I Repent: From Saying Nothing

So, sometimes I shoot my mouth off. Sometimes I say something that is not very well thought out. Sometimes I say something untrue. But more often than not, I say a true thing in the wrong way. I can speak the truth but not always in love. Sometimes I speak the truth in pride. This sinful ability means that I've needed to become more and more willing to apologize to people and turn away from my lack of self control. To, sincerely, ask someone's forgiveness because you've sinned against them is very humbling. It's part of God's work in our lives. It is God enabling us to repent. Hopefully we're all learning to repent in this way.

But I wonder, have you ever had anyone come to you and sincerely apologize because they should have said something but they remained silent? Have you ever had someone come to you and say "I repent for all of my years of passivity when it came to my words"? Have you ever had someone come to you and say "I ask your forgiveness because I didn't speak up but I kept silent"? Has anyone ever said to you "I want to ask your forgiveness because, when you were sinning against God, I didn't confront you"? Has anyone come to you and said "I'm sorry I didn't say anything but at the time I was putting my own comfort and reputation ahead of Truth"? Has anyone ever said to you "I am sorry and I've now learned that my silence was actually sin masquerading as humility"? I think it might be good for us to learn to say, "I repent, from saying nothing."

Punch me in the face and tell me I'm not doing enough... (Clarification)

In my last post I don't think I was as clear as I should have been concerning Expository and Topical teaching. First of all, expository teaching should address many topics but if it is done correctly it should be uniquely Gospel oriented. In other words, it should always be lifting up the character of God and resting on the death and resurrection of Christ.

On the flip side, if topical teaching is done correctly it too shall lift up the character of God and rest on the death and resurrection of Christ. I am not completely rejecting the idea of topical teaching. I love eating at Red Robin but we must realize that topical teaching limits the teacher (to what he already understands) and it limits the hearer (to what the teacher already understands). Topical teaching is, generally, a rehearsal of all of the verses on a given subject that the teacher already knows. Expository teaching keeps forcing the teacher and the students into unknown worlds of Biblical Truth.

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Punch me in the face and tell me I'm not doing enough...

When you've been teaching in the same church for 7 years you have an opportunity to see trends in people's response to preaching and teaching. My teaching ministry is mainly expository and chronological. By expository, I mean is that I'm usually teaching a Biblical text and desiring for the themes of my teaching to come out of the Scripture. By chronological, I mean that I usually teach right through a book of the Bible, verse by verse. People's response to this type of teaching is underwhelming to say the least. It's like my mom's cooking. There's plenty of meat on the table and it fills you up but you don't rave about it for weeks.

But every once in a great while I do a topical series. I tackle topics like sexuality, relationships, stewardship, worldliness, or other charged issues. This is when I get the most response. "I've never heard you teach like that." "That was awesome... it was so practical." This type of cooking is like the cooking at Red Robin. The meal tasted great and it was really fun to be there but if you eat like that every night you'll be a nutritional basket case. You'll be overweight and under nourished. The compliments go on and on and at the end of those times of teaching and usually I am utterly distraught.

I'm distraught because the reason people like those topics is because evangelical Christians love to be told their not doing enough. The thinking goes something like this 'if you tell me I'm not doing enough, then I can make better decisions and then I can fix the problem and make some progress.' This thinking springs out of a belief that when we have spiritual problems, through the power of our will/choices we can better ourselves. We gravitate towards being punched, feeling sorry for ourselves, and attempting to pull ourselves up rather than ceasing to attempt to pull ourselves up. We want to work but we don't want to trust. We want to wallow in ourselves but we don't want to know God. We want a quick fix to our self centeredness not a life-long discipleship process. We want a soft spoken teachers who spout a lot of self help not a hearty herald of God's Word who holds out the promises of God. We want answers not the discipline of the Lord. We want crystal balls not walking by faith. We want works not grace. I want me not the Triune God.

A $45,000 Mercedes?????

Have you ever gotten bent out of shape when you saw a Christian driving a really nice car? What is that in us? Where does that come from? Some people might think that it is righteous to be offended at how other Christians spend their money. I have a friend who is a very committed believer in Christ who drives a Mercedes automobile. I know he takes some flack behind his back because of the car he chooses to drive. Why is that? Well, it's partially because our Christian generation is self righteous. Because of our Christian generation's emphasis on helping the poor we tend to hate the symbols of luxury that we found prevalent in previous generations. Luxury cars and big houses are a bit passé. Brad Pitt isn't being driven around in a Rolls Royce, he drives his own Prius (I saw it on TMZ). It might actually be cooler to live in a town house or a studio apartment than to buy a McMansion. But our Christian generation must watch out because the downsizing of your home does not, necessarily, mean that you are obedient or spiritual. The "place" Jesus is preparing for his people has many rooms (Jn 14:2-3) so large homes are not condemned by Christ (and we should oppose the false teaching that God despises wealth). The fact that you drive a Passat instead of a Mercedes could mean very little about the condition of your heart. More than likely it means you have a lot of school loans.

Luxury cars and houses might be "out" for our generation but $1700 laptops aren't. Having to upgrade my technology every 25 minutes isn't "out". Paying $200 a month for a cell phone isn't "out". Wearing designer eye wear isn't "out". Wearing $120 jeans isn't "out". Eating out isn't "out". Are any of these things wrong? Not necessarily, but before we get really judgmental about the Mercedes let's look deeper. My friend loves Christ and displays that love through his commitment to worshiping Christ with every area of life, even his finances. The Mercedes is, in no way, keeping him from honoring God with everything that he has been given. He bought the Mercedes new about 10 years ago. He probably paid cash for it. He still drives it. I sense the purchase of the Mercedes was a very sensible and wise decision. To purchase the $24,000 car at 5% interest over 5 years may not be as wise, if it keeps us from prioritizing giving to God.

Why do we get bent when we see Christians with nice things? Is our heart really breaking for the poor around the world? Maybe, but my guess is that more often than not, there is a jealousy in us that springs from the sinfulness of our hearts that we need to confess. Our sinful hearts might say, "I'd do much more with all that money." "He/she is so unspiritual." "Why don't I have more to give away?" All of those thoughts come out of discontentment and pride. Let's be thankful that God has blessed the church with people wealthier than us and admit to God that we are the wealthy because we are American's. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Truth Oriented Judgment is really Unpopular

When Osama Bin Laden died it was interesting to see how many Christians blogged about how people should react to his death. Alright, I'm 4 months late but I started this thought in the summer and just recently finished it. My brother in law, Nate, had some very similar thoughts to mine so if you've read his blog you can delete mine. Does the Scripture give us direction concerning how to respond to the death of those who live unjust lives? I think it does. I think we might be surprised at God's response.

God does not delight in the death of the wicked. There's no place for exuberant celebration when the enemies of Christ or His Church die. God gave Ezekiel a message to proclaim to the Israelites. It was a message of repentance. It was a call to turn from evil and in Ezekiel 33:11, Ezekiel spoke for God and He said "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his way and live." God himself will not take delight in the physical or spiritual death of people who hate Him. He takes delight in repentance.

God is not overwhelmed with sorrow at the death of the wicked. So many, in our day, want to fashion God in our likeness and image. How would God react? We tend to think he would react similar to the way we would react. God is incredibly different than us. The Numbers 14 tells us that God is "slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." This is true, yet when Jesus Christ finally judges the "nations" of the earth to eternal punishment He will do it in a holy way. Matthew 7 says that He will say to the unbelievers "I never knew you." In Matthew 7 Jesus is speaking to a group of people who have done many good things on earth but under the microscope of God's righteousness it will be proven that their works were incredibly self serving and rather than bringing glory to God they lived a life of "lawlessness" that glorified themselves. The interesting thing about this passage is that the Righteous Judge will display no overwhelming sorrow at the justice He executes.

God calls for proper judgment based on truth. "We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things." (Romans 2:2) In this context the Apostle Paul is speaking about Osama Bin Laden. He is speaking in the context of unbelievers who have wantonly forsaken the authority of God and have lived life their own way...to the point of sexual sin, murder, strife, haughtiness, boastfulness, foolishness, arrogance etc. What will be their end? How will God judge the lawless? He will judge based on His unchanging truth. Unlike us, he will levy an truth oriented judgment without delight and without sorrow. God's judgments are always right.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

Functional Hypocrites

The other day I had a friend exclaim to a group of peers that they cried when they heard that Steve Jobs had died. I think he was expressing something that many of our generation felt. Technology is such a part of our daily lives (especially the I Phone, Pad, Pod, Touch, MacBook, Mini, Air, Thini, I Visible, I Verson, I Razor etc) that there was a weird void left for people when they realized that the man who had brought them these products would no longer be delivering the goods. We love our neat technology that makes life as convenient and simple as possible. The internet is at our fingertips, constantly, because of Steve Jobs. Now, Apple products aren't cheap. In fact their much more expensive than comparable products made by other companies. Other products may not be as sleek or well designed as Apple products but my laptop cost about 1/2 of what a comparable Apple laptop might cost. And Steve Jobs was incredibly rich because of this. He was a multi billionaire capitalist who gave relatively little to charity...but we don't care because 'I love my I Phone and my I Pad.' 'I couldn't live without it.'

I'm not critiquing Steve Jobs. Capitalism is not wrong. There is great good that comes from free market capitalism. Consumerism, can become idolatry, but the idea of people buying and enjoying products is not necessarily bad. Here's the issue. We are a generation of people who are celebrating their I Phone, their MacBook Pro and Steve Jobs, who are also attempting to Occupy Wall Street. We believe that "Capital Finance Ruins Lives" and "A Job is a Right, Capitalism Doesn't Work." We're functional hypocrites. We believe that capitalism is bad but we use the products of capitalism (Facebook, Computers, Phones etc) to organize our anti-capitalistic marches. We buy up a bunch of technology, cry about the death of Steve Jobs, and then attempt to lambaste everyone about how they don't give enough to charity. We decry our parents American dream but we've built a new American dream. We may not have the finances to own two homes (nothing wrong with it) but we'll spend the rest of our lives crawling further into the comfort of our "Netflix world"(John Piper).

As Christians, is it possible for us to be a generation who grows to use the products without worshiping the products? Can we be thankful for Apple Computers? Can we enjoy the free market as a blessing from God and within that live a simple life that gives glory to God by giving of our finances regularly to our local church? Can we own things and not let them own us? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Is the Reformation Nearly Over?

I've pasted below a blog entry from Carl Trueman. Trueman is a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary. I found the article to be incredibly insightful. I'd love to hear some of your insights.
Sincerely,
Mark Evans


Is the Reformation nearly over? Perhaps, but maybe not for the reason you think, (Carl Trueman)
Reformation21 Blog 9/25/11 12:04 PM
Time was that the megachurch was not highly thought of by those who claimed the name Reformed or looked to the Reformation for their historical inspiration. This was consistent with two basic concerns which had high priority for the Reformers: as opposition to things such as pluralities (ministers holding multiple appointments) and absenteeism (ministers not actually ever being where they ministered); and the fear of turning leaders into fetishes.

Reforming pastoral ministry along these lines was a hallmark of Reformation Protestantism. It had, after all, started with a pastoral problem and rapidly became an issue of the nature of church authority. In the process, the importance of putting educated ministers who could articulate the faith and offer pastoral nurture to the people was never far from the centre of concern.

On the whole, that lasted until about five to ten years ago when, all of a sudden, megachurches started to arise which sounded a bit like the Protestant Reformers, at least in the buzzwords and catchphrases they use. Now, strange to tell, there are actually debates going on in small 'r' reformed circles about whether pluralities and absenteeism (today known as multi-site ministries) are a good thing or not.

This is clearly antithetical to the ecclesiological concerns of the Reformation. The lack of pastoral care such multi-sites engender is common knowledge. Further, the whole idea seems clearly to turn certain preachers into fetishes. Medieval Catholics liked to obtain the body, or even just a fragment, of a saint for their church building in order to make it an authentic church, or a better church than the one in the neighbouring town (see. the undignified fight for the corpse of St. Anthony of Padua; today we need a virtual piece of a famous preacher in our locale to have access to the magic.

The cost is high: the Reformers predicated pastoral care (from preaching to personal interaction) on having local knowledge of local people. They feared cults of personality (which they saw as leading to the idolatrous medieval veneration of the saints) so much that they actively discouraged them and did not simply play the `Nothing to do with me, guv' card when they arose.

Further, they were too busy training people to go to places where there was no Reformation witness to have found the idea of church planting on the doorstep of faithful churches to be an attractive idea - let alone to do so in a way that would have brought no personal discomfort or cost to themselves but caused great frustration and distress to other decent saints. I have become aware of a number of `ordinary' (sic) pastors recently - good men, solid preachers, diligent churchmen - whose ministries have been seriously harmed by the arrival of `videolink' ministries of big names in their locales.

Yes, these particular local pastors are decent preachers. Do not fob me off with the lazy argument 'Well, small churches often have boring preachers' gambit -- that is sometimes the case, it is true; but let us be honest -- some of today's biggest reformed names spend more pulpit time telling jokes and talking about themselves than preaching the biblical text; they may not be boring and they may fill the house to the rafters but a twenty minute sermon should not take fifty minutes to deliver (and, as an aside, is it not time somebody of influence in such circles pointed that out?).

Yet these small church pastors can only offer their people hard work and the need for real get-your-hands-dirty commitment. By contrast, the video hook-up brings the fetish to town and makes no few demands upon anyone beyond the tech guy, the head of physical plant and the local praise band. In today's consumer world, there is no doubt who has the more attractive product to sell. Presumably the cancer wards will offer similar video link-ups when members of the virtual congregation lie dying and in need of final comfort.

This is not reformation in any way that the sixteenth and seventeenth century Reformers would have understood it. It is rather the kind of thing against which they were reacting, and that with passion.

The problem with the way `Reformed' is often used today is that it divorces certain things (typically the five, or more often, four points of Calvinism) from the overall Reformation vision of pastoral care, church worship, Christian nurture and all-round approach to ministry. The Bible becomes sufficient for the doctrines of grace; but what works, what pulls in the punters, becomes the criterion for everything else, especially ecclesiology and pastoral practice.

I have noted before how grateful I am that my sons grew up in churches where the pastor knew their names, chatted to them after the service and even stood on the occasional touchline or track to cheer them on at school sports events. If they ever abandon the faith, it will not be because they never knew the pastor cared for them as individuals, rather than just as mere concepts or numbers or pixels on a two way videolink. I am also grateful that my pastors really cared about my wife and me, prayed for us regularly by name and, I am sure, even occasionally shaped parts of their sermons to give a word of needed encouragement and to help us with trials through which they knew we were going. These pastors were not perfect -- far from it; but they were at least actually there, really available and genuinely concerned. In short, they tried to embody true Reformation -- biblical! -- church leadership.

The Reformation was about more than a doctrinal insight into justification; it was also about abolishing the fetishisation of certain great figures as if they possessed some special magic and about instituting an ideal of educated, personal, local ministry. Maybe the Reformation is nearly over; and maybe it is Benedictine Catholicism but actually the new reformation, with its multi-sites and its rvirtual pastors, that is finishing it off. That is quite a sobering and ironic thought.