Praying for Our Plans and God’s Providence

If God is sovereign and God is in complete control of the ordinary affairs of our daily lives then why is it even worthwhile to pray?  Well the simple answer is that because God is sovereign and God is in complete control of our lives.  Secondly, as Mark Driscoll says, we should remember that prayer doesn’t change things.  Prayer changes us.  God knows all things from eternity past to eternity future and nothing ever catches him by surprise or off guard.  We should pray to God and cast all of our cares and worries upon Him not primarily in order to get answers and gain understanding to our problems, while it would be great if those things happend, but we should pray to get what we most desperately need: God himself.  His presence.  His spirit that gives peace beyond understanding.  More of our daily need for the atoning death of Christ.

If you pray to God for any other reason apart from getting more of God then, simply put, you are an idolater.  You should never pray ultimately to get solutions to your problems.  You pray to grasp hold of the Savior.  You don’t pray so that God will get you out of your situation.  You pray so that God will get you through your situation.  For since His will is sovereign and since He is good it is always better for us to pray that “Thy will be done” in the midst of our suffering then for “My will be done” in the midst of our success.  Painful circumstances + God’s will is always going to be greater than peaceful circumstances + our will.

The life of Jesus is the perfect example.  Jesus prayed to the Father “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).  But he prefaced that statement by asking the Father to remove the torment and suffering of him having to bear the wrath of God and go to the cross.  Consider the weight of this statement.  Jesus, from early on in his ministry, had set his face toward Jerusalem and knew that he had been sent by the Father to die for the sins of the world.  Yet, with the moment of his crucifixion imminent he prayed for the alternative to happen.  And we all know what happened.  God the Father didn’t grant what God the Son initially asked and he was innocently murdered upon the cross.

The truth to learn is that it’s not wrong or selfish to pray your wants or your desires.  Jesus did it.  But it is wrong to pray them if you don’t also pray “But your will be done.”  It’s also wrong, I would argue, to pray nothing except “Your will be done.”  Part of what it means to have a relationship with God is one where we are vulnerably open with Him revealing our wants, our burdens, our passions, our emotions, and our problems.  Not that He doesn’t already know these things, but He wants us to affirm them to Him so that we know that we know them.  It’s part of what it means for us to recognize that God is our Father.  You are supposed to tell your father anything and everything, even when and if he already knows it.

So by all means pray for your plans.  Pray for your wants.  Your desires.  Pray for what you think are selfless and godly ambitions and passions to come true.  But pray for God’s providence in all things, that his eternal plan, and that his will ultimately would prevail.  And when it does, don’t complain in bitterness and pity.  Instead, worship in humble and joyful adoration that He is God, and there is no other; that He is God, and there is none like Him, who declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times thing not yet done whose counsel will stand and whose purposes will be accomplished (Isaiah 46:9-10).

– Scott

What the Gospel Does and Doesn’t Free Us From

The gospel is a message of hope, redemption, and freedom.  It offers unconditional acceptance and grace.  There are no strings attached.  God doesn’t say I will love you IF…  He doesn’t say I will love you if you repent and return to me.  He loves us so that we will repent and return to Him.  God’s kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4).  Notice that it’s not the other way around: repentance doesn’t lead us to God’s kindness.

The gospel frees us from past mistakes, regrets, and idols.  Ultimately, the gospel frees us from our own sinful selves.  But the gospel doesn’t give complete freedom.  But how can the gospel not give complete freedom when 2 Corinthians 3:17 says that “where the Spirit of the Lord there is freedom?”  How can the gospel not provide entire freedom when Acts 13:38 says that by Christ “everyone who believes is freed from everything?”  After all, the gospel does not come with terms and conditions because then it would cease to be grace.

The gospel does free us from our past.  It completely and entirely frees us from every past sinful thought, action, word, and deed.  But it doesn’t free us to remain that way.  It frees us from continuing to do those things.  It frees us for holiness, godliness, and Christ likeness.  This is because the gospel changes everything about who we are and what we do.  And this is because the gospel demands a response.

The gospel doesn’t free us to continue in habitual sin.  The gospel doesn’t free us to lie, murder, steal, or commit adultery.  The gospel doesn’t free us from church membership.  It doesn’t free us from cultivating and practicing daily spiritual disciplines (i.e. Bible reading, prayer, fasting).  It doesn’t free us from forsaking and neglecting the lost and marginalized in our society and throughout the world.  In all of these things and countless others, it is the very gospel that demands and requires these very things.  The very same gospel that frees us from past enslavement to sin also enslaves us to the freedom of what a follower and disciple of Jesus looks like.

If anything, in terms of present and future Christian living, the gospel doesn’t free us at all.  But it enslaves us and makes us captive to the only thing that is truly liberating.  If you are truly in Christ then through the gospel you are no longer free to do whatever you want to do.  Jesus now sets the rules for every facet and dimension of your life and you are only free so long as it is what He wants.  Life won’t be easier.  It will be harder.  But it is worth it because Jesus became like our sinful condition so that we could be like his glorified condition.  And just as he went from suffering to glory so can we.

– Scott

Trinitarian Prayer

The disciples once asked Jesus “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1).  I believe that today more than ever we also need to reconsider what true prayer looks like, how it is accomplished, and what factors go into it.  Prayer tends to become so formulated, ritualistic, and redundant that it quickly loses much of its value.  While there is nothing wrong with praying the same thing over and over again, there is something wrong with it if it is missing some of the central elements that are necessary in its development.  And this is because of the neglect of properly understanding the triune God that Christianity is founded upon and its role in enabling, empowering, and accomplishing prayer as it is intended to be.

Apart from understanding the implications of the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit it is impossible to properly pray.  Scripture teaches that we are to pray to the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit.  God the Father answers prayers, God the Son allows the relationship of prayer between God and man through the reconciliation of the cross, and God the Holy Spirit applies the effects of prayer to our hearts and lives.  If you don’t understand the trinity then you don’t understand prayer, nor can you properly practice prayer.  Prayer is one of the primary ways that makes the trinity practical and relevant for Christianity.  It is not just some mind-blowing theological concept (although it is very much that), but it gives our relationship and interaction with the Godhead roots and depth.

Prayer is also the best time to reflect and remember the gospel because prayer is only made possible by the atoning death of Christ.  Sin breaks the perfect relationship between us and God, and it is only by means of the cross that that relationship is restored.  This is where the traditional phrase of closing a prayer “In Jesus name” comes from.  But prayer is not just accomplished and answered in Christ, but through and because of Christ.  God can work through prayer and answer and provide for our secondary needs because He has first answered and provided for the greatest need of providing salvation from our sin.  Apart from understanding, rehearsing, and reflecting upon the gospel then prayer means nothing.  And this can’t just be assumed, because of how quickly we can forget.  Thus, sometimes it is necessary to pray to remember all the things that God has done in the past before asking and hoping for our desires of what we want to see God do in the future.

The Holy Spirit works in prayer by intangibly reminding us of the tangible work of God the Father and God the Son.  And although the gospel alone saves people, the gospel is only part of the process.  The Holy Spirit must also be active in working in and through people and drawing people and opening up people’s eyes and hearts to understand the truth.  But the Holy Spirit is often a neglected reality and is often a mistaken reality also.  The Holy Spirit is far too often assumed.  Don’t ever make the mistake that you are just living a Spirit-filled life.  The same way you can’t just assume the Holy Spirit is automatically present on a Sunday morning in a church building.  Unfortunately, sometimes its not true.  God’s spirit exists where God’s word is.  Thus, we need both the Spirit to remind us of the Word and the Gospel and we need the Word and the Gospel to remind and welcome the Spirit.

The trinity is in perfect community with one another and is all desiring the same ends, they are just utilizing their separate and distinct roles to go about accomplishing those ends.  While it is not necessarily wrong to pray to Jesus, since Jesus is fully God, it is interesting to note that Jesus never prayed to himself although he would have had the right to.  It was always to the Father.  Paul, likewise, having met the risen Christ still addressed his prayers to the Father.  Regardless of the approach you take, the bottom line is that if you are truly praying to the Christian God and the God of the Bible then you must incorporate all three persons of the Godhead.  Since the God of the Bible is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit then our prayers to that God should incorporate, acknowledge, and recognize that same triune relationship as well.

– Scott

Pursuing and Failing at Perfection

God demands perfection.  God demands perfect obedience.  And apart from that perfection and complete holiness wrath and hell are the rightful and deserving consequences.  Even for believers, we are commanded to be holy because the Lord our God is holy (Leviticus 11:44, 1 Peter 1:16).  The freedom and liberation of the gospel message of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is not an excuse to continue in sin.  Paul tells us not to continue to sin in order that grace may abound (Romans 6:1).  Just because Jesus covers and forgives our sin is not rightful justification to prolong in it.

One of the great mistakes believers make is they view the gospel as something that just saves them from their ungodliness and not something that also saves them for their godliness.  God doesn’t just give unmerited grace to atone for our mistakes, but also to accomplish our successes.  In essence, Christians must continually rely on the grace of God for the regrets of their past and for the hopes of their future.  John Piper says it like this: “Every good deed we do in dependence on God does just the opposite of paying Him back; it puts us ever deeper in debt to His grace. And that is exactly where God wants us to be through all eternity.”  This is because Christians are not supposed to be known as good people, but as grace people.  Too many Christians have given off the false impression that Christianity is about creating moralistic, law abiding people.  But Christianity is about the grace of God, not the goodness of man.

This must be the foundation for rightly understanding Christian perfection.  Jesus commands us to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).  But it doesn’t take a genius to realize that that is virtually impossible.  Our world and our lives powerfully testify to the reality that sin is real.  Death is real.  Suffering is real.  Mankind is completely fallen and totally depraved and the power of indwelling, never ending sin makes it seem that perfection is an impossibility.  But why would Jesus command us to do something that we cannot do?

It is important to keep in mind that a better translation of the word perfect in Matthew 5:48 is the word complete.  So believers are commanded to be complete just as our Heavenly Father is complete.  This is what the doctrine of sanctification is about.  It is about becoming more and more like Christ and seeking to be perfect.  But the problem of our sin remains the same.  Sin makes us all incomplete.  Sin makes it impossible for us ever to be completely perfect regardless of how hard we try.  Sin makes it impossible for us to meet God’s demands and fulfill God’s commands.  But Christian perfection is possible, it is just impossible for us.

It is possible because Jesus is perfect.  The hope of the gospel is that the perfections of Christ meet us at the very place of all of our imperfections.  The daunting and demanding challenging of us pursuing perfection is simply the ongoing work of us applying Christ’s perfection for us.  While Christians can never obtain Christian perfection themselves, the meaning of the gospel is understanding that because of Christ and in Christ God actually sees us as perfect.  Christian perfection isn’t something we achieve for God, it is primarily something we receive from God.  Christian perfection isn’t measured by a standard that we must obtain, but it is measured by a status and reality that we exist in.  We can’t achieve Christian perfection.  But HE can.  And the very same things that God demands and requires (i.e. perfection), He also provides (i.e. Christ in us).

This liberating power of the gospel means that we are free to fail.  We can stop trying to earn perfection, because in Christ it has already been earned for us.  This is the gospel.  The gospel is what God has freely done for man, while religion is what man is required to do for God.  Sin should not drive us to despair because of our ongoing failure.  It should drive us to the hope of the cross where the penalty of sin has been forever defeated, the righteousness of God has been freely granted, and the perfection of Christ has been graciously applied to us.  It is because of this that believers don’t live in light of God’s judgment because of their failing at perfection, but believers live in light of God’s grace because of Christ’s perfection.  Grace for the past.  Grace for the future.  Grace for the present.  Grace for failing.  And grace for succeeding.  Life is all about unending, unceasing, and unchanging grace.

– Scott

Dealing with Differences

People are different.  Although that statement is blatantly obvious, it is far from being properly understood and applied.  In fact, it takes a lifetime to figure out how to understand and work with people that are different from one another.  The reason gospel community is so important is because all people are blinded to different things due to sin.  The reality of the world as any one person sees it is not actual reality.  In a sense, reality only exists in theory.  This is because every persons sinful nature causes them to recreate reality in individualistic, independent, limited, and narrow minded ways.

This is especially true among generational conflicts and differences.  Different generations perceive and understand things differently, and while each generation has positive things that can be learned, they also have negatives consequences that need to be forgotten.  This is why community and ongoing conversation is so important.  Younger people need to learn from older people who have more experience and wisdom.   But older people need to learn from younger people because it is inevitable that there are some things that older generations do because they have been blinded to their traditions.  Experience is of no value if you have merely perfected the wrong way of doing something for years.  Older generations must be willing to admit they have failed and must learn from younger generations who are to naive, in a good way, to be afraid of failure.

Ultimately, the defining factor for Christian living and godliness is always the Word of God.  Every situation in life is about tangibly displaying the implications of the gospel.  Thus, what my Bible says will always trump what anyone else’s personal experiences say.  And this is what makes people who have both Biblical truth and personal experiences so dangerous and admirable.  My observation and concern is that many people in older generations rely more on their story then on God’s story.  Bad personal experiences very easily destroy the reckless, radical, childlike faith that Jesus said his followers were to have.  Additionally, both Jesus and Paul went to Jerusalem knowing hardship, persecution, and death awaited them.  Sometimes a dangerous situation is all the more reason to go into it.  While understanding the concerns and cautions of the world are important, Jesus promised eternal safety and security.  He never promised temporary safety and security.  Who needs the presence of safety when you have the power of the Spirit?

Paul encourages Timothy to not let anyone despise him for his youth (1 Timothy 4:12).  One of the positives about being young is that there are not as many experiences to influence me.  All I have is an open mind, an open heart, and an open Bible.  And while older influences and voices are always helpful, I’ll take divine revelation over human wisdom any day.  What matters most are the matters of first importance.  Augustine once said “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all thing charity.”  The challenge is distinguishing between essentials and non-essentials.  The challenge is learning to realize that unity does not necessarily mean uniformity.  The challenge is learning to sometimes agree to disagree for the sake of the gospel.  The goal is to realize that dissensions, distinctions, disagreements, differences, and debates can sometimes be good and advantageous for the building up of the body of Christ.  But divisions are always bad.  It’s okay to be different as long as it’s not divisive.

– Scott

Unchanging Truth and Changing Traditions

Traditions are inevitable.  They are part of the social fabric and ethos of culture and society.  But traditions can be very deceiving.  This is because traditions are intended to carry meaning and significance.  They are physical reminders and depictions that picture a deeper reality then is seen on the surface.  Traditions are good because they are frequent reminders to us of things that we need to be reminded of that are easily forgotten and neglected.  However, traditions are bad because the goal is not to perfect traditions and maintain rituals.  Traditions need the truth behind them in order for them to be meaningful.

Sadly, the church has become very good at perfecting and maintaining traditions.  And it has done so at the expense of minimalizing  and diminishing truth.  Idolatry is the result of what happens when people love their own personal traditions over God’s biblical truth.  The reason this happens is because people wrongly believe that there worship is what makes them right with God.  They think that perfecting a religious tradition will make them right with God.  But we don’t worship so that God will love us, we worship because in Christ He already does love us.

Furthermore, the best way to understand, grasp, and respond to unchanging eternal truth is by maintaining changing and temporary traditions.  It is necessary to change traditions so that truth won’t get old.  The reason the gospel so easily gets old for us is because we fail to experience its power in new and fresh ways.  My fear is that the maintenance of the same old traditions in the church has distorted and blinded believers to the all satisfying and never changing goodness and hope of the gospel.  Christianity is not based on traditions (because traditions get old and boring), it is based on truth (because true truth never changes).

At the same time, the problem with much of the modern worship wars in the church is that people aren’t fighting for truth, they are fighting for a tradition.  But perfecting a tradition is worthless in the eyes of God.  Christians are called to contend for eternal truth, not compromise for temporary traditions.  This is the reason why a lot of what Christians do that they think is bringing them closer to God is actually drawing them further away from God.  Worship can’t be manufactured by external realities; it must be motivated by an internal change.

Worship is defined by God.  We can’t worship God based on whatever traditional rules and requirements that we want too.  Since God is God He defines how He is to be worshiped.  And here in lies the problem.  The church has created traditions and then used the truth of God’s word to try to support them, instead of using the truth of Scripture to create and develop their traditions.  This is because adding to God’s Word actually takes away from it.  People who create traditions in the worship sense that are not based on Scripture are in reality denying the inerrancy and authority of Scripture.

I am not denying traditions.  I am simply cautioning for an evaluation of matters of first importance.  Because you are supposed to love God through your traditions, not because of your traditions.  If all your religiosity was destroyed and lost tomorrow and you were unable to “worship” God because of it, then you have an idolatry problem.  Traditions aren’t to define worship.  The love of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is to define worship.  And that is enough to enable and empower our worship until he returns.

– Scott

The Cornerstone of the Church

The gospel is not the starting point of the Christian life.  It is the center of the Christian life.  I have heard the illustration that the gospel is not the diving board into the Christian life, but that it is the very pool itself.  The Christian life is nothing but a continual rediscovering of the gospel’s message and the gospel’s meaning.  We must be reminded of it often.  As C.S. Lewis once said, “We have to be continually reminded of what we believe.”  We must be continually reminded of it because mankind’s fallen nature, proneness to wander, and proclivity to sin causes us to return again to its hope in the midst of our brokenness.  The gospel is the remedy for a sin-sick soul.

The gospel is not only the hope for our individually broken lives, but also for our broken world, and for the broken church.  And the church will always be broken and imperfect because it is formed by broken and imperfect people.  But there is hope because Christ is the cornerstone of the church (Ephesians 2:20).  The cornerstone and the foundation is the most important part of anything.  Apart from a house’s firm foundation it will fall apart.  This is the picture Jesus gave when he told people to build their houses upon the rock instead of the sand (Matthew 7:24-27).  Thus, the church, despite her flaws, has hope because Jesus is the embodiment of hope itself.

Therefore, what the church needs most (in both its local sense and global sense) is a return to its foundation.  The church has so consumed itself with so many nonessential things that it has forgotten the only essential thing.  It sounds so basic and so elementary, but that is because the gospel in its essence is so simple and understandable.  But that doesn’t mean it can be assumed.  If the gospel is assumed in one generation, as D.A. Carson points out, then it will be forgotten in the next generation.  Additionally, churches spend so much of there time, efforts, and resources on worthless things trying to build onto the foundation of Christ that they completely cover and forget the foundation.  Anything is only as strong, reliable, and trustworthy as its foundation.  Likewise, the church will only be as strong, reliable, and trustworthy as well if Christ is the firm and visible foundation.

You don’t add on to anything if it not connected and established by the foundation.  And this has been the church’s problem.  Adding a bad program or idea on top of a bad program or idea is a recipe for disaster. Most of what the church does is just simply not rooted and grounded in the foundation of Christ, which is the only thing that can give it life and support.  This is because the church is not our hope.  Our eternity isn’t dependent on the church.  Our hope and eternity are dependent on Christ.  A church will only be as successful as it is at pointing people to its foundation of the hope of the gospel found in the person of Jesus.

Some argue that the church is the people of God so the church’s hope is dependent on the lives of its people.  But the people of God are nothing apart from gospel of the Son of God.  The people of God are only anything because of the sovereign grace of God.  The church’s public transformation is only a display of the private transformation that must first occur.  If the future of the church was dependent on the holiness and godliness of its people then it would be guaranteed to fail because sin testifies that all people (even Christians still) still sin.  This is the power of indwelling sin.  At the cross, Christ defeated the penalty of sin, but not the power of sin.  The church needs to stop relying on the people that God changes and start relying more on the God that changes people.

Therefore, the church must start with Christ as its foundation.  It must continue with Christ as its foundation.  Jesus is what we all need all day and everyday.  Because our sinful hearts testify to our need of His daily rescuing and redeeming grace.  Because the Bible says so.  Because of his preeminence and headship in the church.  And because of the sacrificial love Christ displayed in dying for His bride the church.

– Scott

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

The greatest threats and greatest problems to the church are not things that exist outside of the church, but things that exist inside of the church.  The struggle for the church to be able to contend for the faith that has once and for all been delivered to the saints (Jude 3) is tougher because of the false teachers that claim to be Christians within the church then it is because of the opponents outside of the church.  The reason for this is because Christians have compromised the gospel message and distorted its meaning to be based on something that it was never intended to be.  This is especially troubling in places inside of the Bible Belt.  In essence, moralism and the legalistic, works based pharisaic righteousness that it entails has destroyed and is destroying the integrity and authority of the gospel.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is the term sociologist Christian Smith, then a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, developed a few years ago to describe and define this new movement within the church.  While the term is new, the existence of its detrimental effects within the Church is not new.  The same concept existed during Jesus’ day as well primarily with the religious group the Pharisees.  Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is  based on the idea that God wants people to be good and nice, living a satisfying and happy life and to go to heaven when they die.  Its problem is that it is not biblical Christianity.  As it is popularly said, Jesus didn’t die to make bad people good, He died in order to make dead people live.  Good deeds and moral behavior is not the reality of our salvation, they are to be a repercussion of our salvation.  Furthermore, the gospel pattern of suffering (seen most clearly in the life of Jesus) is proof that our best life is not now and happiness is not the main goal of this life, holiness is our main goal.  This is why false teachers like Joel Osteen are selling a false version of the gospel and leading thousands of people astray.

One of the main problems with Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is that it misidentifies the problem of what is wrong with the world.  The main problem with the world is not all of the sin and evil that exists out in the world (outside of the church), but it is the problem with the sin and evil in every individual human heart (even people inside of the church).  The world is messed up because the people in it are messed up.  All moralism does is cover over the surface issues of the problem and it fails to cut to the root issues of the heart.  Moralism does a great job of making people look like they have everything together when in reality they are often the people most lost.  At least the alcoholic or criminal can tangibly see there flaws, but morality blinds people precisely because it doesn’t appear to be that bad on the outside.  It truly is the silent killer of the Church today.

One way that the church promotes moralism is by providing events and activities as safe and family friendly without one mention of the gospel.  What this communicates to the watching world is that the church is a safe place to be and the world is a dangerous place to be.  At least the church is doing a pretty good job of keeping people out of jail, but unfortunately it is directly sending them straight to hell because salvation isn’t based on our goodness, but on God’s grace.  Moralism treats the church as a bomb shelter from which it can escape from the fallen world whereas Jesus calls us to be in the world, but not of the world (John 17).  Yet, the church intentionally programs things to take themselves out of the world mistakenly not knowing that they themselves are the problem.

It is a mistake to think more about what we are supposed to do as a Christian then it is to think of what Christ has already done.  Yes, the gospel demands a response.  But our work for God must always be motivated and driven by God’s work for us.  This is why it is moralistic therapeutic deism to hear a sermon that ends with a to-do list for Jesus.  Doing things for Jesus does not necessarily accomplish anything.  The gospel must change us from the inside out, not just once at conversion, but daily as we rely on the power and hope of the gospel to drive our lives, our sanctification, and our pursuit of the righteousness which has already been granted to us in Christ.

– Scott

Preach the Word

I want to offer some cautions and convictions concerning what I believe Scripture teaches about the importance and necessity of preaching.  One of the foundations for preaching comes from Paul’s charge to young Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-5 to preach the word.  Additionally, this passage must be considered in light of its preceding context of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 which says that all of the Scriptures are inspired.  Thus, as I have heard multiple people put it recently, the inspiration of Scripture demands the exposition of Scripture.

There is a lot of debate around what exactly it means to exposit Scripture.  I would argue that true preaching is not primarily talking about the Bible, but it is talking from the Bible.  I’ve heard too many sermons where all the preacher does is play biblical hopscotch by reading a bunch of verses about a particular topic so people are knowledgeable and well informed about it.  But that is not preaching.  Preaching causes people to leave not informed, but transformed.  The problem with hopscotch preaching is that it gives a lot of room for verses to be taken out of their contexts and their original meaning and it also elevates the preacher’s authority over God’s authority.  When this happens preachers use the Bible to control and determine what they want to say, rather then them allowing the Bible to control and determine what God wants to say.

Another thing poor preaching does is it turns the Bible into a moral guide book that teaches righteous living.  The Bible is not primarily about providing basic instructions and guidelines for what we are to do on earth.  It is, as two authors recently put, The True Story of the Whole World.  Others rightly claim Scripture is a metanarrative, the story of all stories, that centers around the four prominent themes of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration.  The Bible is a book that tells us that mankind is messed up, fallen, hopeless and helpless and that God in Christ has worked to make right what man has made wrong.  Furthermore, if you give sinful, fallen mankind a list of rules and regulations to follow they will be incapable of accomplishing them in the first place.

Don’t ever just assume that because you hear a bunch of Bible verses read that preaching is occurring.  Likewise, don’t ever assume that just because God was mentioned that it is Christian preaching.  Demons believe in God (James 2:19).  Osama bin Laden believed in God.  Most people don’t think things turned out too well for either one of them.  God is not an arbitrary figure referring to a mystical divine figure.  He has a name and a face.  Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4).  Christianity teaches that God does not exist apart from his triune being.  Therefore, God can never be glorified if Christ is not magnified.  Preaching is not for the glory of God if it does not magnify in some way, shape, or form the person and work of Jesus Christ.  And on top of that, Christ is not accurately preached unless the cross is preached (1 Corinthains 1:23, Galatians 6:14).  Charles Spurgeon, the famous 19th century British Preacher, said that in his preaching he would look for a way “to make a beeline to the cross” and that he had not accurately preached his text until that was accomplished.

There is no Christianity apart from the gospel.  There is no gospel apart from the cross.  There is no cross apart from Christ.  There is no Christ apart from God the Father.  And there is no true preaching of the Word without the totality and culmination of all of these things so that God’s Word can be heard, God’s Son can be heralded, God’s Spirit can be hoped in, and God’s glory can be hallowed.

– Scott

Chick-fil-A, Homosexuality and Truth.

I read an article this morning about a recent attack on the fast food chain Chick-fil-A. The article articulated how left wing liberals were throwing charges at the restaurant because of the religious principals it is founded upon. Chick-fil-A was founded in the 1940′s by a Christian man with Christian morals, and he carried those over into his business. He has since created one of the most successful fast-food chains in our country. The problem…left wing liberals need someone or something to attack, and because Chick-fil-A has maintained a Christian business strategy, they present them with the perfect target. They have programs outside of their restaurants such that include marriage counseling, student scholarships, etc…They also close on Sunday’s for religious reasons. It’s a privately owned company, so its perfectly within their rights to do so. So whats the problem? You just read it. They outwardly profess to be a Christian company. Recently, a northern Chick-gil-A store made a donation of sandwiches and brownies to a marriage seminar that happened to be run by a company who is against homosexual marriage. So, this is an obvious attack on the homosexual community right? Hardly, but that is where we find ourselves. New York Times reporter Kim Severson has aided in this issue by giving the protestors a central column in the Sunday Times edition. Here is a quote from another blog describing the incident

“Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Kim Severson gave the Chick-fil-A bashers a coveted Sunday A-section megaphone — repeatedly parroting the “Chick-fil-A is anti-gay” slur and raising fears of “evangelical Christianity’s muscle flexing” with only the thinnest veneer of journalistic objectivity. Severson, you see, is an openly gay advocate of same-sex-marriage equality herself and the former vice president of the identity-politics–mongering National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association.”

So is the issue really Chick-fil-A? No. They just happen to be the latest recipients of the insane protests of the freedom crazed liberals in America. So what is the real issue here? I’m glad you are asking the same questions I am. The issue lies in the fact that we are experiencing a famine of truth. Where are those who are willing to stand up to those who declare that truth is relative? I do not believe I have ever heard a more idiotic statement. “Truth is relative!” Are you kidding me? But this is what our nation is crying today. “Equal rights for all”, “you can feel how ever you need to feel”, “you cannot speak out against anyone.” We often ask the question, “what has our nation come to?” But let me challenge us with a different question, what have we allowed our nation to become?

The Millennials, my generation (those born from 1980 – 2000), present an interesting melting pot of people. You have those, like myself who are conservative evangelicals, but we are a dying breed. Then there are those who profess to believe in something spiritual, but whatever “it” is, they are unclear. Then there are the ones who just are. They are passionate about serving their fellow man. They want to make a difference in the world. They are, as I said in a previous post, passion on fire. And because their passion is so undirected, and because parenting has broken down (for the most part), these individuals are grasping at whatever cause they can find. Most recently, it has been the “occupy” movement. It has spread to most major cities around the country, and I have seen them myself in Chapel Hill, NC. Discrimination is a filthy word to them. It is no longer only a race issue, but rather an all encompassing issue. Thus we have unwarranted attacks like with Chick-fil-A as stated above. Our country was founded for religious freedom, so we say, but the religious history of America is anything but peaceful. So where are we today? Established religion is terrible because it speaks of truth as a finality. This is how “they” feel. Or is it? I heard one man say it seems that Christianity is the only religion that comes under attack and protest, and if Chick-fil-A was an Islamic institution this would have never happened. The fact is that we can stand around an talk about how Christians are the only one’s attacked for their views, and that may very well be true, but when was the last time you were criticized or called intolerant because you stood upon truth? When was the last time you spoke out against the insanity of our nations religious policies? The young liberals of our country have been allowed to cast symbolic stones at institutions such as Chick-fil-A because we are failing to step up and challenge their claims.

One of the major themes today is homosexuality. Should we allow men an women of the same sex to marry? The answer is no. The truth is that men were made for women and women for men. Women were not created to be in a marital relationship with other women, or men with other men. It goes against what the Holy Scriptures say, as well as logic itself. The Bible is clear when it says that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his WIFE (Genesis 2:24). God did not create us for homosexuality. This is, at its core, a terrible distortion of God’s intended purpose for men and women. Romans 1 speaks to it as well. It says that sinful man exchanged the worship of its creator for that of the creature, and so the Lord has allowed it to happen. He gave them over to the passions of their flesh. Homosexuality is not the unforgivable sin. The gospel is for homosexuals just as it is for heterosexuals. Jesus Christ shed His perfect blood for all mankind. We must not be on a hate campaign against homosexuals, but rather a gospel campaign.

Now, we need strong conservative voices speaking these truths in the national arena. But, it is just as crucial that we are speaking these truths as well. Homosexuality is a sin, just like lying, theft, pornography, adultery…the list goes on. The point is this…truth is not relative. Truth is absolute. This is being challenged. Our world is challenging the very basis upon which our society is founded. If truth is relevant, then life is meaningless. Its time that we speak up.

Persecution. Ouch, right? No one likes this word. But it is a promise from Jesus himself that if we are to truly serve Him, we will face persecution for His name. In Matthew 5, Jesus gives us a monumental promise that when we are persecuted for His name, it is a blessing for us. Paul echoes this throughout his letters, but especially in Philippians. He speaks of how we are not only privileged to know Christ through His cross, but also to suffer for His sake. Do not be afraid to challenge someones thoughts. Thats what we need. Teach your children to know the truth of Scripture, and to stand firm in the face of opposition. It should not be something that we run from, but something we face with full confidence, knowing that “our life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3).

My friends, our country is facing a crisis as it has many times before. The only answer is for you and I to live and SPEAK the gospel. It is not just the Romans road, or the FAITH acronym, its a life-changing, life-altering message that speaks to any situation or problem that we will face. Know the gospel, live the gospel, speak the gospel…for this is our mission.

Grace and Peace,
Ben