An innocent monkey was walking down a street. Little did he know a skinny spider had taken a special interest in him…
Archive for October, 2008
Hindrances to community
Thursday, October 30th, 2008
As we all know by now, our mission is to enjoy God, experience community, and engage the world. Yesterday, our community talked about how God uses the church community to shape us more and more like Jesus. This doesn’t happen passively, but with what Tim Chester calls, “gospel intentionality”, especially when it comes to the “truth that is in Jesus” (Eph 4:21). One person observed that our the people in our community are really “nice”, but it wasn’t a compliment, but rather a critique. God did not call us to be nice people, but “new” people. We can be nice, but cowards when it comes to dealing with sin in each other. Until we practice intentionality of truth telling in a spirit of love, we will not experience community in the way God has purposed for us. It’s not stepping on people’s toes for the sake of stepping of people’s toes as one brother put it, but it’s about having a vision for holiness and wholeness. It means believing God has given us each other toward that end.
All of this is ideal in theory, and we’ve all agreed as such. But putting it into practice is a whole different realm. What prevents us from putting into practice what we agree as true and good for us all? First we need to renounce subtle lies that masquerades as truth. Here’s a few that we talked about yesterday. They are broad strokes, but nonetheless they are important to consider:
- Western individualism: it’s the notion that our faith and growth are privatized, and not public. It’s the “pulling yourself from your bootstraps” mentality that we are supposed to fix things yourself with any help.
- Eastern face saving: we put our best face forward and avoid confrontation and conflict at all costs. We favor comfort over doing what’s right. We don’t want to admit to the specifics of our brokenness because we care too much about what other people think.
- Postmodernity’s value of tolerance: it’s the notion that truth claims are power plays which relegates truth to just preferences and perspectives. Truth is seen as a dirty word, rather than the key to our freedom.
We must put off falsehood, and speak truth to each other since we belong to one another(Eph 4:25). The hope is that we can be reshaped by gospel truth to become holy and whole. That hope is secure, because in eternity past, God chose us for that purpose (Eph 1:4). God will do it if we simply trust in his process for change. It means taking risks, overcoming our insecurities, and putting up with the awkwardness. Our initial attempts will no doubt be clumsy and inarticulate. There may be misunderstanding and hurt feelings. But if each of us know that our intentions are gospel motived love, then we must bear with each other as we take those steps.
One of our problems is that we think of holiness as giving up things we enjoy out of a vague sense of obligation. But I’m convinced that holiness is always, always good news. God calls us to the good life. He’s always bigger and better than anything sin offers.Tim Chester, You Can Change, pg.12-13
Let’s embrace this truth and not fight it, thinking that there’s some other way. The other way is focused on self and what we can do. We should know by now that it doesn’t go anywhere. It feeds our pride when we succeed in whatever superficial standard you might have or it causes great despair because we can’t live up to our own standards. The gospel points us outward, away from ourselves towards Christ alone and his work on the cross. God rescued us from sin and is restoring us into the image of his Son. May we gear up for change, true change we can believe in.
Monday Morning Quarterback
Monday, October 27th, 2008
Sometimes in my sermon preparation, there are many things I want to delve in or quotes I want to squeeze in. But sometimes either time doesn’t allow, or it would just get too theologically nerdy. My aim was to break down Ephesians 1 as simply as possible, so there were many things that had to be overlooked for now. Earlier this past week, I came across this quote from J.I. Packer regarding the doctrine of salvation which I think is useful in our understanding of Ephesians 1. Thankfully we have such astute theologians who can take complex and controversial concepts in scripture and give us the bottom line. So for those what a little more meat, chew on this:
Packer said, “The very act of setting out Calvinistic soteriology [the doctrine of salvation] in the form of five distinct points (a number due, as we saw, merely to the fact that there were five Arminian points for the Synod of Dort to answer) tends to obscure the organic character of Calvinistic thought on this subject. For the five points, though separately stated, are inseparable. They hang together; you cannot reject one without rejecting them all, at least in the sense in which the Synod meant them. For to Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.
“God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.
“Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies.
“Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners – and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedalling the sinner’s inability so as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Saviour. This is the one point of Calvinistic soteriology which the “five points” are concerned to establish and Arminianism in all its forms to deny: namely, that sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen.”
J.I. Packer, “Introductory Essage,” in The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, by John Owen (London: Banner of Truth, 1959) 4-5.
Dealing with Evil
Monday, October 27th, 2008
As I mentioned in my sermon yesterday, here’s the rest of the list from John Piper’s book, “Spectacular Sins and Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ.”
8 Things to do with Evil
On the one hand:
- Expect evil. (1 Peter 4:12)
- Endure evil. (1 Cor. 13:7; cf. Mark 13:13)
- Give thanks for the refining effect of evil that comes against you. (Eph. 5:20; cf. 1 Thess 5:18; Romans 12:9)
- Hate evil. (Rom. 12:9)
- Pray for escape from evil. (Matt. 6:13)
- Expose evil. (Eph. 5:11)
- Overcome evil with good. (Rom 12:21)
- Resist evil. (Jas. 4:7)
4 things never to do with evilBut on the other hand:
- Never despair that this evil world is out of God’s control. (Eph. 1:11)
- Never give in to the sense that because seemingly random evil, life is absurd and meaningless. (Rom. 11:33, 36)
- Never yield to the thought that God sins or is ever unjust or unrighteous in the way he governs the universe. (Ps. 145:17)
- Never doubt that God is totally for you in Christ. If you trust him with your life, you are in Christ. Never doubt that all the evil that befalls you – even if it takes your life – is God’s loving, purifying, saving, fatherly disciple. It is not an expression of his punishment in wrath. That wrath fall on Jesus Christ our substitute. Only mercy comes to us from God, not wrath, if we are his children through faith in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:13; Rom. 8:3; Heb 12:6)
Divine Conspiracy
Monday, October 27th, 2008
What was the Triune God planning in eternity past? In a nutshell, to save sinners by:
- The Father Choosing
- The Son Redeeming
- The Holy Spirit Renewing
Watch the “Divine Conspiracy” based from Ephesians 1:1-14
Things keeping me up at night
Friday, October 24th, 2008
If you are keeping up with us via Twitter, I mentioned that Alisa is a pretty good sleeper, but only during the day, not at night. She’s the obvious culprit, but to no one’s surprise. I’ll cut her a break since I’m such a nice guy. But there are other things keeping me up at night as well. I picked up two books for my nightstand this week thinking if I could get to them, that’d be great. But I knew my sleep deprivation would be working against me from getting into these books. Just the other day, I went to the barber. I think I spend 30% of the time nodding off. Amazingly the barber was able to give me a decent haircut despite my bobblehead tendencies. I digress.
Death By Love is a haunting and compelling book on the cross and how it applies pastorally to a wide range of personal issues and tragedy. I stayed up till 1:30 am the other day when I should have used that time to get any sleep I could get. The book even has a trailer, believe it or not:
The second book is called, Spectacular Sins and their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ. Only John Piper could come up with a title like that and get away with it. I’ve only dug in a few chapters, but here’s an excerpt:
“The coddled Western world will sooner or later give way to great affliction. And when it does, whose vision of God will hold? Where are Christians being prepared for great global sorrows? Where is the Christian mind and soul being prepared for the horrors to come? Christians in the West are weakened by wimpy worldviews. And wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. God is weightless in our lives. He is not terrifyingly magnificent. His sovereignty is secondary (at best) to his sensitivity.”
It’s hard to fall asleep to that wouldn’t you say?
Lastly, the World Series is also keeping me up at night, but I’m wondering if it’s really worth it.
Overcoming Fear
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
We had the privilege of having Mike Kachura come to speak. His message is entitled “Overcoming Fear” and is based on Job 3:25-26
Wah, Wah, Wah
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
No, this is not a post on babies crying…
Usually when I recommend books to people, I feel like I’m in a Peanuts cartoon where the teacher is never seen, but heard, but only in an unrecognizable “wah, wah, wahs”. The book is quoted a lot in this blog and in my sermons, yet no takers until recently. Kevin Wu ordered it via Amazon, only for it to be in backorder, so he ordered it from Amazon UK since the writer is British. I was a little concerned that he would be disappointed after taking such great lengths to get it, but not so. Here’s his take on Tim Chester’s “You Can Change”:
“Finished the book.
Book is very good. It’s realistic, yet hopeful. Most books I’ve read lean on too much hope, but then when life gets difficult, you are confused because you didn’t expect it to be so difficult and you didnt think it would take so long to grow…..Other books say that you just get zapped, and then suddenly you are a new man, but when feelings of longing for old idols come up in your heart, you are left confused and without explanation. Plus that doesnt respect the fact that we are sinners, with hearts that are “deceitful above all things”.
This book….I love it..I think I might actually read it again but more slowly.
I literally just want to buy a whole box and force every one at our church to read it..I dont think reading it alone will change any one, but at least you know what is going on and you know what to expect if you ever want to be sanctified.”
If that’s not convincing enough, at least read chapter 5.
