Sermon Poetry, 14 February 2010
Sermon Title – “The Great Commission and the Church”
Sermon Text – Matthew 28:16-20
Preacher – Pastor Steve Garrick

Jesus Christ, Exalted King, has sent His Chosen Bride
He sends as One who rules and reigns, as One Who’s earned the right
Both God and Man, the Lamb Who died, our risen Potentate
Our slaughtered Lord, our sovereign King, our God who loves and saves

Our loving Lamb has bound the one who hates the Holy God
This devil’s bound by Jesus Christ and men are being saved
The Spirit moves and men are saved from every tribe and tongue
The Church is sent and used by Christ to call His chosen loves

Our Savior sends His holy Bride into a darkened world
So men are saved and sanctified, submitting to the Lord
Our goal is to disciples make, baptizing growing souls
So they can be more like our Lord, this work’s our worthy goal

The Great Commission’s still our goal, until our King’s Return
The Word proclaimed is till our task, the Church is going forth
Though single souls, we’re saved in One, the Bride of Jesus Christ
You love the Groom, you’ll love the Bride and work so she is saved

The Church is called to preach the Word to lost and deadened men
The Great Commission is our task, to missionaries send
We meet to pray, we hear the Word, we send to preach the Truth
The Gospel of our Lord and King to send into the World

Sermon Poetry, 7 February 2010
Sermon Title – “The Great Commission and the Purpose of God”
Sermon Text – Romans 8:18-25
Preacher – Pastor Steve Garrick

For all of time our God above has been eternal blest
Sufficient in Himself
With happiness and joy supreme, full fellowship of Three

He made a world that fell in sin, rebellion from our race
We fell in sin and death
But in our sin, He’s glorified and we are given Grace

The world we’re in is frail and pale, it breaks and falls apart
Our hearts are weak and poor
But in our Christ, we’re made alive, the fruits of Heaven’s earth

We’re slaves to sin, corruption’s lord, this world will rot away
We can’t escape its work
Subjected firm, with Hope the goal, the futile thence to Grace

Before the world was ever made, ‘twas God ordaining sin
And all of its effects
This sin and death was worth the hope of Christ’s eternal win

We urge decisions (especially during invitations), but base them on emotional pressure rather than the unpacking of the Person and Work of Christ, starting our sermons in the Ephesians 4-6 portions of Scripture without rooting them in the Ephesians 1-3 portions of Scripture. By doing so, we’re setting people up for failure and despair by preaching law without preaching Christ.

Frankly, this is what concerns me most. Sure, I grieve when we don’t preach the text with sobriety—but even when we do, we often highlight what we must do for Christ more than what He has done for us [emphasis added]. Sure we must remember the former, but we need to base it on the latter—without fail. The truth is, we don’t exult in Christ. Seriously, listen to what gets the most “Amens” in your next fundamentalist conference. A message that focuses on compromising evangelicals or rebellious teens or worldly music is apt to be met with a chorus of people saying “Amen!” and “That’s right!” Meanwhile, a message focused on Christ’s atoning work and it’s affect on every day living can be met with silence or a “tell me something new” inattentiveness. It grieves me. I urge those choosing special speakers to choose those who make much of Christ. What else do we have to offer sinners, after all? …

Preacher, get serious about preaching. Get a conscience about it. And for mercy’s sake, if you’re going to criticize John Piper or Sovereign Grace, you’d better bring it. You’d better drive your message deep into the text. You’d better have the approach of a prosecuting attorney who knows that every single thing he says has to be verifiable by hard facts, not clever jokes or circumstantial evidence. Because if you criticize men who are passionate about preaching the text even as you give it a back seat to your own wisdom, you’ll be deservedly ignored. And it’s happening a lot. A lot.”

- Chris Anderson (from his post  “It’s Past Time to Put a ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy on Preaching“)

Sermon Poetry, 20 December 2009
Sermon Title – “Christ’s Incarnation and God’s Eternal Purpose”
Sermon Text – Ephesians 3:11
Preacher – Pastor Larry Vincent

Through blood and through water our Savior was born
A baby both naked and cold
‘Twas beautiful screaming the first sounds he made
From Mary he suckled and fed

He came as an infant, a babe born to die
The Suffering Servant and King
He came in humanity, Savior in deity
His praises His people e’er sing

Christ came for a reason, to rescue His Bride
For sinners from every tongue
The Babe in the Manger, the Man on the Tree
Salvation by Jesus is won

The Father is faithful, His promises kept
In Jesus the Scriptures fulfilled
The Man of all Sorrows, the Prince of all Peace
For us Christ our Savior was killed

The Savior was born into poverty strong
Despised and rejected by men
In Christ’s incarnation poor sinners are saved
In Christ we are made into sons

Praise Jesus our Savior, our Shepherd, our King
Praise Him all you sinners and saints
Praise Jesus for coming, a babe born to die
Come all, lift your voices and praise

Sermon Poetry, 1 November 2009
Sermon Text – 2 Cor. 2:14-16

A fragrance of Jesus, a sweet smelling life
Lord, give me the mercy to be
A vessel to witness of Jesus’ great love
This mercy be showered on me

I’m planting the Gospel, I’m watering dirt
But haven’t the power to grow
The growing is given through Jesus’ shed blood
The Spirit enlivening stones

Although we aren’t many, Your mercy is large
You save how You will when You want
Lord, help us to trust You, though fearful we be
To suffer as Jesus above

Please keep us encouraged, to keep running on
To run further up, further in
Lord give perseverance, dear Father we pray
To stay in the race you have giv’n

Dear Father, this sinner is weak and is frail
With nary the strength to obey
Enable this sinner to love as I’m loved
The love of my Savior e’er sweet

Yes, I know that this song is way over-played and I know that there is not a ton of in-your-face theology being expressed here. But, the desire is appropriate and simply put, I love the song. So there. ;-)

Brandon Heath – Give Me Your Eyes from Brandon Heath on Vimeo.

Folíonn grá gráin – “Love veils ugliness”

Perhaps the most perplexing question I’ve ever considered is this: “Why Grace?”  Why would God love me?  There is nothing to commend myself to God.  There is nothing in me that would be in any way attractive to Holiness.  I am but a lowly creature and God is the lovely Creator.

I break God’s Law, I impugn His Name, I spit on His Mercies and I do not love my fellow urchins.  I am ungrateful, irresponsible, and I dwell too much on wickedness.  There is nothing beautiful in me and nothing that is truly loveable.

Yet …  God still loves me.

I am a wicked man.  Perfection is as much an impossibility for me that it is nigh impossible to concoct anything more impossible.

Yet, God loves me.

In fact, He loves me enough to sacrifice His perfect and utterly loving and loveable Son on my behalf.

It is this great truth that is the key.  In Christ, my lack of righteousness is veiled in the covering of Christ’s perfect righteousness.  In His great love for me, God sent His Son to die so that I might be cleansed by His blood and covered in the white robes of His holy obedience.  In Christ, my sinful ugliness is veiled and covered in Christ’s righteous loveliness.  In Christ, my God’s love covers my repulsiveness.

The beauty of such a reality?  There is absolutely nothing we can do to earn God’s love and favor.  Nothing at all.  We are complete sinners completely at the mercy of a holy God.  Yet, in Christ we can be saved, loved and fully accepted into relationship with the Father, the God of the all things.

Believe in Christ and be saved.  So hard, yet so very easy.  Believe in Christ.

“I think sometimes we get so focused on getting the message out that we forget that the person we’re interacting with is a fellow human being made in the image of God with all the wondrous design and complexity that entails.  We need to treat them with respect as per 1 Peter 3:15 by listening to what they say.   We need to pray that God would aid our ears to help us discern how to apply Gospel first aid.    Jesus did that and with remarkable effectiveness cut to the heart of the problem -  Jesus was talking to a man who had no idea that he was anything else but a human rabbi.  In listening to him, Jesus discerned that the man’s (somewhat fawning) pious talk needed to be dealt with immediately.  Jesus was after the self-righteousness that thinks you can make yourself “good” and acceptable to God.  He is seeking to challenge this man’s whole concept of moral goodness.[Tim Keller's Study Guide on Mark]“
– Christopher Powell

12 July 2009
Preacher: Jarret Downs
Sermon: “The Lampstand”
Text: Revelation 2:1-7

Jesus loves me and He died for me
And He lives that I might live
I was lost and dead, for I loved my sin
I was set against my God
But now I’m saved
Now I live for Him
Now I’m one with Jesus Christ

I shine the light of Jesus’ love for me
I shine the light of Jesus’ Truth
For with my mouth and with my frame Christ’s glory I proclaim
God give me strength to live for You, to glorify Your Name

Yet I am not saved in a blackened void
I’m saved into a body
A family with Christ as Head
All, sinners, justified
In Christ we’re saved
For the Father’s Name
By the Spirit sanctified

We shine the light of Jesus’ love for us
We shine the light of Jesus’ Truth
For with our mouths and with our frames Christ’s glory we proclaim
God give us strength to live for You, to glorify Your Name

With tears we come before You, God
We’ve lost our Former Love
Forgive us when we Your Name impugn
We’ve Truth, but haven’t love
Teach us to obey
To each other love
Please forgive your sinners own!

We shine the light of Jesus’ love for us
We shine the light of Jesus’ Truth
For with our mouths and with our frames Christ’s glory we proclaim
God, give us strength to live for You, to glorify Your Name

Lord we beg to tell Your Name
To a lost and deadened world
With Your Love we long to preach Your Truth
And to love the Lost and Low
Help us shine Your Truth
To proclaim Your Word
So that sinners might be saved!

We shine the light of Jesus’ gracious love
We shine the light of Jesus’ Truth
For with our mouths and frames Christ’s love we must proclaim
God give us strength to live with You, to glorify Your Name

Jesus come preserve Your Sons
And Your daughters weak and frail
If it’s left to us we’ll surely fail
We need your grace and steadfast love
With Your love we love
To Your Name proclaim
So Your greatness will be known

We shine the light of Jesus’ lasting love
We shine the light of Jesus’ Word
For with our hands and tongues, God’s greatness we proclaim
Christ, give us strength to live for you
To magnify
To amplify
To glorify Your Name

What I will do, to my dying day, is work with anyone who knows he was lost but now is found, whose Bible is worn because she repeatedly looks there for God to speak, who finds the Cross the most meaningful of symbols, for whom the Resurrection is not just a doctrine but a power, and who wants nothing more than to find new and creative ways to share the evangel of Jesus in word and deed. I’ll work with these people no matter what scholars decide to call them.

For now they are called evangelicals, and I suspect that in one form or another, they’ll be around for some time.
-Mark Galli, “On the Lasting Evangelical Survival”

Michael Spencer (the Internet Monk) has a great post today on whether the SBC is “getting it”.

Here’s the real gem of the post:

What’s still not there? It’s the Gospel stupid. Not buildings, programs and methods. That will help, more or less, but it won’t get to the core of the SBC’s problem: vast numbers of people who don’t know the gospel, preach the gospel, teach the gospel, believe the gospel or see a need to shape the integrity of the church around the gospel.

If the SBC decides that blaming Calvinists, printing more literature, more conferences and promoting more bureaucrat designed solutions isn’t the answer, it will have made enormous progress. When it figures out that the centrality of the Gospel and the core implications that come from the Gospel are what’s missing across the SBC landscape, real hope will dawn.

I thank God for all the faithful people working to make the Gospel, once again, the central focus of the cooperative, evangelistic, mission-centered ministry of Southern Baptists. Don’t quit!

-Michael Spencer

Excerpts from Paul Washer’s Deeper Conference 2008 message:

Download audio file (TheBattlesforEvangel.mp3)

Excellent stuff by Brother Driscoll:

The bottom line is obvious to those with gospel eyes. People are longing for Jesus, and tragically left voting for mere presidential candidates. For those whose candidate wins today there will be some months of groundless euphoric faith in that candidate and the atoning salvation that their kingdom will bring. But, in time, their supporters will see that no matter who wins the presidency, they are mere mortals prone to sin, folly, and self-interest just like all the other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve. To help extend naïve false hope as long as possible, a great enemy will be named and demonized as the one who is hindering all of the progress to atone for our sins and usher in our kingdom. If the Democrats win it will be the rich, and if the Republicans win it will be the terrorists. This diversionary trick is as old as Eve who blamed her sin on Satan rather than repenting. The lie is that it’s always someone else’s fault and we’re always the victim of sinners and never the sinner.

-Mark Driscoll

The rest of the post can be read here: “In God We Do Not Trust”

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I fear that if I put my notes up from this session I will erroneously portray what Tom spoke about.  So, I’ll just include a couple of quotes and then pictures and I would strongly encourage you to view the video below.  It was one of the most fair, gracious, and knowledgeable presentations of the Emergent Movement I’ve yet heard.  Well worth your time to watch and listen to it.

Just because you can’t know everything doesn’t mean you can’t know anything.

Evangelicalism is more American than Evangelical.

Their chastened epistemology becomes un-hinged subjectivism. [speaking of the Emergent Movement]

Emergents today find themselves the unabashed Liberals of tomorrow.

Any Church that marries the culture today becomes a widow tomorrow. [paraphrase provided by Mike Woodall]

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