(sola)s hattiesburg

For those of you who weren’t able to make it to Secret Church, the audio is now available. Be warned: this teaching is offensive to us Americans. As Platt walks through verse after verse and passage after passage of what the Bible has to say regarding wealth and possessions, it becomes vividly clear, at least to me, that the vast majority of Christians in the U.S. (including myself) are blind to the idol of greed to which we are  bowing down. We are a prosperous people and live in a prosperous nation. We spend countless dollars on ourselves while billions in the world don’t know Christ and suffer in poverty.

Between attending this event and reading his newly released book Radical, David Platt has been used by God to deeply challenge me about the way I view money, investment and possessions, and how they relate to God’s kingdom purposes. I hope that you will give his teaching a listen, and pick up his book while you’re at it. May God move on our hearts to be sacrificial givers for the sake of His name among the nations. May we be doers of the Word, and not hearers only.

This thursday we’re kicking off our summer gatherings and our study of C.J. Mahaney’s book, Living the Cross-Centered Life.  I’m stoked about going through this book – it’s going to be a great encouragement and help in our attempt to live out the gospel everyday.  If you’re free on Thursday nights, join us for some fellowship and discussion.  And if that’s not enough to hook you, the Carley’s are hosting us this week and they’ve offered to feed us.  So be at their house promptly at 6:30, or the food might disappear quick!  (For directions to their house, follow this link).

In Revelation 12 John refers to Satan as “the deceiver of the whole world.”  In the gospel of John he says that Satan is “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).  If you go back and look at the exchange between the serpent and Eve in the garden of Eden, you’ll see that he’s worthy of his titles.  He speaks half truths (lies) that deceive Adam and Eve and lead them to doubt God’s goodness and care for them.  The serpent says to Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”  God never said this. He actually said almost the opposite.  He told them they could eat from every tree in the Garden except for one tree (Gen. 2:16-17).  Satan twisted God’s word and Eve took the bait.  

The serpent is still slithering around today doing the same thing.  He twists the Word of God and inverts the gospel.  When we are faced with a temptation, what we should be telling ourselves in that moment is, “Because I am dead to sin and alive to God I do not have to gratify carnal desires.  I can walk by the Spirit and put to death the deeds of the flesh.”  But what Satan tempts us to do is to speak grace to ourselves – cheap grace.  He tempts us to say, “There’s grace for this sin…it’s okay this time.”  And if we listen to the deceiver we convolute the gospel and fall into sin. 

Then, on the other side of the temptation, once we have fallen prey and have disobeyed, Satan then takes on the role of accuser.  He says to us, “You’re an unworthy sinner.  God is angry at you.  You’ve disqualified yourself from being usable by God!”  But what the true gospel says is, “While we were still sinners Christ died for us. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Christ cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Rom. 5:8, 8:1 and Col. 2:13-14).  

Satan would love to invert the gospel in your life.  He would love for you to fall into sin by not believing God and trusting His word.  He would love to lead you into disobedience by preaching a gospel of cheap grace.  And then once you’ve sinned he’ll point the finger at you and tell you that there is no grace for what you’ve done.  But what you must do is to get the gospel right-side up.  As you’re being tempted you must know the promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”  And you must think hard about God’s holiness and your calling to be holy as he is holy (1 Peter 1:16).  But should you fall on our face in sin, you must also know that you are forgiven in Christ.  He makes you worthy by clothing you with his righteousness and hushes the mouth of the accuser (2 Cor. 5:21, Col. 2:13-15).

Piper Audio

Possibly the most profound and life-changing thought that has entered my mind after coming to Christ is John Piper’s foundational thesis for understanding God and life, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”  What he means by this statement is that the pursuit of God’s glory and the pursuit of our joy are not at odds, they are complementary goals.  We glorify God the most when we emphatically say, “God is what brings me the most joy.”  So we wholeheartedly pursue God’s glory and in so doing we satisfy our soul’s longing and thirst.  Therefore it is not wrong to earnestly seek our greatest happiness if we search for it in God.  This testifies to God’s greatness.  It says to the world, “God satisfies me like nothing this world has to offer.”  

As I was reading through the book of John recently, I was struck with a clear demonstration of this relationship between God’s glory and our satisfaction.  John 15:8 says, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”  Then in verse 11 Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”  So in verse 8 the goal is glorifying God and in verse 11 the goal is our joy.  Verses 9 and 10 reveal the relationship between these two pursuits: our joy is derived by abiding in the love of Christ.  And how is it that we abide in Christ’s love?  We keep his commandments.  When we keep his commandments we will bear much fruit.  This exemplifies Christlikeness and brings glory to God.  At the same time, when we keep his commandments we will abide in Christ’s love and derive true joy – the joy of Christ’s enduring, steadfast love for us.  What a good God, who would create us in such a way that His pursuit of his own glory also results in our deepest joy and satisfaction!  This ought to humble us and evoke worship in our hearts.

         20/20 Collegiate Conference mp3

In the words of Bob Dylan, “Oh the times, they are a changin’.”  We live in a world and a culture that is rapidly evolving.  But despite its constant changes, culture continues to have the same problem of sin, manifested through perversions of all kinds.   As a result, the local church must consider how it is to respond and relate to an ever-changing, yet consistently sinful society.  There have been many approaches taken to this situation.  Some churches have said that we should isolate ourselves from the culture so as to not be influenced by it.  Others have said that we should be so much a part of culture that we end up looking just like it.  Neither of these approaches are helpful.  We cannot influence the culture with the gospel if we’re not in culture, nor can we influence culture if we’re no different from it.  Jesus took another approach. He was in the culture, but he lived counter-culturally.  Jesus was missional.  He hung around sinners (so much so that he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton), but Jesus did not sin.  Jesus revealed to culture what true life looks like.  And this is the same approach the church must take in the 21st century.  We must demonstrate to society what true humanity looks like, what true culture is about.  The church must be a city within a city – the city of God amidst the city of man.  This is how culture will be impacted by the gospel.  Mark Driscoll recently spoke on this topic at Southeastern Seminary.  His talk is very helpful, you should check it out.

So we just finished an exhausting and fun weekend of Disciple Now + Student Life Conference here at Temple.  As a middle/high school student, these type of events had a major impact in my spiritual development.  I vividly remember going to my first Student Life Conference as a ninth grader.  Louie Giglio was the speaker and he talked about worship – about how all of life is worship of something.  Disciple Now’s were a means of God’s grace in my life as well.  I was pushed and challenged so much through these weekends by getting to spend time with an older, “cooler” guy and observing how he was walking with God and growing in the faith.

Now that I’m on the other side of things, acting as a leader, it’s heavy to think about the impact that I could potentially have on a student’s life.  God is obviously the one who works in the hearts of students, but he did so in my life many times through D-Now leaders.  I hope and pray that God spoke through me and the other leaders this past weekend.  

The theme of the weekend was Live Love, and to all of you who gave your weekend away hanging with students or helping with the conference you did just that.  You lived love.  Thank you.  You’ll never fully know how God chose to use you, despite your inadequacies, for His amazing plans and for His glory.

This Thursday we will start back with (sola)s – 7 p.m. at the east campus.  To kick of the year we will spend a few weeks looking at the cross of Christ.  What was really accomplished by Jesus’ death?  Was the cross the only possible way?  How does understanding the cross help us in everyday life?  We will deal with these and other questions as we examine the atonement.  This should be an awesome time of worship and encouragement as we focus on the gospel.

To go along with our study, there are a few resources I’d suggest to you:

Death by Love, by Mark Driscoll – This book is awesome!  I’m in the middle of reading it right now.

The Cross of Christ, by John Stott – This is a very helpful and good book on what Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished.  

Christ on the Cross, Mark Driscoll audio sermons – access these at marshillchurch.org; search: cross

This past Saturday some of us from the college ministry met together and wrote the widows in our church letters.  We simply wanted to tell them that we love them and care for them and that we would love to spend time with them.  Sounds simple enough, huh? It may even sound trivial, but this simple gesture is what James calls “pure and undefiled religion.”  In fact, in the book of Acts we see that the office of deacon was established because the hellenistic widows were being ignored.  There are really only two church offices established in the NT (elders and deacons), and one of those offices was initiated to care for widows.  God cares for the lowly!!  And the hearts of true believers will care for them too.  I want our college ministry to be marked by a deep conviction and concern for loving others, especially the poor and lowly – orphans and widows.