Jesus, the Real Man

Here's a good one, especially for all you parents who have teens. While this is directed to the boys, it would be interesting to see what our girls think of boys in the categories described by Mark Driscoll in this article. As is typical with Driscoll, he is very direct, sarcastic at times, very funny, but I believe overall pretty right on in his points here. Read the whole article. A sampling:

Paul says a man is "the image and glory of God" (1 Cor. 11:7). He is to reflect the truth, goodness, love, and mercy of Jesus, his God and Savior. He is the glory of God.

I have no hope in guys. But I still have hope for the guys because they are the glory of God. God wants his glory to shine through men. God wants his kingdom to be made visible through them. God wants them be his sons. God wants them to follow, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the example of Jesus.

I don't care if you buy a truck or play some video games or rock out on your guitar. But the problem is when those are prevalent, predominant, and preeminent in your life. Some of you guys would argue and say, "It's not a sin." No, but sometimes it's just dumb. You got fired because you were up trying to get to the next level and become a guild leader. That's dumb. You work one part-time job so you can play more guitar or Frisbee golf. That's dumb. You spend all your money on a new car or truck, or toys, or gear, or clothes, or gambling, or fantasy football. Dumb. Some of you say, "Well, it's not a sin." Neither is eating your lawnmower. It's just dumb. There are a lot of things that Christian guys do that aren't evil, they're just dumb and childish.

Men, you are to be creators and cultivators. God is a creator and a cultivator and you were made to image him. Create a family and cultivate your wife and children. Create a ministry and cultivate other people. Create a business and cultivate it. Be a giver, not a taker, a producer and not just a consumer. Stop looking for the path of least resistance and start running down the path of greatest glory to God and good to others because that's what Jesus, the real man, did.

The Gospel: A-Z, not the ABC's

Below is a post I did several months ago. I am re-posting in light of our focus on the Gospel and my comments a few weeks ago when we introduced our class series on the Gospel this Fall. He states well here the need in the church today to apply the Gospel to all of life.

Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (and grandson of Billy Graham), has written a new book, Surprised By Grace: God’s Relentless Pursuit of Rebels , which uses the book of Jonah to illustrate God's amazing grace. Here is a great excerpt from the book that illustrates how our view of the Gospel's impact to our lives is often limited to only a past tense experience, or something only non-believers need to hear, and not integral to how we live each and every day:

He writes:

I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must
believe in order to be saved, but after they believe it, they advance to deeper
theological waters. Jonah helped me realize that the gospel isn’t the first step
in a stairway of truths but more like the hub in a wheel of truth. As Tim Keller
explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the
A-through-Z. The gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel
that keeps Christians going every day. Once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t
to steer them beyond the gospel but to move them more deeply into it. After all,
the only antidote to sin is the gospel—and since Christians remain sinners even
after they’re converted, the gospel must be the medicine a Christian takes every
day. Since we never leave off sinning, we can never leave the gospel.

This idea that the gospel is just as much for Christians as for non-Christians may
seem like a new idea to many, but, in fact, it is really a very old idea. In his
letter to the Christians of Colossae, the apostle Paul quickly portrays the
gospel as the instrument of all continued growth and spiritual progress for
believers after conversion: “All over the world,” he writes, “this gospel is
bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you
heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth” (Col. 1:6 NIV).

After meditating on Paul’s words here, a friend once told me that all our problems in
life stem from our failure to apply the gospel. This means we can’t really move
forward unless we learn more thoroughly the gospel’s content and how to apply it
to all of life. Real change does not and cannot come independently of the
gospel, which is the good news that even though we’re more defective and lost
than we ever imagined, we can be more accepted and loved than we ever dared
hope, because Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again for sinners like you and
me. God intends this reality to mold and shape us at every point in every way.
It should define the way we think, feel, and live.

Martin Luther often employed the phrase simul Justus et peccator to describe his condition as a Christian. It means “simultaneously justified and sinful.” He understood that while he’d already been saved (through justification) from sin’s penalty, he was in daily need of salvation from sin’s power. And since the gospel is the “power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16), he knew that even for the most saintly of saints the gospel is wholly relevant and vitally necessary—day in and day out.
This means that heralded preachers need the gospel just as much as hardened
pagans. (16-17)

The Centrality of the Gospel

In class last Sunday I quoted much of a resolution that was passed by delegates to the recent SBC convention in June, calling for our churches to place emphasis on the centrality of the Gospel in all that we teach and practice. Here is a very helpful version of the resolution along with Scripture references supporting each section. This is a very well-written document that I highly recommend reading. We'll have opportunity to flesh this out in our Fall class time as we will be focusing on applying the Gospel to all of life.

Plodding Visionaries

The Lord willing, we plan to revisit the idea of godliness in class on August 8. Sometimes it can be frustrating in that we don't see the progress in our spiritual growth we'd hoped or expected in our journey as a Christian. I found this idea of a "plodding visionary", a phrase coined and described here by Kevin DeYoung, very useful in thinking about our lifetime walk with God and our desire for our churches and ourselves to be more like Christ:

It is easy to blast the church for all her failures. It is harder to live in the church day after day, year after year, with all of the ho hum, hum drum, and to slowly and consistently make a difference.

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. We need to ask the right questions, we need to have the right expectations, and we need to establish the right vision.…

Here is my burden for our generation: along with all of the necessary pleas we have to be earnest and intense and radical and sold out. With all of that, I just also want to wave the banner from Zechariah 4:10, “Do not despise the days of small things.” That is what I mean by being plodding visionaries.

If you are a visionary, you don’t have your head in the sand. You are going somewhere. You are looking out. You are moving in a direction. But you are a plodder. One foot in front of the other.

Many of us are attracted to a Tasmanian Devil kind of Christianity…splattering, spinning around. You get fired up—praise God for that—and you spin out like the Tasmanian Devil ready to conquer the world for Christ and you blow up into a tree somewhere.

We need plodding visionaries.

When I wrote the book on the church I read nine books that called for a revolution. Every other day it seems like I read of a new manifesto. We may need to just simplify a little: Get on the right road and keep going.

Our generation in particular is prone to radicalism without follow-through. We want to change the world and we have never changed a diaper. You want to make a difference for Christ? Here is where you can start: this Sunday, volunteer for the nursery. Say, “Here I am, pastor. What can I do to serve?”

Great Thoughts on Daily Prayer

Considering our recent study of the Lord's Prayer, here is a really useful post by Tim Keller offering ideas of how to incorporate prayer, meditation, and Bible Reading into our everyday life.

Lots of good wisdom from a seasoned pastor here. Read the whole article.

Family Worship

Many of us desire to have meaningful family worship times together in our homes, but struggle in this area. I know I do. I found this post from the Resurgence blog by Tim Smith helpful in this regard:

1. Keep it short

I would recommend 15-30 minutes, as a general rule. If things are going well, you can always keep the conversation going, but the goal should be brevity. If you make a discussion too long, it will become tedious and can actually turn your kids away from God. This time should be an overflow of all the Scripture, prayer, and discussion going on in the rest of your lives—not the only place where it happens.

2. Read

Most importantly, family worship is a time for Scripture. Make sure to read small chunks, maybe only a verse or two, at a time and then unpack it together. You can go through a book of the Bible, pick a verse that applies to the day’s events, or choose something topical. The important thing here is connecting Scripture to life in a way that your kids can understand. For younger kids, the The Jesus Storybook Bible is pretty hard to beat.

3. Pray

Everyone should pray together. Thank God for what he has done and how he has provided. Take requests. Pray for each other. Pray for your city and specific lost people in your lives. Remember that you are building a rhythm, which is just as important as any specific prayer.

4. Sing

It doesn’t matter if you can play an instrument or your voice curdles milk—we should all sing songs to God. Scripture is full of song, and our families should be as well. Truth be told, you are probably more of the problem with this than your kids. Young kids naturally sing all the time without any self-consciousness. Get over your hang-ups and desire for perfection and just sing together. My girls and I are making family songbooks as a creative project, and they’re stoked.

5. Keep it regular

The sum is greater than the parts. You will have off days. You will miss days. You may even question your call to ministry. Whatever happens, just keep at it and God will make you equal to the task.

6. Older kids set the example

If your oldest kid is not engaged, your younger ones will follow. Challenge your oldest children to set the example for their siblings. Give them a bit of ownership and a role in how you structure these times, and it will be a huge help.

7. Limit TV

I’m not saying kill television completely, but there is no doubt in my mind that excessive TV rots the attention span. If your kids, or you for that matter, can’t pay attention to anything for more than two minutes, then think about what other entertainment might be captivating your senses.

HT: Take Your Vitamin Z

Daily Checklist

I thought this was a useful little blog post. Surely we can all work more than a few of these into our day. From the 9Marks blog (italics mine):

See how many of these things you have already completed (or can still do later today)...

1. Have you read your Bible and prayed?

2. Have you given God thanks for something?

3. Have you encouraged someone?

4. Have you considered your sin? (and have you repented of it?)

5. Have you told the gospel to anyone?

6. Have you given God praise for his character?

7. Can you think of a way to serve someone you love?

8. Can you write someone a (brief) note/email that might help them through a struggle?

9. Can you protect your eyes and heart from lusting on your way home?

10. Can you remind yourself of the gospel? (it is never a bad time to recount this glorious truth!)

Please don't make this a list for the super-spiritual (if you did a lot of these things) or the spiritually poor (if you didn't do any of these things). Why not simply pick one or two new ones and incorporate them into your day tomorrow?