I know I've been posting a lot of YouTube stuff and not much content lately. I've got too many irons in the fire at the moment and blogging has sort of taken a back seat. I hope to get back into the swing in a week or so. In the meantime enjoy this blast from the past.....The Evangelism Linebacker.
Showing posts with label gospel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gospel. Show all posts
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Cardboard Testimonies
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." 2 Cor. 5:17
Grab a box of tissues and enjoy the depths of our God's mercy!
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Grab a box of tissues and enjoy the depths of our God's mercy!
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Friday, July 25, 2008
The Ten Commandments of Evangelical Co-belligerence
Steve Camp makes some sobering points through humor about evangelical involvement in politics:
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF EVANGELICAL CO-BELLIGERENCE ...where faith and culture collide
In the highly charged, politically sensitive environment affecting the church today, "an ecumenical movement" has gradually surfaced within Christianity, crossing all denominational lines, advocating political remedies to correct the moral maladies facing our nation. This is an effort in futility. Well-meaning, but confused, evangelical leaders are attempting to accomplish this societal moral sea-change absent of the gospel of Jesus Christ (sola fide, sola gratia, solus Christus) and the authority of God's Word (sola scriptura). Because of the biblical vacuum that exists within ECB, here is how The Ten Commandments could be rewritten for today to champion their philosophy of co-belligerence. (Though written in a "tongue in cheek" manner, it is a sad - heartrending reality that Christianity is now known in government circles by political policy, rather than by the preaching and ministry of the gospel--"Jesus Christ and Him crucified.")
1. Thou shalt keep all family values and moral/social causes continually before you
2. Thou shalt not let the Word of God, doctrine, theology, truth, or the gospel of Jesus Christ keep you from “standing together” with anyone to reach our goal of impacting our culture by returning it back to moral traditional values through legislation, judicial process, and co-belligerent partnerships
3. Thou shalt remember the Lord's Day and keep it political; rename it by changing it from the Lord's Day to "Justice Sunday." Be sure to substitute the worship of God; the preaching of His Word; prayer; the heralding of the gospel, turning the Sunday evening worship service into a political rally; making certain you feature non-Christians from different faith-based groups to share the pulpit and platform to insure a wide tolerant political religious ideological appeal
4. Thou shalt not take the name of family value/moral causes in vain; but use every social cultural political co-belligerent means necessary to strong arm politicians to win the day
5. Thou shalt honor thy senator and thy congressman as long as they stand for what we tell them to stand for (this is the first commandment with a vote)
6. Thou shalt boycott, protest and petition against all who act immorally and who try to filibuster judicial Presidential appointees
7. Thou shalt fault, criticize and belittle unsaved people for living like unsaved people given every opportunity possible. It’s OK for them to remain unsaved people, but they just can’t live like they're "too unsaved." (They can be unsaved, but just can’t be outwardly gay; they can be unsaved, but just can’t be vocally pro-choice; they can be unsaved, but just can’t believe in euthanasia; they can even remain unsaved, but must be for a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage)
8. Thou shalt faithfully turn the body of Christ into The Pope’s Political Action Committee (TPPAC): The Lord's Lobbyists; Value Voters, Patriot Pastors; the Largest Special Interest Group in America; and most importantly, Christocrats.
9. Thou shalt not do anything to shrink the mailing list of any Para-church ministry for three things are always necessary for success: donations, donations, donations.
10. Thou shalt always remember to keep your primary focus on the family and not on the faith
Thursday, July 24, 2008
A Mustard Seed's Worth of Faith
I am not one to encourage people to hang their assurance of salvation on their ability to recollect "a time and a place where they met God". There are far too many people today living like the world having never shown any signs of a change in their life thinking they are going to heaven simply because they wrote a date in the front cover of their Bible or can remember walking an aisle at some point in their lives. That said, I do not want to demean the spiritual value of being able to recall the circumstances of one's own conversion experience. It is a good thing for us to look back from time to time in wonder about the mystery of our salvation and to marvel at how God used other people to plant the Gospel into our fertile hearts.
I cannot recall the exact date and time, or even the exact sermon, but I can remember the circumstances of my own conversion more vividly than any other event in my life. I hope to share more about those events in greater detail in a later post, but for purposes of this post, suffice it to say I had been going through a six-month period of suicidal depression and extreme isolation from other people. I had been beaten down emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually to the point where I was at my rock bottom. A whole life of church attendance and being "the good son" (in my mind) was rendered useless when at that point I was cut to the quick by the realization that I had no clue what it meant to have saving faith in God. Everything in my life at that point came to a complete stop. I was in complete darkness.
Enter: God, and His Gospel, through a portion of a sermon preached by John Piper. I still can't remember the exact sermon (I've listened to hundreds of Piper's sermons since then), but what he preached stands out in my mind more than any other truth from Scripture. In referring to Luke 17:6, Piper said saving faith is a gift from God and not something we conjure up within ourselves on our own. It is the result of the work God is already doing in our lives at the point in which we believe. That's the reason that a mustard seed's worth of saving faith is enough. The faith that God provides is sufficient to save. The faith that comes from within man's corrupt heart is not. For the first time in 32+ years (at that point) of living the "church life" I had to completely resign myself to the fact that I had no assurance because I was living under the false assumption that I just needed to 'try harder at having faith', 'pull myself up by the bootstraps' and 'live right'. At my rock bottom I looked up, and there was Christ. The hand which had been pushing me deeper and deeper into that pit was now reaching down to pull me out of it.
The following quote comes from a sermon Piper preached on 1 Peter 1:22-25. It expresses exactly what I heard preached that day in 2005. It also expresses the point of this post regarding the value of looking back on one's conversion experience with wonder and awe, and exult in the glory of God through his work of regeneration.
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I cannot recall the exact date and time, or even the exact sermon, but I can remember the circumstances of my own conversion more vividly than any other event in my life. I hope to share more about those events in greater detail in a later post, but for purposes of this post, suffice it to say I had been going through a six-month period of suicidal depression and extreme isolation from other people. I had been beaten down emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually to the point where I was at my rock bottom. A whole life of church attendance and being "the good son" (in my mind) was rendered useless when at that point I was cut to the quick by the realization that I had no clue what it meant to have saving faith in God. Everything in my life at that point came to a complete stop. I was in complete darkness.
Enter: God, and His Gospel, through a portion of a sermon preached by John Piper. I still can't remember the exact sermon (I've listened to hundreds of Piper's sermons since then), but what he preached stands out in my mind more than any other truth from Scripture. In referring to Luke 17:6, Piper said saving faith is a gift from God and not something we conjure up within ourselves on our own. It is the result of the work God is already doing in our lives at the point in which we believe. That's the reason that a mustard seed's worth of saving faith is enough. The faith that God provides is sufficient to save. The faith that comes from within man's corrupt heart is not. For the first time in 32+ years (at that point) of living the "church life" I had to completely resign myself to the fact that I had no assurance because I was living under the false assumption that I just needed to 'try harder at having faith', 'pull myself up by the bootstraps' and 'live right'. At my rock bottom I looked up, and there was Christ. The hand which had been pushing me deeper and deeper into that pit was now reaching down to pull me out of it.
The following quote comes from a sermon Piper preached on 1 Peter 1:22-25. It expresses exactly what I heard preached that day in 2005. It also expresses the point of this post regarding the value of looking back on one's conversion experience with wonder and awe, and exult in the glory of God through his work of regeneration.
Regeneration is God's work, not man's.
O, do you know what it means to be a Christian? Do you stand amazed and speechless that you are a Christian? Do you look back with wonder and awe at the miracle of your new birth? Or do you take so much credit for it yourself that it doesn't occur to you to fall on your face and thank God that you are a Christian?
Think on it! If you have any truly spiritual desire for God, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any love for holiness, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have any hatred for sin, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. If you have a mustard seed of faith in Christ, it is owing to the work of God in regeneration. To God be the glory for our conversion to Christ! Consider and be astounded, all you who by nature are children of wrath, that you believe in Christ and are new children of the Almighty.
Regeneration is a glorious work of God, not man.
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Wednesday, July 23, 2008
"What you win them with....
...is what you will win them to." A well-known favorite Christian apologist of mine is famous for coining this phrase in reference to all of the gimmickery and showmanship that is so prevalent in church worship services today.
Consider the case of pastor Jeff Harlow of Crossroads Community Church in Kokomo, IN. Last Sunday, during an illustration of the concept of unity, he attempted to ride a dirt bike out on stage at the beginning of the circus. However, like many inexperienced bikers he probably overrevved the throttle and the bike took off -- down a 5-foot drop into the vacant front row of his church. Harlow sustained an injury to his wrist, for which he underwent surgery Monday. Of course, there is no humor in someone getting injured like this and we certain pray for pastor Harlow's recovery.
However, this does bring to mind once again the growing trends towards the use of gimmicks, gadgets, stunts and other forms of entertainment in an attempt to illustrate Biblical concepts to a postmodern, entertainment-saturated culture. While we are certainly under great Biblical mandate to take the message of the gospel into the "highways and byways" and to be "all things to all people, that by all means [we] might save some," the great risk with gimmick-based preaching is that we trivialize the depth and significance and mystery of the Gospel. Long ago our American culture lost it's sense of awe about things with the onset of mass communication (telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, internet, IM, text messaging....the list seems endless).
When we attempt to use devices and icons from this "aweless" culture we live in, we introduce this same awelessness into church life. We reduce the truths that God intended to be complex down to a level where it is devoid of it's intended meaning.
Many proponents of such practices cite Christ's use of parables during his ministry on Earth. However, this argument completely ignores Christ's own explanation of why he used parables as documented in Matthew 13:10-17. Specifically, in verse 13 Christ explains, "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do no see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." Why is this so? "For this people's hearts have grown dull" (v. 15). Parables were never intended to simplify Biblical truth. They were more like riddles, intended to expose the spiritual blindness of their intended audience, while illustrating complex truths to those who had been given the ability to percieve by God's grace.
I certainly am in no position to make any assessing statements about the spiritual condition of the congregation at Crossroards Community Church. But if current trends in church growth are any indiciation, the typical evangelical worship service today is part corporate worship and teaching, and part revival meeting. Most churches today have a sizable number of unregenerate people sitting in their pews each morning. This places pastors in the often untenable position of having to preach a message that both edifies and equips the saints and will also result in a good response during the altar call at the end of the service. Theologically speaking, this is very awkward. To overcome this awkwardness, many pastors feel forced to resort to showmanship in order to achieve some level of success in both areas.
"What you win them with is what you will win them to."
The Apostle Paul, the greatest theologian who ever walked this earth short of our Lord Jesus Christ, never worried much about putting on a show for people:
Consider the case of pastor Jeff Harlow of Crossroads Community Church in Kokomo, IN. Last Sunday, during an illustration of the concept of unity, he attempted to ride a dirt bike out on stage at the beginning of the circus. However, like many inexperienced bikers he probably overrevved the throttle and the bike took off -- down a 5-foot drop into the vacant front row of his church. Harlow sustained an injury to his wrist, for which he underwent surgery Monday. Of course, there is no humor in someone getting injured like this and we certain pray for pastor Harlow's recovery.
However, this does bring to mind once again the growing trends towards the use of gimmicks, gadgets, stunts and other forms of entertainment in an attempt to illustrate Biblical concepts to a postmodern, entertainment-saturated culture. While we are certainly under great Biblical mandate to take the message of the gospel into the "highways and byways" and to be "all things to all people, that by all means [we] might save some," the great risk with gimmick-based preaching is that we trivialize the depth and significance and mystery of the Gospel. Long ago our American culture lost it's sense of awe about things with the onset of mass communication (telegraph, telephone, radio, TV, internet, IM, text messaging....the list seems endless).
When we attempt to use devices and icons from this "aweless" culture we live in, we introduce this same awelessness into church life. We reduce the truths that God intended to be complex down to a level where it is devoid of it's intended meaning.
Many proponents of such practices cite Christ's use of parables during his ministry on Earth. However, this argument completely ignores Christ's own explanation of why he used parables as documented in Matthew 13:10-17. Specifically, in verse 13 Christ explains, "This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do no see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." Why is this so? "For this people's hearts have grown dull" (v. 15). Parables were never intended to simplify Biblical truth. They were more like riddles, intended to expose the spiritual blindness of their intended audience, while illustrating complex truths to those who had been given the ability to percieve by God's grace.
I certainly am in no position to make any assessing statements about the spiritual condition of the congregation at Crossroards Community Church. But if current trends in church growth are any indiciation, the typical evangelical worship service today is part corporate worship and teaching, and part revival meeting. Most churches today have a sizable number of unregenerate people sitting in their pews each morning. This places pastors in the often untenable position of having to preach a message that both edifies and equips the saints and will also result in a good response during the altar call at the end of the service. Theologically speaking, this is very awkward. To overcome this awkwardness, many pastors feel forced to resort to showmanship in order to achieve some level of success in both areas.
"What you win them with is what you will win them to."
The Apostle Paul, the greatest theologian who ever walked this earth short of our Lord Jesus Christ, never worried much about putting on a show for people:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
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