The ultimate apologetic is to a dying man….
The are a lot of different kinds of Good News, but there is little good news in “My argument scored more points than you argument.” But the news that “Christ is risen!” really is Good News for one kind of person: The person who is dying.
If Christianity is not a dying word to dying men, it is not the message of the Bible that gives hope now.
What is your apologetic? Make it the full and complete announcement of the Life Giving news about Jesus.
The human experience commonly shared is suffering … If he [Matt Chandler] suffers well, that might be the most important sermon he’s ever preached.
– Mark Driscoll, on Matt Chandler’s Brain Cancer
Posted in Quote of the Week
Tagged Cancer, Gospel, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Suffering
Sermon Poetry – “Lord, Help Me”
Sermon Title – “Preaching Christ to the Natural Man”
Preacher – Dr. Tom Ascol
We live in a time where there’s gods all about
We’re proud of our pluralist ways
The people don’t know of the God of the Word
Ignoring the Ancient of Days
Lord help me when walking in markets and ways
When working among fellow men
Lord help me to preach Jesus Christ to the lost
To sinners, the lost and the damned
Lord help me be faithful to rightly engage
The culture in which I am pleased
To study and know it and judge it by truth
Lord help and show me Your Grace
Lord help me remember the sin of my heart
The sin that enslaves these around
Lord help me to love You and love neighbors too
A sinner was lost, now I’m found
In me light a fire that burns for Your Name
Your honor and glory proclaim
In culture around me, your honor to seek
Proclaiming Your glorious fame
Lord help me to study Your Scripture of Truth
And study the culture around
Respecting the sinner and loving the lost
In Christ, make the lost sinner found
And finally, Father, Your Truth will I tell
I haven’t the strength on my own
Please make me committed, Your glory to seek
Save sinners in Jesus the Son
Posted in SBFCSW 2009, Sermon Poems
Tagged God's Grace, Gospel, Grace, Preaching, Salvation, Sin, Tom Ascol
American evangelicalism has not done a great job at making Jesus the point of the enterprise of faith. We take the Gospel notion of “faith alone,” a belief many Reformers died contending for, and make it about us. We turn perseverance into personal empowerment and sanctification into self-improvement. We’ve made religion a bad word by turning Law into legalism and grace into license. We made Jesus our buddy, our co-pilot, our sidekick. We don’t have sin — we have “issues.” We say we have bad habits rather than admit we have sinful hearts. We look to Scripture in general as a toolbox of pick-me-up quotable quotes and to the Gospels specifically as a chronicle of warm-fuzzy behavioral aspirations. We forgo Christian repentance and gospel proclamation in favor of the culture war against gay marriage, evolution, atheism, liberalism, America forgetting her heritage, what-have-you.
- Jared Wilson (http://gospeldrivenchurch.blogspot.com/2009/05/point-is-jesus.html)
Posted in Quote of the Week, Quotes
Tagged Culture, Gospel, Jared Wilson, Jesus, Repentance, Sin
I just came across this on Timmy Brister’s blog regarding the upcoming 2008 Together for Adoption Conference.
“One of the greatest ways to live counter-culturally in our day of rugged individualism where personal ambition and careers eclipse the call to embrace children is the practical application of the doctrine of adoption. If our spiritual adoption is the highest privilege the gospel offers, then a gospel-driven response would be to offer the highest privilege to children with the same love our heavenly Father has bestowed upon us.”
- Timmy Brister
Tagged Adoption, Evangelism, Gospel, Missions, Timmy Brister
