The Gospel Way – A Puritan Prayer

BLESSED LORD JESUS,

No human mind could conceive or invent the gospel.
Acting in eternal grace, thou art both its messenger and its message,
lived out on earth through infinite compassion,
applying thy life to insult, injury, death,
that I might be redeemed, ransomed, freed.

Blessed be thou, O Father, for contriving this way,
Eternal thanks to thee, O Lamb of God, for opening this way,
Praise everlasting to thee, O Holy Spirit, for applying this way to my heart.

Glorious Trinity, impress the gospel upon my soul,
until its virtue diffuses every faculty;
Let it be heard, acknowledged, professed, felt.

Teach me to secure this mighty blessing;
Help me to give up every darling lust,
to submit my heart and life to its command,
to have it in my will,
controlling my affections,
moulding my understanding;
to adhere strictly to the rules of true religion,
not departing from them in any instance,
nor for any advantage in order to escape evil, inconvenience or danger.

Take me to the cross to seek glory from its infamy;
Strip me of every pleasing pretence of righteousness by my own doings.

O gracious redeemer,
I have neglected thee too long,
often crucified thee,
crucified thee afresh by my impenitence,
put thee to open shame.

I thank thee for the patience that has borne with me so long,
and for the grace that now makes me willing to be thine.
O unite me to thyself with inseparable bonds,
that nothing may ever draw me back from thee, my Lord,
my Savior.

The Glory of God in the Lifted Up Christ (Part One)

Sunday’s message from John 12:27-33 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

I summarized the first three points of the passage this way:

The glory of God went on stunning display in the lifted up Christ, in the passion of His suffering, the prayer of His heart, and the pleasure of His Father to glorify His name. The last two points – in the profit of His crowd and the purpose of His death – will have to wait until next time. Can you remain unmoved by the passion and prayer of Jesus crowned by the Father’s pleasure? Though agonized by the prospect and tempted to abort, yet He kept His appointment with the hour. Believe in the One whom the Father so relentlessly and continuously glorifies, the lifted up Son, Jesus the Christ.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift that buoys us through temptation with His unlimited resources as our great High Priest and in and through whom we enjoy the Father’s delight and pleasure.

The Highest Charity

I opted to preach from Hebrews 13:4 for my wedding sermon last Friday night.

Let marriage be held in honor among all.

The context at the end of chapter 12 urges the reader to offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, since He is a consuming fire. Presumably the bullet points at the top of chapter 13 spell out what that looks like in all kinds of ways, like esteeming marriage as an honorable estate.

But for this post, my attention turns to the first thing on the writer’s list in Hebrews 13:1 – Let brotherly love continue.

Now I can think of a host of specifics which flesh that out in the everyday covenant commitments among followers of Jesus, but none perhaps more virtuous than that of intercessory prayer.

J. C. Ryle, in a tract entitled A Call to Prayer, comments:

This is the highest charity. He loves me best who loves me in his prayers. This is for our soul’s health. It enlarges our sympathies and expands our hearts. This is for the benefit of the church. The wheels of all machinery for extending the gospel are moved by prayer. They do as much for the Lord’s cause who intercede like Moses on the mount, as they do who fight like Joshua in the thick of the battle. This is to be like Christ. He bears the names of his people, as their High Priest, before the Father. Oh, the privilege of being like Jesus! This is to , be a true helper to ministers. If I must choose a congregation, give me a people that pray.

This morning in our weekly prayer/staff meeting six of us prayed through the Tuesday group on the OGC prayer/directory call list. Am I ever glad we did.

Is it time to dust off your copy of that sheet with all those names and phone numbers? Why not lay a little charity of the highest form tomorrow on the J through Ms?

And then just keep on rolling through the rest of the week and beyond so that love of the brethren might continue in our precious flock.

How Don't I Love Thee?

Valentine’s Day.

Upon finishing this post, I will grill for my bride and we will spend our 35th February 14th together cocooning at home. What a gift.

I confess I’m not much of a poet or even lover of poetry (much to my detriment, I suspect), but my thoughts turned today to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s famous Sonnet 43, as I think of the love I have for Nancy.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Missing from the all in those last three lines of how I love my wife, I must all too painfully admit, until of late, would be prayers. Breath, smiles, tears, and prayers, of all my life.

The conviction of this lack came strong from God at the Desiring God pastor’s conference a couple of weeks ago with Joel Beeke’s message on family worship. In the panel discussion the day after that message, someone asked the speakers how well they fare in applying the principles Dr. Beeke taught from the example of the Puritans. Beeke himself claimed to have never failed in one day of 22 years of marriage to have prayed with his wife, even from the road when he travels! I felt about two inches tall.

Francis Chan, on the other hand, brought things back to the reality for most of us, I suspect, when he admitted he might pray with his bride once a week at best. He admitted that Beeke’s message hit him hard. No duh.

Then John Piper chimed in with his admission that he finds it easy to pray in public as a pastor but hard to pray in private with his wife. He added, “If we show in public an intimacy with the most important relationship we have vertically with God by the way we pray, but fail to demonstrate that in the most intimate relationship we have horizontally, something is amiss.” He got that right. Knock me down another inch.

So I came home from Minneapolis determined to do differently. Have to admit, last night, I dropped the ball again. Praise God for the gospel. But by and large the Lord has helped me take a different tack in our home and I am grateful.

How do I love thee, dear Nancy? Lord, help me to repent in the most grievous way I do not.

The Powerful Life of the Praying Pastor

Greetings from the Desiring God 2011 conference for pastors. This year, thanks to a most generous OGC benefactor, I traveled with a friend, Jack Jenkins, pastor of Faith Baptist, Orlando. Thank God for a peer to compare notes on such a strategic theme as prayer in the life of God’s man.

God as done so much already. Consider this sample of quotes:

We’re a room full of ordinary jars of clay. Sam Storms

One of the ways we will be most relevant to the world is by not being like it. Mark Dever

If some sermons had the small pox, the text would never catch it. Mark Dever (Think about it.)

All the things we care about the most are impossible. John Piper (Ain’t that the truth?)

Whenever you lack the impulse to pray, then pray. Joel Beeke (keynote)

American culture is the hardest in the history of humanity for praying. Paul Miller

Helplessness is one of the biggest secrets to prayer. You can’t live life on your own. Paul Miller


You can be so focused on the work of God that you neglect the person of God. Francis Chan

Prayer differentiates us from the rest of the world. Our God listens to us. Francis Chan

Do people see you as someone who just can’t get enough of God? Francis Chan

My peoples’ greatest need is my personal holiness. Robert Murray M’cheyne (biography by John Piper)

Tomorrow we hear from Jerry Rankin on prayer and missions (buckle your seat belt) and then the panel Q&A. The Lord and weather permitting we fly out of MSP at 3 PM, local time.

What a rich privilege to attend yet another DG conference on this the 25th anniversary of the publishing of John Piper’s seminal work, Desiring God, the book that put me on the road toward a God-entranced vision of all things (if you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for?). I got so excited at one point this afternoon I shouted Hallelujah in the session – from what I could tell the only one out of 1700 hundred  in attendance. Not sure why no one else was similarly moved, but no matter. When I get back home, ask me about it. I’ll be glad to tell you what moved me so.

Oh to experience an abiding with God that amounts to a walk in love that leaves the stamp of God on the work of God through a man of God.

When Deity Delivered from Dying (Part Two)

Today’s message from John 11:38-44 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here is the quote from Jonathan Edwards about the meaning of the term glory:

The word glory denotes sometimes what is internal. When the word is used to signify what is within, or in the possession of the subject, it very commonly signifies excellency, dignity, or worthiness of regard. This, according to the Hebrew idiom, is, as it were, the weight of a thing, as that by which it is heavy; as to be light is to be worthless, without value, contemptible. . . . And the weight of a thing arises from its magnitude, and its specific gravity conjunctly; so the word glory is very commonly used to signify the excellency of a person or a thing, as consisting either in greatness, or in beauty, or in both conjunctly (as quoted in Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory, p. 231).

I mentioned this morning that I would post a link to Francis Chan’s message, Think Hard, Be Humble. Turns out I already did a blog post about it! To read it and watch the message click here.

Praise God Jesus gives the answer to the canyon question that we may be delivered from ultimately dying!

On Being Known & Prayer

Recently I listened to a challenging message by Francis Chan from the Desiring God National Conference called Think Hard; Stay Humble.

He taught from 1 Cor. 8:1-3 which closes with this mind-blowing notion: If anyone loves God, he is known by God.

That led to a cross reference to Gal. 4:9 – But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? Chan observed how it seems like Paul caught himself up short early on in this verse. In talking about the Galatians intimate relationship with God, the apostle started to characterize it in terms of their knowing God but then shifted his field to the significance of God knowing them.

What difference does looking at things this way make?

For one thing it affects motivation for prayer. We can ask God for things, all kinds of things, with confidence that He will answer (though not always as we might wish) because we are known by Him. We have a personal intimate relationship with Him. We call Him, Father (Matt. 6:9). He delights to give good gifts to His children (Luke 11:13).

Pastor Chan gives some amazing illustrations of this reality from his own life. I have experienced some of my own lately.

First, my brother-in-law, who has been effectively out of work for nearly two years, got a job this past week! I have asked the church to pray for this for months now. We enjoyed a sweet celebration dinner last Tuesday night with my folks at the table as well.

Second, two doors have opened for gospel bridge-building in our neighborhood. I’ve had the church praying for this request in the enews for months as well. The answer on this front overlapped with the answer on the first. Nancy and I asked to speak with a few of our neighbors about our situation with another family living with us. We sought to head off any possible difficulties or misunderstandings. It just so happened when we called to ask if we could come over that Sunday afternoon, our next door neighbors were visiting on their back porch with an across-the-street neighbor in their regular 4 PM Sunday visit. When we shared the circumstances they assured us we would get no grief from them AND they invited us to join them regularly on Sunday afternoons! I also discovered that our next door neighbors belong to the subdivision book club and invited me to join the discussion this January. I praise God for a 2 Cor. 2:12 breakthrough in my personal desire to do the work of an evangelist (2 Tim. 4:5).

Does your prayer life lack motivation? It might help to ponder the wonder of being known personally by the God of the universe, an even more important idea than knowing Him. It certainly makes a difference for me. Thank you, Francis Chan.

Things that Make PC Delirious with Delight

Wouldn’t you like to know?

Lots actually.

This post focuses on one only.

Yesterday after service someone came to me to ask for the exact title and author of this book:

It just so happens that request came from one of our teens! I really shouldn’t be surprised. We have some of the sharpest young people knives in the drawer at OGC, my bias notwithstanding.

I mentioned in my announcement about our gift wrap outreach that I had purchased a few copies of OW as Christmas gifts for friends.

That a young person from OGC would ask about how she can get a copy of this invaluable, newly revised, indispensable resource for the world Christian who takes 1 Tim. 2:1-2 seriously – that makes this pastor-teacher downright delirious with delight!

Here’s what you get with your purchase:

  • All the countries of the world featured
  • Maps of each country
  • Geographic information
  • People groups within each country
  • Economic information
  • Political information
  • Religious make-up of each country
  • Daily Prayer Calendar
  • Answers to prayer
  • Challenges for prayer

I promised her I would blog about the book for her and others’ convenience. You can order your copy here.

Why not join the campaign to make your pastor delirious with delight by adding this weapon to your spiritual armory in 2011?

Even if you don’t feel responsible for my happiness (and you shouldn’t) do it anyway!

Thankfulness: An Overlooked Way to Fight Sin

I received this Peace Meal – Food for Thought on Biblical Peacemaking devotional today from Peacemaker Ministries. You can subscribe to their automatic email distribution here.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Phil. 4:6

Paul knew that we cannot just stop being anxious. Worried thoughts have a way of creeping back into our minds, no matter how hard we try to ignore them. Therefore, he instructs us to replace worrying with ‘prayer and petition, with thanksgiving.’ When you are in a dispute, it is natural to dwell on your difficult circumstances or on the wrong things that the other person has done or may do to you. The best way to overcome this negative thinking is to replace it with more constructive thoughts, such as praising God for his grace through the gospel, thanking him for the many things he has already done for you in this and other situations, and praying for assistance in dealing with your current challenges (cf. Matt. 6:25-34).

When you remind yourself of God’s faithfulness in the past and ally yourself with him today, you will discover that your anxiety is being steadily replaced with confidence and trust (cf. Isa 26:3). In fact, recalling God’s faithfulness and thanking him for his deliverance in the past was one of the primary ways the Israelites overcame their fears when they faced overwhelming problems (e.g. Psalms 18, 46, 68, 77, 78, 105, 106, 107, 136; Neh. 9:5-37).

Adapted from The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict
by Ken Sande, Updated Edition (Grand Rapids, Baker Books, 2003) pp. 86-87.