StuffMart

Pleasing versus Doing

2011-10-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

I thought of the men I know and have known—pastors, teachers, seminary presidents, ministry executives, missionaries, evangelists—and I thought that the greatest thing they could do at any moment in their life is to please God. No amount of fruitfulness, obedience, productivity, or over-the-top performance could trump simply pleasing God. So, I sat beside the bed of my wife of thirty years as she lay there finishing well and pleasing God.

--Disciple, Bill Clem

Sanctification as Life

2011-08-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

This life, therefore, is
not righteousness, but growth in righteousness,
not health, but healing,
not being, but becoming,
not rest, but exercise.

We are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.

The process is not yet finished,
but it is going on.

This is not the end,
but it is the road.

All does not yet gleam in glory,
but all is being purified.

—Martin Luther, “Defense and Explanation of All the Articles,” in Luther’s Works, Volume 32: Career of the Reformer II, ed. George W. Forell & Helmut T. Lehman (Fortress, 1958), p. 24.

HT: Justin Taylor

Procrastination is a Worship Problem

2011-08-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

…a habit of procrastination indicates a worship problem: an unwillingness to do the work that God has appointed for us, or an inability to discern what he has given us and what he has not. The procrastinator loves to hoard her time for herself rather than work diligently in it on the errands and tasks God gives her. She would rather blame the chaos outside of her than the chaos in her heart.

–Staci Eastin in The Organized Heart: A Woman’s Guide to Conquering Chaos (Cruciform Press, 2011)
HT: Pure Church

Is Paul unclear?

2011-03-19T16:05:00.001-07:00

Of this he is [Simeon speaking of himself in 3rd person] sure, that there is not a decided Calvinist or Arminian in the world who equally approves of the whole of Scripture . . . who, if he had been in the company of St. Paul whilst he was writing his Epistles, would not have recommended him to alter one or other of his expressions.

But the author would not wish one of them altered; he finds as much satisfaction in one class of passages as another; and employs the one, he believes, as freely as the other. Where the inspired Writers speak in unqualified terms, he thinks himself at liberty to do the same; judging that they needed no instruction from him how to propagate the truth. He is content to sit as a learner at the feet of the holy Apostles and has no ambition to teach them how they ought to have spoken.

Charles Simeon, cited in H.C.G. Moule, Charles Simeon (London: InterVarsity, 1948), 79.

HT: JP

Preach What's True

2011-03-16T08:14:00.001-07:00

You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true.

—R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God, 12

2011-03-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

As long as a man is alive and out of hell, he cannot complain.
--Charles Spurgeon

Boring Preaching = an oxymoron

2011-01-29T09:23:00.000-08:00

I put next something which is meant partly to correct, or perhaps not so much to correct, as to safeguard, what I have been saying, from misunderstanding. I refer to the element of ‘liveliness.’ This underlines the fact that seriousness does not mean solemnity, does not mean sadness, does not mean morbidity. These are all very important distinctions. The preacher must be lively; and you can be lively and serious at the same time.

Let me put this in other words. The preacher must never be dull, he must never be boring; he should never be what is called ‘heavy.’ I am emphasizing these points because of something I am often told and which worries me a great deal. I belong to the Reformed tradition, and may have had perhaps a little to do in Britain with the restoration of this emphasis during the last forty years or so. I am disturbed therefore when I am often told by members of churches that many of the younger Reformed men are very good men, who have no doubt read a great deal, and are very learned men, but they are very dull and boring preachers; and I am told this by people who themselves hold the Reformed position.

This is to me a very serious matter; there is something radically wrong with dull and boring preachers. How can a man be dull when he is handling such themes? I would say that a ‘dull preacher’ is a contradiction in terms; if he is dull he is not a preacher. He may stand in a pulpit and talk, but he is certainly not a preacher. With the grand them and message of the Bible dullness is impossible. This is the most interesting, the most thrilling, the most absorbing subject in the universe; and the idea that this can be presented in a dull manner makes me seriously doubt whether the men who are guilty of this dullness have ever really understood the doctrine they claim to believe, and which they advocate. We often betray ourselves our manner.

– D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, p.86-87

The Message of the Apostles

2010-09-01T07:23:00.000-07:00

The apostles understood that the end of the ages was upon them and that the judgement was just around the corner (Acts 17:30-31). And so they didn't rise up on Sunday morning to explain that there were interesting perspectives in this word that you might choose to adopt if they happened to fit in with your faith journey. They didn't canvas the various options and perspectives that might shed light on what this word actually meant. And they didn't provide a verbal commentary, detailing some of the idiosyncrasies of biblical Hebrew. They preached that God's king had come and that today was the day to repent.

-- Phillip Jensen, The Archer and the Arrow, p.31

What if God showed up this Sunday?

2010-08-31T07:15:00.000-07:00

If God guaranteed you that he would visit your church this Sunday, and bring a message to the congregation, direct from his own lips, speaking his life-changing truth to the spiritual needs of all, would you think about cutting one or two songs and giving God some extra time? Would you ask the drama team to postpone their 20-minute re-enactment of the Prodigal Son? Would you feel the need, if you were the minister, to put aside some time after God had spoken to tell some stories that made the divine message a bit more real and relevant to the people?
If God did turn up in all his blazing glory to deliver a message to your church, what would your reaction be? Hopefully you would scrap everything, fall trembling on your knees, and say, "Speak, Lord, your servants are listening."

-- Phillip Jensen, The Archer and the Arrow, p.19

What is Sin?

2010-08-15T18:33:00.001-07:00

"Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes the relish off spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind-- this thing to you is sin."

-- Susannah Wesley

The Need for Discipline

2010-08-14T21:11:00.001-07:00

"In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first."

-- Harry Truman

Clever Sermons Can Hide the Gospel

2010-04-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

“Hear the Gospel, only mind that what you hear is the Gospel. You can hear some very smart sermons and very clever sermons and, as a rule, I may say that the cleverer they are, the worse they are! Where you see so much of the man, you will see very little of His Master.”

– Charles H. Spurgeon, quoted on Pure Church by Thabiti Anyabwile

John Newton on Sanctification

2009-10-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

"A Christian is not of hasty growth, like a mushroom, but rather like the oak, the progress of which is hardly perceptible, but in time becomes a deep-rooted tree."

-- John Newton, quoted by Iain Murray, Heroes, p.99

The Priority of Preaching Christ

2009-08-20T08:14:00.000-07:00

Martin Luther: "I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is coming back tomorrow."

Richard Baxter: "If we can but teach Christ to our people, we teach them all."

Charles Spurgeon: "A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution.... When we preach Jesus Christ, then we are not putting out the plates, and the knives, and the forks, for the feast, but we are handing out the bread itself.... [Let us] preach Christ to sinners if we cannot preach sinners to Christ.... I wish that our ministry--and mine especially--might be tied and tethered to the cross."

-- Quoted by Joel Beeke in "God-Centered Theology in the Ministry of the Word," The Puritan Reformed Journal. Mentioned by Pure Church on 08/20/2009

Danger to the Church

2009-08-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

The church's worst enemy is the man of little faith within its membership, not the faithless man of the world.

-- D.M. Lloyd-Jones, in Murray's biography, vol. 1, p.185

Piper on Preaching

2009-05-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have little or no experience with what I mean by preaching. I think it will help you listen to my messages if I say a word about it.

What I mean by preaching is expository exultation.

Preaching Is Expository

Expository means that preaching aims to exposit, or explain and apply, the meaning of the Bible. The reason for this is that the Bible is God’s word, inspired, infallible, profitable—all 66 books of it.

The preacher’s job is to minimize his own opinions and deliver the truth of God. Every sermon should explain the Bible and then apply it to people's lives.

The preacher should do that in a way that enables you to see that the points he is making actually come from the Bible. If you can’t see that they come from the Bible, your faith will end up resting on a man and not on God's word.

The aim of this exposition is to help you eat and digest biblical truth that will

make your spiritual bones more like steel,
double the capacity of your spiritual lungs,
make the eyes of your heart dazzled with the brightness of the glory of God,
and awaken the capacity of your soul for kinds of spiritual enjoyment you didn’t even know existed.

Preaching Is Exultation

Preaching is also exultation. This means that the preacher does not just explain what’s in the Bible, and the people do not simply try understand what he explains. Rather, the preacher and the people exult over what is in the Bible as it is being explained and applied.

Preaching does not come after worship in the order of the service. Preaching is worship. The preacher worships—exults—over the word, trying his best to draw you into a worshipful response by the power of the Holy Spirit.

My job is not simply to see truth and show it to you. (The devil could do that for his own devious reasons.) My job is to see the glory of the truth and to savor it and exult over it as I explain it to you and apply it for you. That’s one of the differences between a sermon and a lecture.

Preaching Isn't Church, but It Serves the Church

Preaching is not the totality of the church. And if all you have is preaching, you don’t have the church. A church is a body of people who minister to each other.

One of the purposes of preaching is to equip us for that and inspire us to love each other better.

But God has created the church so that she flourishes through preaching. That’s why Paul gave young pastor Timothy one of the most serious, exalted charges in all the Bible in 2 Timothy 4:1-2:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.

What to Expect from My Preaching and Why

If you're used to a twenty-minute, immediately practical, relaxed talk, you won't find that from what I've just described.

I preach twice that long;
I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful;
and I am not relaxed.

I standing vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not. I will be called to account for what I said there.

That's what I mean by preaching.

-- John Piper, What I Mean By Preaching, Desiring God Blog, 5/13/2009.

Why Many Churches are Weak

2009-04-08T19:08:00.001-07:00

Ignorance of God -- ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with Him -- lies at the root of the church's weakness today.

-- J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 1973

When Pastors Compare Churches

2009-02-26T08:01:00.000-08:00

I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ, at his judgment-seat, you will think you have had enough.

-- John Brown in a letter of paternal counsels to one of his pupils newly ordained over a small congregation, quoted by Mark Dever, in an interview with CJ Mahaney, Feb 3, 2009

Nothing In Us

2009-02-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest.

-- B. B. Warfield, quoted by Jerry Bridges in The Gospel for Real Life, p. 102

Character Matters!

2008-12-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

Effective ministry corresponds so much with the character of a minister that theologian John Sanderson advised people to play softball with pastoral candidates interviewing for a position. “Then on a close play at second base,” Sanderson said (with his tongue mostly in cheek), “call him out when he is really safe.

-- Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, p.38

'Wet-Eyed' Preaching

2008-11-29T10:18:00.000-08:00

There is great intellectual ability in the pulpit of our day, great eloquence, and great earnestness, but spiritual preaching, preaching to the spirit - 'wet-eyed' preaching - is a lost art. At the same time, if that living art is for the present overlaid and lost, the literature of a deeper spiritual day abides to us, and our spiritually minded people are not confined to us, they are not dependent on us.

-- Alexander Whyte, quoted by Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage, p.xi

Living with Thankfulness

2008-11-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

The historic Heidelberg Catechism asks one of the most honest questions in all theological discourse about the nature of obedience: “Since we are redeemed from our sin and its consequences by grace through Christ without any merit of our own, why must we do good works?” The paraphrase is simply, “If salvation is because of grace, why be good?” The answer is: “So that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness and that he may be glorified through us.” We offer service to God not to gain his affection but in loving thankfulness for his affection. The rewards that he grants—and that we may properly desire—in response to our obedience do not annul our chief desire to please him in response to his mercy. Such blessing would actually be empty of true satisfaction for Christians if the main purpose of their pursuit were pleasure. The Spirit makes our greatest pleasure what delights the Lord we love, and we cannot find deep joy in what fails to put his honor and glory first (Pss. 1:2; 37:4; 43:4; 119:35).

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, p.314

Good Books

2008-11-26T10:17:00.001-08:00

The best Christian books never leave us as mere spectators.

-- Iain Murray, A Scottish Christian Heritage, p.ix

On Preaching Christ

2008-11-26T07:42:00.000-08:00

Christ-centered preaching rightly understood does not seek to discover where Christ is mentioned in every text but to disclose where every text stands in relation to Christ.

Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching, p.279

Is Your Sermon Precious?

2008-10-25T16:12:00.000-07:00

A word to preachers. Truth and falsehood is a good pair of categories to use when deciding what to preach. Speak truth not falsehood.

But there is another crucial pair of categories. God tells Jeremiah that he must use this pair if he would be faithful:

Therefore thus says the Lord: "...If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. (Jeremiah 15:19)

In deciding what to preach make these two judgments: Is it true and is it precious? Preach what is both. If it is true, preach it with authority. If it is precious, preach it with passion.

One great reason why some preaching leaves people unmoved is that preachers seem unmoved. Is this precious or isn't it? That is the question in the hearts of the people. If it is, why don't you sound like it?

The great battle of preaching is to see what's true and to savor what's precious. Weak seeing and weak savoring are a curse to God's people.

Brothers, plead for deliverance from this curse. The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. They are more precious than gold and sweeter than honey (Psalms 19:9-10).

-- John Piper, Desiring God Blog, Oct 21, 2008