Free Song - Lazy Bones

Sovereign Grace Music has just released a new album of music for kids based on the book of Proverbs called Walking with the Wise, and they're offering one of the songs as a free download here. I thought I'd point it out to you, especially in that it fits so well with what we've been talking about in our current sermon series.

Lazy Bones

Inspired from Prov. 6:6-11; 16:3
VERSE 1
Have you heard about Mr. Lazy Bones?
You can find him sleeping on his couch at home
When there’s work outside for him to do
He is working hard to find another excuse

VERSE 2
Mr. Lazy Bones tells you he’s afraid
Never ever finishes the plans he’s made
When you want his help around the house
You can try to find him but he’s never around

CHORUS
Lazy Bones can help us see
What we never want to be
Doesn’t have a hope or a clue
When we work to please the Lord
God will make our plans secure
And He’ll be glorified in all we do

VERSE 3
See the busy ants working all the time
No one has to tell them how to stay alive
Getting ready for winter days ahead
Gathering their food until the times comes to rest

© 2009 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP)/Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

Encouragement

Tom Goodman:

His parents called him Joseph, but his friends had another name for him.

Barnabas.

The nickname means “Son of Encouragement.” People looked at Joseph and said, “His father must have been the embodiment of encouragement itself, and Joseph’s a chip off the old block.” Every time we meet him in the pages of Scripture, he’s cheering someone on.

What does it take to be a Barnabas?

First, seek out new or unconnected church members.

Second, offer special attention to new believers.

Third, encourage Christian workers to keep going.

Fourth, employ unemployed kingdom citizens.

Fifth, encourage those who need a new opportunity after failure.

Go to the link above to read the whole post, where he gives the Scripture references and explanation behind each point.

Denominations

The EFCA Leadership Conference starts tomorrow in Columbus, Ohio, and we will be there for it. Our church was started as a church plant from another Evangelical Free Church, and while we are influenced by others, the EFCA is our family and heritage, under Christ.

Ed Stetzer recently wrote about the continuing, though perhaps declining, influence of denominations in American church life. Here's the conclusion:

To paraphrase Churchill's comments about democracy: Denominations are the worst way to cooperate—except for all the others. They are riddled with weak, ineffective, and arrogant leadership, prone to navel-gazing, and often move more slowly than they should. But these aspects are products of human fallibility and sin. Every time churches work together, ego, failure, and inefficiency will arise. And when they don't work together, ego, failure, and inefficiency will arise. People, not denominations, are the source.

Denominations at their best are not places to get something but places to give and to serve. Our gifts, passions, and experience have greater influence through a worldwide denominational network. Through a denomination, we can provide resources to people we will never meet, reach places we will never go, and preach the gospel to lost souls who are beyond our personal reach. We can find what we need and give as much as we want—because the key to cooperation is to both give and receive.

A healthy denomination ultimately gives us strength. It's a home, not a prison. It allows us to share specific theological convictions, practice expressions of ministry relevant to our communities, and serve a common mission in the one thing that brings true unity: the gospel.

Bitter?

John Flavel:

Affliction is a pill, which, being wrapped up in patience and quiet submission, may be easily swallowed; but discontent chews the pill, and so embitters the soul.

Source

Leaning

Josh Harris:

God's word says in Proverbs 3:5, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding."

Trusting God wholeheartedly involves actively not trusting in yourself--not trusting in your own comprehension, your own experience, your own perspective. The point is don't lean on your own limited and flawed understanding, lean on the perfect Lord.

The leaning described here isn't the shifting-your-weight-to-one-foot variety. It's talking about the kind of leaning in which you place all your weight on something or someone so that they are holding you up, supporting you.

Here's a simple test: you're truly leaning on something if you'd fall over if it wasn't there.

That's a picture of the kind of trust God wants us to have in him. Trusting in the Lord with all your heart involves leaning on him in such a way that you're completely dependent on him.

When we're leaning on God we're going to feel off-balance. Too often we want to trust God but still be independent. We want to trust while feeling in-control. We want to lean while standing on our own two feet. But that's not real trust is it?

Seeing the Future

This post isn't about predictions, but about the way we view time and our use of it. In last Sunday's sermon on diligence and laziness from the book of Proverbs, we saw several verses that speak of disciplined diligence in light of the future. For example...

Proverbs 20:4

The sluggard does not plow in the autumn;

he will seek at harvest and have nothing.

Proverbs 24:27

Prepare your work outside;

get everything ready for yourself in the field,

and after that build your house.

Proverbs 27:18
Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit,

and he who guards his master will be honored.

I also mentioned by way of illustration the different ways that we saw Zambians relate to time during our trip. Our missionaries had prepared us for this, and it was a fascinating study in culture.

Here is an excellent excerpt of a lecture on this topic that is made more engaging by the running whiteboard graphics. I couldn't embed it, but it's worth the click.

The Secret Powers of Time

Source

Continual Repentance

John Calvin:

Plato sometimes says that the life of a philosopher is a meditation upon death; but we may more truly say that the life of a Christian man is a continual effort and exercise in the mortification of the flesh, till it is utterly slain, and God’s Spirit reigns in us. Therefore, I think he has profited greatly who has learned to be very much displeased with himself, not so as to stick fast in this mire and progress no farther, but rather to hasten to God and yearn for him in order that, having been engrafted into the life and death of Christ, he may give attention to continual repentance. Truly, they who are held by a real loathing of sin cannot do otherwise. For no one every hates sin unless he has previously been seized with a love of righteousness

.

Source (who added the emphasis above)

The Gospel Prepares You for Sharing It

Tim Keller:

The gospel produces a constellation of traits in us:

1. We are compelled to share the gospel out of love.
2. We are freed from the fear of being ridiculed or hurt by others, since we already have the favor of God by grace.
3. There is a humility in our dealings with others, because we know we are saved only by grace, not because of our superior insight or character.
4. We are hopeful about anyone, even the “hard cases,” because we were saved only because of grace ourselves.
5. We are courteous and careful with people. We don’t have to push or coerce them, for it is God’s grace that opens hearts, not our eloquence or persistence or even their openness.

From Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything

Source

Because God Works, We Work

John Murray (with line breaks added):

God’s working in us is not suspended because we work,
nor our working suspended because God works.
Neither is the relation strictly one of co-operation
as if God did his part and we did ours
so that the conjunction or coordination of both
produced the required result.
God works in us and we also work.
But the relation is that
because God works
we work.
All working out of salvation on our part
is the effect of God’s working in us,
not the willing to the exclusion of the doing
and not the doing to the exclusion of the willing,
but both the willing and the doing....
The more persistently active we are in working,
the more persuaded we may be
that all the energizing grace and power is of God.

From Redemption, Accomplished and Applied

Source

Over-Practice

Ed Welch:

When in doubt, over-practice.

Musicians face this all the time. They set out to learn a piece of music. At some point they nail it. They play through the entire piece without mistakes. But then, just when we think that they should move on to master the next piece, they practice some more. Why? Because every musician knows that there is a big difference between practicing and performing. What our fingers do effortlessly in the privacy of the practice room is not the same as what they will do in a performance. Fingers have been known to betray us when people are watching. So, concert musicians practice until their fingers play the piece no matter what the circumstances.

When in doubt, over-practice. It is one of life’s basic rules.

We go to church and hear the same thing. Jesus died for sins and is now risen. Okay, got it. Now I don’t need to pay attention too much. Occasionally I will perk up when the preacher inserts a new insight from biblical history. I like the illustrations but they are more for entertainment. Intellectual mastery is all I need. (I teach at a seminary, and I have found that seminary students are experts at this line of thought). Read the Bible? I’ve read it before. I know the basic gist of it. Nothing new.

Then it comes time to “perform”.

The performance takes place in thousands of different venues. Disappointment at work or school, frustration with a roommate or spouse, broken relationships, health fears, a computer with pornography just a few characters and clicks away, discord at church, rebellious kids. The list goes on. And, all of a sudden, we are all thumbs.

We need to over-practice. Here are a few ways.

Go here to read the rest. But I can't resist pasting part of his application here:

I can see a style of thought in myself that goes something like this. If my “thankful” list is longer than my “complaint” list, then I am on the right path. The problem is that I can have dozens of items on the thankful list and only one on the complaint list, and the severity of the complaint outweighs everything I am thankful for. Only the blessings we have received in Christ are weighty enough to counterbalance those especially hard events of life. But these blessings in Christ won’t outweigh our difficulties unless we over-practice reciting them.