The Lord Adding to the Lord

Michael McKinley:

In Acts 2:47 we read:

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

And in Acts 11:24 we read:

And a great many people were added to the Lord.

John Stott comments:

In the New Testament it is the Lord who does the adding (2:47), not human missionaries. We might also comment that the additions are not just to the church but to the Lord (11:24). When we see 'the Lord adding to the Lord', so that he is both subject and object, source and goal, of evangelism, we have to repent of all self-centred, self-confident concepts of Christian mission. (The Message of Acts, page 204)

How Smaller Churches Can Thrive

Ed Stetzer, on two key factors in smaller churches that are thriving:

Passionate, Persistent Prayer
Small churches need to stop looking at megachurches and their pastors as role models. They can learn from them, but they must not copy them. In a world that devalues the small, listening to God in prayer and stepping out in obedience are much more important than the latest magic bullet that often misfires in smaller churches.

That attitudinal change can and does happen through intentional prayer for renewal. As we looked a little deeper at survey results, it was interesting to note that the comeback leaders of smaller churches highlighted the need for prayer even more than those at larger churches. When asked, "To what degree did the following [areas] change during your church's comeback?" leaders of the churches under 200 rated prayer as the area most changed.

Smaller comeback churches are often praying churches. Comeback leaders of smaller churches believed even more strongly that real, intentional, strategic prayer made a significant difference in their revitalization process. God can change attitudes in your church through passionate, persistent prayer for renewal.

An Outward Focus
Small churches are not exempt from the call to reach people because they are small. Too many churches of all sizes spend too much time moaning about what they don't have that other churches do have or about what they can't do that other churches are doing. No, you may not be able to do everything that other churches are doing. But that doesn't mean your church can't do something of purpose.

If smaller churches are going to thrive, they must focus their attention on reaching the lost in their communities. Again, delving deeper into our survey results reveals another important point. When asked the same question above, the leaders of churches under 200 rated evangelism as the second area that changed the most during the comeback.

Why Christians Sing

Bob Kauflin:

Christians sing together during corporate worship gatherings. Colossians 3:16-17 helps us understand why. Paul tells us that worshiping God together in song is meant to deepen the relationships we enjoy through the gospel. This happens in three ways (or three R’s):

1. Singing helps us remember God’s Word.

Paul says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly…singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” The “word of Christ” mostly likely means the word about Christ, or the gospel. Songs whose lyrics expound on the person, work, and glory of Christ tend to stay with us long after we’ve forgotten the main points of the sermon.

2. Singing helps us respond to God’s grace.

While no one is exactly sure what “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” refers to, we can at least infer some kind of variety in our singing. No singular musical style captures either the manifold glories of God or the appropriate responses from his people.

We’re also told to sing with “thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Singing is meant to be a whole-hearted activity. Emotionless singing is an oxymoron. God gave us singing to combine objective truth with thankfulness, doctrine with devotion, and intellect with emotion.

3. Singing helps us reflect God’s glory.

Doing “everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,” implies bringing God glory. Worshiping God together in song glorifies God for at least three reasons. First, it expresses the unity Christ died to bring us. Second, because all three persons of the Trinity sing (Zeph. 3:17; Heb. 2:12; Eph. 5:18-19). Finally, it anticipates the song of heaven when we’ll have unlimited time to sing, clearer minds to perceive God’s perfections, and glorified bodies that don’t grow weary.

Worshiping God in song isn’t simply a nice idea or only for musically gifted people. The question is not, “Has God given me a voice?” but “Has God given me a song?”

If you trust in the finished work of Christ, the answer is clear: Yes!

So remember His Word, respond to His grace, and reflect on His glory.

Nursing Home Soundtrack

I took note of this, especially as I am planning to preach this text at the memorial service on Saturday.

Chris Brauns:

I called on one of our older people today at a rehab center which is also a nursing home. Pop music was playing over the sound system and the first song that caught my attention was John Lennon:

Image there’s no heaven . . .
It didn’t seem to me like “Imagine there’s no heaven” was a popular thought at the nursing home.

The next song spinning on the nursing home juke box was, “I had the time of my life,” and that one didn’t look like it was going to climb the nursing home charts either.

I understand that people loved I had the Time of My Life in Dirty Dancing. Imagine went platinum for all I know. But, neither song works very well in the nursing home. I didn’t interview the people sitting about in wheel chairs, but my guess is that not a lot of them are dreaming that there’s no heaven. Nobody looked to be having the time of their life. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey were nowhere in sight.

So. I decided to go with the Apostle Paul rather than a meditation on John Lennon. I read aloud to the person I was visiting 2 Cor 4:16-18, “Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal weight of glory that far outweighs them all . . . For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

This Does Not Change

J. I. Packer:

Whatever cultural shifts take place around us, whatever socio-political concerns claim our attention, whatever anxieties we may feel about the church as an institution, Jesus Christ crucified, risen, reigning, and now in the power of his atonement, calling, drawing, welcoming, pardoning, renewing, strengthening, preserving, and bringing joy, remains the heart of the Christian message, the focus of Christian worship, and the fountain of Christian life. Other things may change; this does not.

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How Do You Make Scripture More Personal?

This is worth your time. I trust you'll see how I'm trying to bring Genesis to bear on us in our current sermon series (though I could always stand to improve on application).

Dr. David Powlison - Making Scripture Personal from CCEF on Vimeo.

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When God Comes Down

"Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down..." Isaiah 64:1

Ray Ortlund:

When God rends the heavens and comes down on his people, a divine power achieves what human effort at its best fails to do. God's people thirst for the ministry of the Word and receive it with tender meltings of soul. The grip of the enslaving sin is broken. Reconciliation between believers is sought and granted. Spiritual things, rather than material things, capture people's hearts. A defensive, timid church is transformed into a confident army. Believers joyfully suffer for their Lord. They treasure usefulness to God over career advancement. Communion with God is avidly enjoyed. Churches and Christian organizations reform their policies and procedures. People who had always been indifferent to the gospel now inquire anxiously. And this type of spiritual movement draws in not just the isolated straggler here and there but large numbers of people. A wave of divine grace washes over the church and spills out into the world. That is what happens when God comes down. And that is how we should pray for the church today.

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5 Ways to Make Your Kids Hate Church

Thomas Weaver, on five ways to make your kids hate church:

1. Make sure your faith is only something you live out in public

Go to church... at least most of the time. Make sure you agree with what you hear the preacher say, and affirm on the way home what was said especially when it has to do with your kids obeying, but let it stop there. Don’t read your bible at home. The pastor will say everything you need to hear on Sundays. Don’t engage your children in questions they have concerning Jesus and God. Live like you want to live during the week so that your kids can see that duplicity is ok.

2. Pray only in front of people

The only times you need to pray are when your family is over, Holiday meals, when someone is sick, and when you want something. Besides that, don’t bother. Your kids will see you pray when other people are watching, no need to do it with them in private.

3. Focus on your morals

Make sure you insist your kids be honest with you. Let them know it is the right thing for them to do, but then feel free to lie in your own life and disregard the need to tell them and others the truth. Get very angry with your children when they say words that are “naughty” and “bad”, but post, read, watch, and say whatever you want on TV, Facebook, and Twitter. Make sure you focus on being a good person. Be ambiguous about what this means.

4. Give financially as long as it doesn’t impede your needs

Make a big deal out of giving at church. Stress the need to your children the value of tithing, while not giving sacrificially yourself. Allow them to see you spend a ton of money on what you want, while negating your command from scripture to give sacrificially.

5. Make church community a priority. As long as there is nothing else you want to do

Hey, you are a church going family, right? I mean, that’s what you tell your friends and family anyways. Make sure you attend on Sundays. As long as you didn’t stay up too late Saturday night. Or your family isn’t having a big bar-b-que. Or the big game isn’t on. Or this week you just don’t feel like it. Or... I mean, you are church going family so what’s the big deal?

Free Songs to Get Ready for Easter

Keith and Kristyn Getty are offering three free MP3 downloads through the end of March: "Behold the Lamb (Communion Hymn)," "The Power of the Cross," and "Come, People of the Risen King." Just follow this link.

Go here for a free song from the new Sovereign Grace Music album Risen called "Jesus Lives."

You're welcome.

Glorious Freedom

Jason Hood:

The most famous statue in the United States is the Statue of Liberty. Many Americans are unaware that the image atop the base is the Roman goddess Libertas.

Now we may not worship this goddess in the traditional manner. But it is not too much to say that our radical allegiance to self and independence is idolatrous worship, nor that such worship manifests itself in extravagant offerings of money spent and relationships sacrificed—even the sacrifice of the unborn. And if we worship freedom, we may become the personification of Libertas, unable to experience healthy dependence on God and others, even as others find they cannot depend on us. Freedom can ironically enslave us, crippling our service to God and others.

J. H. Jowett:

You are no longer a slave, but a son. Galatians 4:7

Sonship is conspicuously and radiantly free. The sons of God ought to fascinate and win the world by the range and grandeur of their freedom. Where others are bound, they must reveal themselves to be free. Is our freedom obtrusively prominent? Are we revelling in ‘the glorious freedom of the children of God’?

The real son is free from the bondage of sin. His life is delivered from the haunting wail of sunless and hopeless dejection.

The real son is free from the tyranny of self. He is not imprisoned by a small, exclusive, all-absorbing, egoistic, enslaving self. He has ‘a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathize.’

The real son is free from the enslavement of the crowd. He is not daunted by the presence of the great and threatening multitude. God’s sons are free and bold and stand alone!

A Dangerous Book

Eric Metaxas:

Have you ever heard of anyone in history being imprisoned or executed for distributing copies of Grimm’s fairy tales? What would you say if you’d heard that copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey had been banned in Saudi Arabia and North Korea? Imagine people trying to smuggle copies of Hans Christian Andersen’s works into China? Such ideas are comical, but the Bible, which has been called a mere collection of myths and fairy tales, has suffered all of these fates. Throughout history and even today, copies of the Bible are banned and burned, and those possessing it are persecuted and imprisoned. There’s something about this ancient book that threatens and frightens those in power, especially those who use power to oppress people weaker than themselves. And they have every reason to be frightened.

From Everything You Always Wanted to Know about God

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Receiving the Word with Joy

This is a powerful video of a people group from Papua New Guinea who have just received the New Testament in their language for the first time.

Kimyal New Testament launch in Indonesia from United Bible Societies on Vimeo.

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Shine Your Light or Hide Your Hand

Jon Bloom:

Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16 ESV)

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:3-4 ESV)

A friend recently posed these two verses to me and asked, “So when do you tell others about your good deeds and when do you not?”

It’s a good question.

I believe the contexts of these verses give us the clues. Jesus is addressing the two-sided coin of human pride.

In Matthew 5:16, Jesus is addressing our fear of man. The context is that we are blessed when reviled and persecuted (v.11). The good works Jesus has in mind here are the kind that the prophets did (v.12). They testified to God’s word openly. In other words, don't be ashamed of the gospel (Romans 1:16) or any acts of love that testify to it, even when the threat of persecution is present.

In Matthew 6:3, Jesus is addressing our selfish ambition. The context is people (in this case, the rich) who were marketing their acts of charity to enhance their personal brand. In other words, they were seeking human admiration. That's not love of God or the poor. It's self-worship.

So a rule of thumb in shining and hiding: good works we are tempted to hide for fear of man’s disapproval are likely ones we should let shine. Good works we are tempted to do publicly for man’s approval are likely ones to keep secret. Both kinds of good works encourage humility and kill pride.

"Blessings"

I've been enjoying a new song by Laura Story called "Blessings." You can listen to it here.

This quotation from C. S. Lewis goes right along with this same theme:

It is a dreadful truth that the state of having to depend solely on God is what we all dread most. And of course that just shows how very much, how almost exclusively, we have been depending on things. But trouble goes so far back in our lives and is now so deeply ingrained, we will not turn to him as long as he leaves us anything else to turn to. I suppose all one can say is that it was bound to come. In the hour of death and the day of judgment, what else shall we have? Perhaps when those moments come, they will feel happiest who have been forced (however unwittingly) to begin practicing it here on earth. It is good of him to force us; but dear me, how hard to feel that it is good at the time.

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ReachGlobal Church Planting Video

Here's a video related to EFCA ReachGlobal's church planting efforts. It's inspiring and encouraging to know how God is at work through our church and missionary partners!

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I Act the Miracle

I've been away from the blog for a while. First it was vacation, then it was catching up after vacation.

If you've been keeping up with You Can Change (which I have been reading, but not blogging about in 2011), we read in the second half of chapter 6 about mortification: putting sins to death.

Here's more on that topic from John Piper:

When it comes to killing my sin I don’t wait for the miracle, I Act the Miracle.

Acting a miracle is different from working a miracle. If Jesus tells a paralyzed man to get up, and he gets up, Jesus works a miracle. But if I am the paralyzed man and Jesus tells me to get up, and I obey and get up, I actthe miracle. If I am dead Lazarus and Jesus commands me to get up, and I obey, Jesus works the miracle, I actthe miracle.

So when it comes to killing my sin, I don’t wait passively for the miracle of sin-killing to be worked on me, I act the miracle.

For example, Paul says, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13).

So he tells me to put my sin to death. I should not wait for God to kill it while I remain passive. But he tells me to kill it “by the Spirit." Sin-killing is a miracle of the Spirit. But I do not wait passively, I act the miracle.

Again Paul says, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

So Paul works hard to kill the sins of lethargy and distraction in his ministry. “I worked harder than any of them.” But the decisive animation of that work is the grace of God. It is a miracle. But Paul does not wait passively, he acts the miracle.

Or consider Philippians 2:12-13, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13).

Paul commands me to work out my salvation, because God is the one who works this in me. My willing and working is God’s willing and working. It is a miracle. But I do not wait passively, I act the miracle.

Do You Have a Song?

Singing out loud? Who does that anymore-- except in church? It may seem odd to sing with a bunch of people in a room, but it's not about what's normal in our culture, or even if you have a good voice for it.

Bob Kauflin:

The question is not, “Do you have a voice?” The question is, “Do you have a song?” If you’re redeemed by Christ’s cross then you do have a song.

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Listening to Sermons

More help on listening to sermons from John Newton, via Tony Reinke:

First, Newton explains how we should listen to sermons. We should at all times listen with active biblical discernment:

As a hearer, you have a right to try all doctrines by the word of God; and it is your duty so to do. Faithful ministers will remind you of this: they will not wish to hold you in an implicit and blind obedience to what they say, upon their own authority, nor desire that you should follow them farther than they have the Scripture for their warrant. They would not be lords over your conscience, but helpers of your joy. Prize this Gospel liberty, which sets you free from the doctrines and commandments of men; but do not abuse it to the purposes of pride and self.

Well said.

Then Newton explains how we should not listen to sermons:

There are hearers who make themselves, and not the Scripture, the standard of their judgment. They attend not so much to be instructed, as to pass their sentence. To them, the pulpit is the bar at which the minister stands to take his trial before them; a bar at which few escape censure, from judges at once so severe and inconsistent.

In these few words Newton offers counsel that is biblically wise, balanced, and ready for us to practice on Sunday. At all times we should pray for our pastor and encourage him. At all times we should listen to sermons with discernment. And at some times it may even be appropriate to give our pastor feedback to help him grow.

But we should never listen to sermons with our proverbial arms crossed, as if our pastor were preaching on the American Idol stage, seeking to win the approval of autonomous judges.

Free Audio Book - The Holiness of God

I'm heading out of town tomorrow morning, and so I may not be on the blog here much between now and next Tuesday. In the meantime, download and enjoy this free audiobook-- The Holiness of God, by R. C. Sproul, from christianaudio.com.

The Seven A's of Confession

If you want to get beyond conflict to reconciliation and healthy relationships, you better know how to confess your own wrongdoing. Don't expect somebody else to forgive you if you can't own up to what you've done. Here's some advice from Peacemaker Ministries:

As God opens your eyes to see how you have sinned against others, he simultaneously offers you a way to find freedom from your past wrongs. It is called confession. Many people have never experienced this freedom because they have never learned how to confess their wrongs honestly and unconditionally. Instead, they use words like these: "I'm sorry if I hurt you." "Let's just forget the past." "I suppose I could have done a better job." "I guess it's not all your fault." These token statements rarely trigger genuine forgiveness and reconciliation. If you really want to make peace, ask God to help you breathe grace by humbly and thoroughly admitting your wrongs. One way to do this is to use the Seven A's.

1. Address everyone involved (All those whom you affected)
2. Avoid if, but, and maybe (Do not try to excuse your wrongs)
3. Admit specifically (Both attitudes and actions)
4. Acknowledge the hurt (Express sorrow for hurting someone)
5. Accept the consequences (Such as making restitution)
6. Alter your behavior (Change your attitudes and actions)
7. Ask for forgiveness

See Matthew 7:3-5; 1 John 1:8-9; Proverbs 28:13.

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