Together for the gospel 2012

In 2006, four gifted and prominent leaders of the American Church, Mark Dever of 9 Marks and Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Ligon Duncan of RTS and First Presbyterian Jackson, C. J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries, and Albert Mohler, the President of Southern Baptist Seminary got together to create a conference called Together for the Gospel (T4G) to encourage other pastors to stand together for the gospel.The T4G conferences was repeated in 2008, 2010, and this week. The talks are now all available! Check them out! All of these guys are super solid. The Gospel Coalition has videos up from the conference, and you can get it just the audio here. 

So far, I've only listened to Mark Dever's sermon (I'll start working on them seriously once they are available in podcast. But Dever's sermon is gold . Here are a few quotes.

"Our congregations are made up exclusively of sinners. So as pastors we spend all of our time with sinners, even when we're alone."

"False teaching will bring converts, but false converts. And false converts will hire false teachers." (At that I burst out laughing, and then wanted to put on sackcloth and ashes) 

"He who thinks lightly of sin will think lightly of our Savior." 

"When we get this right [that Christ is our only hope], we offend and attract all the right people."

The Scripture is the Word of God

Excerpts from Jonathan Edwards sermon on 2 Timothy 3:16, All scripture is given by inspiration of God." The whole sermon can be found here.

There must be some Word of God. ’Tis unreasonable to think that God would always keep silence and never say anything to mankind. God has made mankind and given him Reason and Understanding. Has made him the chief of all the creatures. Given him reason that he might know God and serve Him. Did not give the other creatures reason: He did make ’em to serve Him. Other creatures are made for man. Man was made for God: to serve God, or else he was made for nothing.

But we may be sure He did not make such a creature as man for nothing. But how unreasonable is it to think that God would make us for Himself and never say anything to us. God is the King that rules over all nations. But how unreasonable is it to think that God would make us for Himself and never say anything to us. God is the King that rules over all nations. But how unreasonable is it to suppose that He should be a King and never say anything to His subjects.... be a King and never tell them what His will or what His commands are, that His subjects may obey Him. Is as a Father: all His Family. But will a father be always dumb and silent, etc.?

God has given mankind speech: so that they are able to speak and make known their minds to one another. And therefore ’tis unreasonable to think that God never would speak to men and make known His mind to them. We need to have God teach us as much as a child needs to be taught by his father. And since God has given mankind understanding He doubtless will teach him and instruct him How can we know Him to worship God if we have no Word of God to tell us? We should not know what way of worship would please Him... whether to pray to Him or to sing or to keep the Sabbath, or be baptized, or come to sacrament, or what else we shall do.

The Bible gives right notions concerning God. Tells how God made the world.... made men.... how men became wicked. What God will do with men in another world. What way we may have the forgiveness of sin. What is the way of salvation? What God’s mind, and [what His ] will, is.

All the Rules and Commandments in the Bible are holy. Here told what man’s duty is in many things.  All sin is forbidden. How God will be served. The great things God has done for His people through all ages. What the Savior did and suffered: how He ascended into Heaven.  How the world will come to an end.  How God will judge the world. Another thing that shows that the Scriptures are the Word of God is this: — That when God told the wise and holy men to write the Bible He gave ’em power to work great MIRACLES, to convince men that it was His work.

Moses was a man that wrote all the first part of the Bible. And God, to show that the Word he wrote was His word.... And so the other Prophets that wrote other parts. Jesus Christ gave us the Scriptures of the New Testament. He spoke the Word of God. He, to show that His Word was the Word of God, wrought great miracles. He told His Disciples to write down what He said.... enabled them to do great miracles. The Apostle Paul. That there was such a man as Christ.... that great miracles [were wrought] even His enemies own: none deny it.   Another thing that shows the Scriptures to be the Word of God is that the Scripture FORETELLS a great many things. The Old Testament that was given to the Jews a great while before Christ was born foretold Christ’s coming. And a great many things concerning Him. All which are FULFILLED. The Scriptures of the New Testament foretell a great many things.... all came to pass.

The Scriptures we here read is the same Word that was given of old. The same Word has been kept all along: it has not been changed…no Book reaches the hearts of men so much. No word so AWAKENS the conscience. No word is so powerful to change the heart. Great many have been made ‘new men:’ very wicked men. No word so powerful to the Bible. Better they are the more they love it... the more they are convinced that it is the Word of God. The more wicked men [are] the more they are AGAINST IT.

THE CROWN AND THE CROSS

Edward on how the desires of a Christian are reset when you are born again.

There is something else in Christianity besides self denial or restraining our inclination. There is a crown as well as a cross. And though we are so strictly required to restrain and keep within bounds our animal inclinations, yet God does not desire that we set any bounds to spiritual and gracious inclinations, which are the most excellent; he that is truly born again, as he has an animal appetite to meat and drink, so he hungers and thirsts after righteousness. It is his meat and drink to do the will of his Father which is in heaven. He thirsts for God, for the living God, and sometimes has heart pants after God as the hart pants after the water brook (Psalm 42:1) He has an appetite to Jesus Christ, who is the bread which came down from heaven. His soul lives upon Christ as his spiritual meat and drink. He has an appetite to the Word of God as to the food of his soul, for he lives not by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). He as a newborn babe desires the sincere milk of the word, that he may grow thereby (I Peter 2:2). He has not only a desire from a rational consideration of the need and benefit of it, but it is a desire immediately flowing from his nature, like the natural appetite.

DAY by DAY with Jonathan Edwards, pg. 18

Discipleship and Cheap Grace

Bonhoeffer on Cheap Grace in his classic book, The Cost of Discipleship.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack’s wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost!

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods…

Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it costs God the life of His Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs …

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Cost of Discipleship”, pp. 45-48).

What's Cheap grace look like today?

I think we could say that Cheap grace is looking for Jesus to be your savior, your pal (think Dogma's Buddy Jesus), the one who gives you all the things the world holds dear. It's seeing him as the safe Jesus who never bothers you and never makes demands, rather than the King who died for you, the King who declares "it is finished", the King who bled and died and rose again and calls you to turn to him in faith, to repent and believe and then live for him out of gratitude, understanding that a whole new treasure is set before you. 

Resurection Resources

Here are three phenominal resources

Michal Horton of Modern Reformation and the White Horse Inn -Risen Indeed

Every Easter affords fresh opportunities for national news magazines to take up the question of Jesus’s resurrection. It’s difficult to point with any firmness to a “consensus” in Jesus scholarship any more than in other studies. Nevertheless, even liberals recognize (and lament) a trend in New Testament scholarship away from many of the “assured results” assumed by their predecessors only a generation ago.

Many factors have contributed to this more conservative trend, but two are worth mentioning.

First, there has been a trend toward earlier dating of the Gospel accounts, which undermines the critical presupposition that the most obvious reports of Jesus’s bodily resurrection and deity are later interpolations.

Second, especially since the last 40 years or so, there has been a trend toward placing Jesus in his Jewish milieu and this has led—generally speaking—to greater suspicion of the quite Gentile (Greek) biases that have dominated higher-critical (i.e., liberal) scholarship.

It’s helpful for us to return to the “facts of the case.” Here, speculation is useless. It does not matter what we thought reality was like: whether we believed in thirty gods or none. It doesn’t matter what we find helpful, meaningful, or fulfilling. This is not about spirituality or moral uplift. Something has happened in history and we cannot wish it away. It either happened or it didn’t happen, but the claim itself is hardly meaningless or beyond investigation.

Mars Hill Church: Mark Driscolls Sermon God Saves. This is part of the core sermons that made up his book doctrine. Reading the sermon or listening is as almost good as reading the book. Almost.

Resurrection is the doctrine that after dying on a cross, Jesus physically rose to life‚ conquering Satan, Sin, and Death. Jesus now sits on His throne as King. In this sermon, Pastor Mark Driscoll explores the Biblical and circumstantial evidence of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, then deals frankly with common objections to this doctrine.

From Dartmouth Apologia The Reality of the Resurrection: The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus 

If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen – nothing else matters. The final aphorism of the late Yale Professor of History, Jaroslav Pelikan, rightly encapsulates the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ...Far from a peripheral issue, the resurrection of Jesus stands at the very center of the Christian Gospel. As the Apostle Paul, the most prolific Christian missionary and New Testament writer recognized, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile … If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. The entire Christian faith hinges on this question: Did Jesus, after suffering an agonizing and humiliating execution, in fact rise from the dead?

Sundays On the Way

Ressurection

O GOD OF MY EXODUS,

Great was the joy of Israel’s sons, when Egypt died upon the shore,

   Far greater the joy when the Redeemer’s foe lay crushed in the dust.

Jesus strides forth as the victor, conqueror of death, hell, and all opposing might;

He bursts the bands of death, tramples the powers of darkness down, and lives for ever.

He, my gracious surety, apprehended for payment of my debt, comes forth from the prison house of the grave free, and triumphant over sin, Satan, and death.

Show me herein the proof that his vicarious offering is accepted, that the claims of justice are satisfied, that the devil’s scepter is shivered, that his wrongful throne is leveled.

Give me the assurance that in Christ I died, in him I rose, in his life live, in his victory I triumph, in his ascension I shall be glorified.

Adorable Redeemer, thou who was lifted up upon a cross art ascended to highest heaven.

Thou, who as Man of sorrows wast crowned with thorns, art now as Lord of life wreathed with glory.

Once, no shame more deep than mine, no agony more bitter, no death more cruel.

Now,  no exaltation more high, no life more glorious, no advocate more effective.

Thou art in the triumph car leading captive thine enemies behind thee.

What more could be done than thou hast done!

Thy death is my life, thy resurrection my peace, thy ascension my hope, thy prayers my comfort.

From The Valley of Vision pages 86,87

Seven Stanzas at Easter” (John Updike)

I saw this on Justin Taylor's Blog yesterday  it's pure gold!

 

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That-pierced-died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.
And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

Love Lustres At Calvary

My Father,

Enlarge my heart, open my affections, open my lips, supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at       Calvary’.

There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on my Son,made a transgressor, a curse, and sin   for me;

There the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;

There thy infinite attributes were magnified, and infinite atonement was made;

There infinite punishment was due, and infinite punishment was endured.

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy, cast off that I might be brought in, trodden down as            an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend, surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best, stripped that I might be clothed, wounded that I might be healed, athirst that I might drink, tormented that I might be comforted, made a shame that I might inherit glory, entered darkness that I might have eternal light.

My Saviour wept that  all tears might be wiped from my eyes, groaned that I might have endless song, endured all pain that I might have unfading health, bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem, bowed his head that I might uplift mine, experienced reproach that I might receive welcome, closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness, expired that I might for ever live.

O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightiest spare me,

All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;

Help me to adore thee by lips and life.

O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise, my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my enemies crushed, Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed, sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood, hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.

Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross, mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

From The Valley of Vision pages 76,77

It's Friday... But Sundays a Coming

Good Friday Reminder: Why Jesus Died

Here on Good Friday, it seems fitting to stop and think about the suffering and death of Christ, and why Jesus came to die. Here is a list from John Piper, from his book, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. Read through them. Slowly. Ponder them. Savor them. The king of kings lived the life you should have lived and died the death you should have died, and accomplished all this, and so much more!

1          To Absorb the Wrath of God

2          To Please His Heavenly Father

3          To Learn Obedience and Be Perfected

4          To Achieve His Own Resurrection from the Dead

5          To Show the Wealth of God’s Love and Grace for Sinners

6          To Show His Own Love for Us

7          To Cancel the Legal Demands o/f the Law Against Us

8          To Become a Ransom for Many

9          For the Forgiveness of Our Sins

10        To Provide the Basis for Our Justification

11        To Complete the Obedience That Becomes Our Righteousness

12        To Take Away Our Condemnation

13        To Abolish Circumcision and All Rituals as the Basis of Salvation

14        To Bring Us to Faith and Keep Us Faithful

15        To Make Us Holy, Blameless, and Perfect

16        To Give Us a Clear Conscience

17        To Obtain for Us All Things That Are Good for Us

18        To Heal Us from Moral and Physical Sickness

19        To Give Eternal Life to All Who Believe on Him

20        To Deliver Us from the Present Evil Age

21        To Reconcile Us to God

22        To Bring Us to God

23        So That We Might Belong to Him

24        To Give Us Confident Access to the Holiest Place

25        To Become for Us the Place Where We Meet God

26        To Bring the Old Testament Priesthood to an End and Become the Eternal High Priest

27        To Become a Sympathetic and Helpful Priest

28        To Free Us from the Futility of Our Ancestry

29        To Free Us from the Slavery of Sin

30        That We Might Die to Sin and Live to Righteousness

31        So That We Would Die to the Law and Bear Fruit for God

32        To Enable Us to Live for Christ and Not Ourselves

33        To Make His Cross the Ground of All Our Boasting

34        To Enable Us to Live by Faith in Him

35        To Give Marriage Its Deepest Meaning

36        To Create a People Passionate for Good Works

37        To Call Us to Follow His Example of Lowliness and Costly Love

38        To Create a Band of Crucified Followers

39        To Free Us from Bondage to the Fear of Death

40        So That We Would Be with Him Immediately After Death

41        To Secure Our Resurrection from the Dead

42        To Disarm the Rulers and Authorities

43        To Unleash the Power of God in the Gospel

44        To Destroy the Hostility Between Races

45        To Ransom People from Every Tribe and Language and People and Nation

46        To Gather All His Sheep from Around the World

47        To Rescue Us from Final Judgment

48        To Gain His Joy and Ours

49        So That He Would Be Crowned with Glory and Honor

50        To Show That the Worst Evil Is Meant by God for Good

The Precious Blood

Blessed Lord Jesus,

Before the cross I kneel and see

the heniousness of my sin,

my iniquity that caused thee to be ‘made a curse’,

the evil that excites the severity

of divine wrath.

Show me the enormity of my guilt by

            the crown of thorns,

            the pierced hands and feet,

            the bruised body,

            the dying cries.

Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God,

            Its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought.

Infinite must be the evil and guilt

            That demands such a price.

Sin is my malady, my monster, my foe, my viper,

            born in my birth,

            alive in my life,

            strong in my character,

dominating my faculities,

following me as a shadow.

intermingling with my every thought,

my chain that holds captive in the

  empire of my soul.

Sinner that I am, why should the sun give me light,

            the air supply breath,

            the earth bare my tread,

            its fruits nourish me,

            its creatures subserve my ends?

Yet thy compassions yearn over me,

            thy heart hastens to my rescue,

            thy love endured my curse,

            thy mercy bore my deserved stripes.

Let me walk humbly in the lowest depths

  of humiliation,

            bathed in thy blood,

            tender of conscience,

            triumphing gloriously as an heir of salavation.           ,

From The Valley of Vision pages 74,75

Christ is Risen Video- I Love this song!

A great song celebrating the Resurrection. Enjoy here on Holy Week (yes, I may be jumping the gun, but it's a song we will be singing on Easter, and we haven't sung it in awhile. So First Baptist, take a few laps through!

Healed By His Stripes

Isaiah 53 (below) says that we are healed by his stripes. Think it's hyperbole? Not quite. Jesus death was brutal. Stop and contemplate it today. Here is an old mid 90's Carmen song, set to scenes from the Passion of the Christ. 

Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53:1-12

A Gospel Centered Repentence- Awesome

Awesome! Powerful Questions and Words to ponder as we head into Holy Week!