-12. You can listen to part one here.

The title of the message is The Day the Light of the World Made Blind Eyes See (Part 2).

In many ways as we tackle the significance of the means Jesus employed in healing the man – anointing his eyes with mud, commanding his washing in the pool of Siloam – we will return to the gospel and the need for passionate preaching for lost souls.

After my message on Resurrection Sunday last week, someone sent me this quote by J. C. Ryle. It raised the temperature on my preaching thermostat to want to preach passionately and faithfully the gospel particularly when the text so plainly requires it. My hope is it will do the same for you on the listening end.

Would you like to know the reason why we who preach the Gospel, preach so often about conversion? We do it because of the necessities of men’s souls. We do it because we see plainly from the Word of God that nothing short of a thorough change of heart will ever meet the demands of your case. Your case is naturally desperate. Your danger is great. You need not only the atonement of Jesus Christ – but the quickening, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, to make you a true Christian, and deliver you from hell (Old Paths, “The Holy Spirit”, [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1999], 275).

May the Lord meet us in and through His word tomorrow with grace and power to convert and strengthen.

Oxford Club for Men – New Book Study

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This Saturday at 7 AM at the church office (see events section of this site) we will begin a new discussion study. So many men indicated a desire for prayer for growth in their leadership abilities in the home, on the job, and at the church, that we decided to utilize J. Oswald Sanders classic Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer (Moody, 2007, updated edition) to help equip us better in this important area. Copies are available at the resource table on Sunday mornings or you can order from Amazon here.

Here is a sample of some of the chapter headings from the table of contents:

  • The Master’s Master Principle
  • Can You Become a Leader?
  • Essential Qualities of Leadership
  • The Leader and Time
  • Improving Leadership
  • Tests of Leadership
  • The Art of Delegation
  • Reproducing Leaders
  • Perils of Leadership
  • The Leader Nehemiah

In the chapter headed An Honorable Ambition, Sanders writes:

True greatness, true leadership, is found in giving yourself in service to others, not in coaxing or inducing others to serve you. True service is never without cost. Often it comes with a bitter cup of challenges and a painful baptism of suffering. For genuine godly leadership weighs carefully Jesus’ question: “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38b). The real spiritual leader is focused on the service he and she can render to God and other people, not on the residuals and perks of high office or holy title. We must aim to put more into life than we take out (pp. 13-14).

We will utilize the study guide on pp. 184-186 for our discussion this Saturday.

Don’t forget to bring your own breakfast and a friend!

Strange Bedfellows: Piper & Warren at the DG National Conference

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I suppose it won’t take long before someone asks me what I think about John Piper inviting Rick Warren to speak at this fall’s Desiring God national conference.

Honestly I could hardly believe my eyes and the brows above them raised to just about the Minneapolis Convention Center ceiling last February at the DG pastor’s conference when I saw the screen slide indicating that Pastor Warren of Saddleback Church and the best selling Purpose Driven Life fame would share the dais along with the likes of Mohler, Sproul (via video), Anyabwile, Chan, and Piper himself.

Dr. Piper recently sought to defend his actions in one of his Ask Pastor John sessions. You can view the video here.

I’ve watched that, as well as the other video where Piper talks about why he invited all the speakers. You can view that here. That he would call Rick Warren “rock solid” surprised me, I must admit. I’m not an expert in all things Rick Warren, to be sure, but I have read Purpose Driven Life and agree with Tim Challies that Pastor Warren takes excessive liberties with his treatment of the Scriptures as a teacher of the same. He is not one I would hold up as a prime example of 2 Tim. 2:15.

In one way I could care less about Warren’s politics and international connections (read the blogosphere banter and you will quickly see what I mean). All I need to know is how does the man handle the sacred writ. Everything from politics to partnerships in a person’s life goes uphill or downhill from there.

So bottom line? I must confess that the choice does trouble me. There is so much I respect and treasure about John Piper’s influence on my life as a pastor. Few theologians, save Dr. David Wells, who wrote five books like No Place for Truth to counter Warrenesque-like thinking, has done more to aid the ongoing reformation of my own more man-centered approach to ministry, to what I trust continues to become a more God-centered one, than John Piper has. And it is for that very reason that I wonder about the wisdom behind such a decision. Why invite so admittedly, to use Piper’s own words, a pragmatist and purveyor of the modern evangelical malaise (my words) to arguably one of the finest annual banqueting tables of God-centered, modern-reformation-committed, truth-saturated, events available today? Strange bedfellows indeed.

I deliberately waited to post my comments on this controversy lest my words reflect more folly than understanding in the debate (see Prov. 18:2). God help us who post prematurely. Anyone who frequents DG events knows of Pastor John’s penchant for pushing the envelope by inviting controversial figures. Do the names Mark Driscoll and Doug Wilson ring any bells? I do not believe Piper possesses a codependent bone in his body. Fear of man does not seem to be one of his issues, unlike this preacher. And I wholeheartedly agree with his appeals for caution in issues related to secondary separation and the need for love to abound in the way we engage one another in our disputes. By the way, I’ve read enough of the blog comments both on the DG site and elsewhere to confirm that we Reformed types still need massive doses of help in toning down our rhetoric and lacing even our most passionate protests with the greatest of these (1 Cor. 13:13). See Justin Taylor for a helpful analysis of the blogosphere free-for-all here. But does the opportunity this DG choice affords us to practice these virtues justify inviting Warren when so many other values related to modern reformation seem jeopardized as a result? I fear not.

Apart from Tim Challies’ perceptive comments referenced above, I found conspicuous by their absence any of the “heavy hitters” (Challies does not count himself among them, but his blog is esteemed by many in our tradition, including me) weighing in on the controversy. Granted, my search was not as thorough as it could have been, but in the time I invested I couldn’t find anything by the folks I would hope would address this (I’ll bet you can guess who they are). Curious. Can anyone help me with links to these “fathers” and their thoughts on this?

Here is my hope. Those folks are talking to John Piper. They’re picking up the phone or flying to Minneapolis, taking the man to lunch and asking something like, “Can you help me understand why you made this choice?” and “May I share with you why I fear it lacks wisdom?” and “What may I do to help you with dealing with the repercussions and fallout?” They’re exercising patience and discretion and due diligence and biblical peacemaking before spouting off on the web.

I might be wrong, but I do not agree with the calls to rescind the invitation to Rick Warren (Psalm 15:4b). I trust Pastor John will do the interview with Warren as promised. My hope is, at some point, my dear brother and mentor from afar might humbly admit that he erred in judgment on this one thing and has learned from it. Lord knows I’ve done my share of that and more in my journey as a pastor-teacher. This whole deal makes me want to exercise even greater care in my decision making as a leader of God’s people, even though the size of my portion of responsibility in the evangelical vineyard pales in comparison to the likes of men like him. Still, I/we shall all give an account no matter what God has entrusted to each of us (Heb. 13:17).

Will I go to this year’s national conference? Probably not. Not because I don’t want to, but because I’ve used up my conference budget on the pastor’s conference, T4G next week (I’m hoping for some redemptive interaction about the Piper/Warren controversy in Louisville), and Ligonier in June . So many conferences, so little time, and only so much money. But I will watch the streaming video if I have time or the recorded video for sure after the fact.

I do not intend at this point to sever fellowship with DG and John Piper. That seems reactionary and extreme a response to me. I still plan to attend the pastor’s conference in February of 2011, Lord willing.

Pastor John may be rightly faulted for imprudence on this issue, but it doesn’t nullify the passion, precision, and integrity with which he breaks the word of life, sermon in and sermon out, conference after conference. Until he shows me something different than his impeccable example of all things 2 Tim. 2:15, I’m in his corner, whether I agree with him or not on his choice to invite Rick Warren to speak this October in Minneapolis.

I would hope he would do the same for me and believe he would.

Fuel for the Fire of Faithful Ministry

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My text for this morning’s message was 1 Cor. 15:58.

I summarized the sermon this way:

The victorious reality of our future resurrection compels an unshakable constancy in the work of ministry. Such steadfast immovability will manifest itself in work – amiable work, abounding work, arduous work, and assured work.

Here is the Thomas Manton quote concerning Titus 2:14 I found so provocative:

Christ died to improve piety, not to lessen it, but to raise it to the highest, to make us zealous of good works that we might be carried on to heaven with full sails. . . . True grace is a fire that warms and inflames our affections. Christ came to make us more cheerful and lively, but not slack, careless, and cold . . . A cold Christian will have but cold comfort. For whom did Christ die? For those that are zealous of good works . . . It is not cold prayers, yawning devotions, and drowsy wishes when men are half-asleep that will serve in this case. Heaven is gotten by force and surprised by onset and storm (attack and violent assault).

You can listen to the entire message here.

May the Lord grant that those of us for whom Christ died may be carried on to heaven with full sails, zealous for good works!

Man of Sorrows, What a Friend

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Today’s entry, April 3, in Octavius Winslow’s Morning Thoughts, leads with Proverbs 18:24.

There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Making application to Jesus, the friend of sinners, Winslow writes:

There is no sympathy, no love, no gentleness, no tenderness, no patience, like Christ’s! Oh how sweet, how encouraging, to know that Jesus sympathetically enters into my afflictions—my temptations—my sorrows—my joys. May this truth endear Him to our souls! May it constrain us to unveil our whole heart to Him, in the fullest confidence of the closest, most sacred, and precious friendship. May it urge us to do those things always which are most pleasing in His sight. Beloved, never forget—let these words linger upon your ear, as the echoes of music that never die—in all your sorrows, in all your trials, in all your needs, in all your assaults, in all your conscious wanderings, in life, in death, and at the day of judgment—you possess a friend that sticks closer than a brother! That friend is Jesus!

As we observe this Good Friday day of remembering the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross, may we also recall and treasure the words of Jesus in John 15:13.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.

Hallelujah, what a Savior! He calls me, he calls you, friend, and sticks closer than a brother.

Tough Questions Christians Face

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That’s the title of this year’s Ligonier Ministries National Conference, June 17-19, at the Orlando World Center Marriott Resort and Convention Center in Orlando.

Below is the promo video from their website.

Their aim in this conference is to help us learn to apply eternal truth to difficult challenges. This from their website:

Christ has redeemed us to be a light that directs others to Him. Fulfilling this call requires us to be able to deal with the most difficult questions asked about the Christian faith. If we are unprepared for the darkness around us, it will be harder to counter it with the truth of God’s Word. Join us as we look at some of the toughest questions Christians face. Our goal is to equip you to answer questions that all Christians and non-Christians find perplexing.

Early bird registration for $129 CLOSES this Friday, April 2. After that it jumps to $149.

Register for the conference here.

I urge you strongly to consider taking advantage of this resource that inhabits our own backyard here in Orlando. It hardly gets more convenient than this. You won’t regret the investment.