Trinity This Week

I Believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:38:00 +0000

“I Believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church”

Matthew 16:18-19, Preached on October 19, 2008

Matthew 16:15-19 ¹⁵ He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" ¹⁶ Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

One of the great events in the history of television was the broadcasting of Alex Haley’s novel-turned-mini seires called “Roots”?

Did you ever see that? I remember as a child sitting up at night at my Nana and Hoppie’s house watching each night’s installment.

It was my first introduction to the black experience in America.

About a year ago, Roots was put on DVD and resold. I rented a few episodes and watched it back then. When One of Mindy’s favorite movies of all time is The Color Purpose, which is like Roots, in that it tells the story of the African American experience. I have an amateurish interesting in the topic of racial tensions and racial history. I read Shelby Steele’s recent book about race, and I’ve also thumbed through Taylor Branch’s majesterial trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King Jr and the modern civil rights movement. I am by no means an expert in the subject, but I am interested in the subject.

One of the things I’ve picked up on is that Roots and The Color Purple were important works to the African American Community because it told them that despite their recent hardships, they had a proud, dignified and glorious history.

And it gave them a renewed sense of confidence and hope, because in learning their history, they began to discover again who they really were.

You see, if you want to really understand something, you have to go back to its origins. You have to go back to the beginning, especially if you want to understand the present and the future.

I think there are some lessons here for the church.

Today the church is facing the rising tide of materialism, individualism, secularism, relativism, modernity and post-modernity, greed, selfishness, the redefinition of the soul as primarily a social-psychological self rather than a God-related, spiritual self.

The church is facing the erosion of personal ethics and the destruction of community through suburban sprawl and the impersonalization of rising technologies. I sometimes wonder if we in the church at large feel a little bit like the African American community has felt: marginalized, powerless, helpless and even at times oppressed.

The health of the church of Jesus Christ is not only being assaulted from without, but also from within.

There is a growing trend that tells Christians that they can successfully separate their spiritual walks with Jesus from the organizational church. In fact, there is strong sentiment out there that says that church life is antithetical to spiritual life. And there is no doubt that all of us have been hurt by the church. Perhaps that hurt has come in the active form of attack or in the passive form of lack of nurture and care. If we’ve been in the church for any length of time, we’ve been hurt by other Christians in the body of Christ. And of course we’ve been, because the church is nothing but a collection of sinners. And when sinners get together there will be sin and there will be hurt.

It’s a like a stylist being upset that your hair has grown back – after all, she cut it very nicely a month ago. What happened? Well, hair grows, that what it does. And sin grows.

And grace is need over and over again. That’s what the church is here for.

But more and more people are saying that the answer is to abandon the church in favor of individual spirituality.

There is plenty of legitimate ways to criticize the church. The church has become too beaucratic and too much like any other organization out there in the world. There’s not enough true discipleship, true mission, not enough true care of the soul, not enough true community and not enough true, God-centered worship.

So the church is under assault from both the outside and the inside. The church is also under assault from within by virtue of scandal and sin, which tarnishes our joy, grace and witness to a watching world.

Now more than ever we need to go back to the origins of the church.

Like Roots, we need to look last past some of our more recent struggles and recover the original glory and dignity of who we are.

We need to go back to the beginning in order to understand our present and our future. Now more than ever, we need to rediscover our roots, our calling, and the glory of the body of Jesus Christ on earth.

The roots of the church are found right here in Matthew 16:18-19

¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Let’s begin with the last part of what Jesus says – “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”

There is a relationship between the church and the Kingdom of God. The church is a sign of the kingdom, an instrument of the Kingdom, and a foretaste of the kingdom. In fact, look at your Credo guidebooks on page 39.

First, the church is a sign of the Kingdom.

When you are driving to Estes Park, Colorado to visit Rocky Mountain National Park, and you pass Denver, what do you do when you come to the sign that says “RMNP 30 miles”? Do you get out of the car and begin to unpack your belongings? Of course not, because you have not yet arrived. But you know you are close.

The church is a sign that tells us that the Kingdom of God is near.

In fact, let’s take my analogy just a little father. You are driving to Chicago. You are going to visit the planetarium or Soldier Stadium that sits on the edge of the city, alongside Lake Michigan. So you’re are driving and you see a sign that says, “Now entering the city of Chicago”. Do you stop? No. You are in Chicago, but you’re not yet in downtown, and you’re not yet at the Planetarium.

The church is a sign that tells us that the Kingdom of God is hear. We’re not downtown yet. We still have a little farther to go. But it’s not far. The Kingdom of God is pressing in.

In the tradition I was raised in, people didn’t pay much attention to the Kingdom of God. They thought of it only as something that will happen at the second coming of Jesus. And when they read it in the Bible, they tended to skip over that part. It just wasn’t that important. But I remember attending a theological meeting at Hothorpe Hall, about 100 miles north of London. And I remember sitting next to theologian Richard Pratt at dinner. And I asked him, “Other than of course Jesus himself, what do you think is the central theme of the Bible? Soveriengty of God? Covenant of grace? The gospel?” “Oh, that’s easy,” he said, “It’s the Kingdom of God.”

Starting with Genesis 1, the Bible is the story of God the King. Israel was God’s chosen people whom the King ruled over. And the King came as a suffering Messiah to redeem not just Israel but all his chosen people from every tribe, tongue, language and nation. And as the gospel saved them from sin, they are gathered into his Kingdom.

What is the Kingdom of God? They say it’s hard to understand, but it’s really easy. The Kingdom is the reign of the King. Where ever the King reigns, that’s where the Kingdom is. Does King Jesus rule your heart? Then the kingdom of God is within you?

And the church is a sign that the Kingdom of God is hear. You see, the Kingdom of God is invisible. It is a spiritual kingdom of the heart. But the invisible Kingdom is made visible in the church of Jesus Christ. When people publically confess faith in Jesus Christ and declare him as their King, they become members of the church of Jesus Christ. They gather in worship and community. They sit under and obey the preaching of the Word of God. They receive the sacraments. They care for nurture one another. They serve the world in witness. And the presence of the Church tells the world that the Kingdom of God has arrived. The church is a sign that the Kingdom of God is here.

The church is also an instrument of the Kingdom.

Notice again what Jesus said to people – “to you I will give the keys to the kingdom of heaven.” That seems difficult to understand and a bit perplexing. What do you do with a key? You open things and you close things. With a key, you lock things and you unlock things. What Jesus is saying is not hard to understand, but it is astonishing: The church holds the power to open and close the door to the Kingdom of God.

How so? The church opens the door to the Kingdom of God by the public proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The church also opens the door by receiving into her membership all those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, along with their children. And the church closes the door to the Kingdom of God through church discipline, excommunication.

The church is an instrument of the Kingdom as it serves the world in mission.

The main emphasis is always on the public proclamation of the gospel and the invitation to repent and believe the gospel and to receive the free grace of God in Christ and thereby to become participants in the body of Christ, the people of God and the fellowship of the Holy. (Note that I just described the church in Trinitarian terms because the church is indeed a Trinitarian community.)

The church is an instrument of the Kingdom as it serves the world in mission.

The church is a sign and an instrument of the Kingdom, and

it is also a foretaste of the Kingdom of God.

The church is a glimpse of heaven itself.

The church is not like any other human institution because every other human institution is based on merit and attainment, but the church alone is a community rooted in grace.

At times the church doesn’t feel like a foretaste of heaven, to be sure. When we see and feel the sin and selfishness of others in the church, it doesn’t feel like heaven. But that’s never the end of the story. Because the church isn’t just a collection of sinners. It’s more than that. It’s a collection of people who have the Holy Spirit, who are in the process of being saved by grace and mastered by grace. The church is a community where lives are redeemed and unlovely people are loved. The church is a community where forgiveness is taught and practiced. The church is a community where we studiously study and observe the glory and beauty of God Himself – and then respond to that glory and beauty in joyful worship. The church is a community where we share our possessions with one another, so that no one goes hungry, no one goes without food or shelter and no one is left to fend for himself alone. There is nothing on the earth at all like the church. It is a glimpse of heaven.

When the church is gathered together, we do two things and two things only – worship and community. When we are gathered into worship and community – and when we do it well – it feel heaven take its place in our heart.

Isaac Walton said of Richard Sibbes: “Heaven was in him before he was in heaven.” And heaven can be in you before you are in heaven if you are in the church. Because Paul says in Ephesians that we have to all be together as the church in order to graph how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God in Christ. We can’t do it alone. We can only experience together in worshipping community – as the church.

So I’ve just told you how the church operates in the world. It is a sign, an instrument and a foretaste of the Kingdom of heaven. But now let me tell you something about what the church is. What defines the church and describes the church.

When the early church met in council in the year 325, the church was under attack. And at the council of Nicea, our early church fathers clearly articulated some very basic doctrinal truths based on the teachings of the apostles. And in the Nicene creed, they said something enduring about the church. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. And when they summarized the teaching of Scripture about the church this way, it stuck. The great fathers of the Protestant Reformation called these the marks of the church.

The four marks are those: one, holy catholic and apostolic church. A brief thought on each word.

ONE

The church consistent of not just Presbyterians or Methodists of Baptists. The church consists of all those who have a living faith in Jesus Christ, as well as their children. There are Eastern Orthodox and Russian Orthodox Christians in the church. There are Roman Catholics in the church. There are Presbyterians in the church. There are Anglicans in the church. The church is bigger than you think. And when we are all united together in faith in Christ, then it is critical that we realize that there is far more that unites us than divides us.

Jesus was passionate about the oneness of the church. In his High Priestly Prayer in John 17, he prayed that his church may be one. It is not right to say that we should strive for the unity of the body of Christ. We already possess it. We are already one body in Christ. What is right to say is that we should strive not to possess it, but to express it. To show that it is true. To demonstrate its truth to the watching world.

One of the ways that we do this is by partnering with other churches and denominations in our outreach ministries. Our Garden Gate outreach ministry has been greatly blessed by the help and partnership of Chase Oaks Church and Hunters Glenn Baptist Church. One of our main outreach leaders is a member of a Baptist church in Dallas, Captain Ron. The first make of the church is that she is one.

HOLY

The second mark of the church is holiness. The original word for church is ecclesia – which means God’s called out people. The church consists of those who have been called out of this world. The church is a peculiar people, a distinct people. Ed Clowney described the church as “the colony of heaven on earth”. And because of this, we live by different values.

Remember the 1989 movie Wall Street by Oliver Stone starring Michael Douglass as Gordon Gekko. Watching the news every night for the past 2 weeks, I’ve been thinking about that movie. Remember Gordon Gekko’s famous speech in the movie? Greed is good. Greed for money is what drives our economy forward. Greed for life and love is what allows us to survive in the evolutionary survival of the fittest. Greed is good. What’s amazing about that speech is that if you accept a few of his presuppositions, then his logic actually makes sense!

But those of us in the church don’t accept the presuppositions of the world. We are not engaged in the evolutionary survival of the fittest. We are made and redeemed and blessed by a Savior. The church lives by different values. We do community based on different ideals and different aspirations. For us, moral purity is rooted in beauty and grace, not legalism and cold rigidity. When the beauty and grace of the gospel grips your heart, it changes how you do community – how you live with one another.

And we become, in a word, a holy community. Holy just means set apart. Like a pair of nice towels. We are set apart for the Lord.

Catholic

This isn’t a reference to the church in Rome. This is something much broader. It means that the church is universal. We believe in the universal church. The people of God consists of billions of people. The church isn’t small. It’s huge. And it’s everywhere. The church is in China. The church is even in North Korea. (Su Jin’s father arrested, detained, starved and then released).

And because the church is catholic, we have much to learn from the church in other corners of the world. We have our blind spots, such materialism and individualism. I once read in the writing of a third world pastor that his church has a completely different view of the authority of pastors and elders in the church. In American, if you boss tells you that you are relocating to another city, you accept that because you view your employer as being in a position of real authority. But in this Latin American country, the church is viewed as a greater authority than some corporation or business. So if your boss tells you to relocate, you will not do so without first going to your pastor and elders and seeking their counsel and wisdom and permission. It’s a very different way of understanding the authority of the church, and it’s something to think about.

Apostolic

The final mark of the church is its apostolicity. When Jesus says to Peter, “On this rock I will build my church”, he is saying that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and their teaching. Paul says the same thing in Ephesians, “being built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” It’s not that Peter is the cornerstone of the church. Jesus alone is that. And it’s not Peter in isolation from the other apostles. But the church is built on the ministry of Jesus and the apostles. And for us to be an apostolic church means that we received the authoritative teaching of the apostles, contained in Holy Scripture. The church is biblical. We are a people under authority.

And let me close with this: when the church is all these things (sing, instrument, foretaste, one, holy, catholic, apostolic), then guess what? The church is glorious.

Oh, we need to recover a due sense of the glory of the church. The church is the most wonderful thing in the world. Where else can you get this? The church is glorious. She handles glorious things. She is beautiful. She is gracious. Nothing is more beautiful than the church being the church.

And the glory of the church is so great that she will prevail. Jesus says to Peter, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Trinity Prebsyterian Church will prevail. Not because I’m a great pastor. Not because we have great elders. TPC will prevail because it is Jesus who builds the church. And it will prevail. It will prevail to change your heart. It will prevail to bring many people into His Kingdom. And it will prevail to press the Kingdom of God in to the earth. The church is beautiful. The church is glorious. Love the church. As a friend of mine once said, “Stop dating the church, and get married to her.” Love the church. She is glorious. She is the body of Christ.

I Believe in the Mission of God

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:34:00 +0000

“I Believe in the Mission of God”

John 20:21, Preached on October 12, 2008

John 20:19-22 ¹⁹ When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you." ²⁰ And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples therefore rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus therefore said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." ²² And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.

INTRODUCTION

This passage is sometimes referred to as the Great Commission of John’s Gospel.

In this passage, Jesus tells us that we are a sent people.

We have been sent out to publically proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, calling upon all people everywhere to turn and believe the good news. We are a sent people, sent out with a message of salvation in Christ.

This is a hot topic in our society today.

A very, very hot topic.

Is it even legitimate to do this?

Is it legitimate to go out there and publically proclaim that you should believe in Jesus too?

Should we even take this message of Christ and Him crucified and risen again and tell people that they too must believe this proclamation?

Or is this imposing our values and beliefs on other people?

Is this being narrow and egotistical and judgmental?

Isn’t this the root cause of all those people who kill each other because they don’t believe what you believe?

I recently began thumbing through the book made very popular by Oprah recently. It’s called “A New Earth: Amakening to Your Life’s Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle. Tolle makes this very charge. (Michael Craven) He says on page 17,

“The more you make your thoughts (beliefs) into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself. Many “religious” people are stuck at that level. They equate truth with thought, and as they are completely identified with thought (their mind), they claim to be in sole possession of the truth in an unconscious attempt to protect their identity. They don’t realize the limitations of thought.

Unless you believe (think) exactly as they do, you are wrong in their eyes, and in the not-too-distant past, they would have felt justified in killing you for that. And some still do, even now.”

So this is a very hot topic. So let’s dive right into it.

In this passage, Jesus gives his disciples a mission, a message and a motivation.

A MISSION

Jesus gave his followers a mission.

Go! I am sending you out into the world. Go spread the gospel.

In other parallel passages, Jesus says, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.”

In other passages, Jesus says, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15).

In the gospel of Luke, Jesus took the 72 disciples and he sent them out two by two. And their mission was to persuade people of the truth, to cast our demons, and to heal the sick.

Our mission is really the same.

We are to persuade people of the truth.

We are to seek to liberate people from all kinds of bondage and enslavements.

And we are to seek the mending and healing of the whole world, starting right here in our own neighborhoods.

Think about what Christian is.

A Christian is someone who has been radically called in.

God has drawn us close to himself.

He has cleansed and washed us of our guilt and shame.

He has dressed us in the beautiful garments of his righteousness.

He has made us his beloved children.

There has been intimacy, beauty, healing, restoration, renewal, love and enormous blessing.

God has called us radically in. And he has blessed us.

But now, every time he calls us radically in, he then turns around and sends us radically out.

I sent you out.

I bless you in order to make your life a blessing for others.

I only call you radically in so that you can go radically out into the world.

No longer focus on your own needs, but on the needs of others. And these two things always belong together. He calls us in and he sends us out. They belong together and they cannot be separated.

Abraham, come in. I’m going to bless you. No, go be a blessing to the nations.

Moses, come to the burning bush, I want to know you. Now, go to Pharoah.

Isaiah, come before my holy presence. Now I will cleanse the sin of your lips with the burning coal. Now go and preach the good news.

The inner and the outer always go together. God calls you into great blessing, and then he sends you out to become a blessing in the lives of others.

I want you to radically live for others now in a whole new way.

Don’t live for yourself anymore.

The gospel has changed that.

I want you to live for others.

Be a healing agent.

Be an agent of transformation.

Meet the needs of others. See that their hearts are filled with abundant life.

It’s almost as if God says to us, “Look, before I knew you, you were mired in shame, guilt, despair, self-inflation, self-condemnation, loneliness. You were hiding and you were consumed with manufacturing your own righteousness and your own sense of self-worth. But now I’ve changed all that. I’ve loved you in my Son. My gospel has made you completely accepted. I’ve washed it all away. I’ve met your deepest longings for beauty and wholeness. And even though you may not yet completely feel that way, it doesn’t matter. I’ve done this for you. So you have no excuse to live for yourself anymore. You have no excuse to be absorbed in your own little problems and your own little issues.

Get out! Get out of yourself! And start living for others! I have sent you. The gospel has freed you to go. Now get out! Go!”

EPHESIANS

There is an amazing verse in Ephesians that I think gives us a new way of looking at our sentness.

Ephesians 2:8-10 ⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Notice the really powerful thing here. It says that God has prepared good works for you to do in advance. There are ways of serving others that God has specifically prepared for you, and for no one else. So go walk in those good works that God has prepared beforehand.

This means that there are some hands that only you can hold.

Some hearts that only you can heal.

Some souls that only you can speak the gospel to.

Some needs that only you can meet.

God takes whoever you are, with your particular background, experiences, gift mix, age, gender – all of that. And God has prepared good works before hand for you. So go walk in them.

This means that Jesus doesn’t just call all Christians to go out there and publically proclaim the gospel and serve others in some generic, non-specific way. It means that you have a specific calling in which you are sent to specific people.

This is completely different from the reigning worldview. The reigning worldview says that life is an biochemical accident. There is no real rhyme or reason. There was a German existentialist philosopher named Martin Heidegger who spoke of life in terms of “throwness” (GeWorfenheit – Scott/Gery Monroe). We are just thrown out there. And it’s up to us to scratch and claw and exert ourselves and protect ourselves in this harsh world if we are to create any significance for our lives.

But the Christian worldview is completely different.

I’m not randomly thrown out there into the universe. And it’s not up to me to go fight for my own street corner in order to make a name for myself. God has already given me a name. My name is written in the book of life. I’ve already been accepted and blessed in the gospel. I don’t have to fight for my existence or significance in life. I’ve already been given it through Christ. And I’m not just randomly thrown out there, I am specifically sent by Jesus into just the lives that I need to be involved in to do acts of service and witness that God has specifically prepared beforehand for me to do.

So just take a deep breath. Relax. Drink in the gospel. Stop striving and competing. Get out of yourself. Look around. And see how God has sovereignly placed you in a specific location for you to serve and witness to some people now. And with the gospel in your heart and with love on your lips, quietly go to them and serve them.

It’s not “thrownness”. It’s sentness.

Jesus gives you a mission, and he also gives you a message.

A MESSAGE

We are sent out, but what are we went out to do?

Every single Christian is given a message that they are to publically communicate and urge everyone to believe it.

This message is the good news of Jesus Christ.

It says right here in our passage (John 20:20), that when he appeared to them, he showed them his hands and his side. Actually, that’s the message right there.

The message is Christ and Him crucified. The message is the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The message is the gospel – the good news that Jesus is God’s forever King, and that through His death and resurrection, through repentance and faith in Him, you can enter the Kingdom of God and enjoy him forever.

Now, as I said at the beginning of the sermon, this is an amazingly hot topic today.

Lots of people say, “It’s alright that they believe in Jesus, but should not try and convert other people. That’s wrong. That’s narrow and intolerant. You can believe in Jesus, but don’t tell others that they should believe in Jesus.”

But there’s a problem with that problem.

We are sent to communicate the gospel.

What does the word gospel mean?

When this word was chosen by Jesus as the message that we’re supposed to take out, people understood what this word gospel meant.

The word gospel had a specific meaning:

a gospel was news of an objective, history changing event, that changed everyone’s situation, that everyone needed to respond to.

This is the beginning of the gospel of Caesar Augustus

It was the declaration that he had ascended the throne.

The word gospel had a specific meaning: a gospel was news of an objective, history changing event, that changed everyone’s situation, that everyone needed to respond to.

You could say, “well, he’s your emperor, but he’s not my emperor. No, everyone had to deal with it. Whether you wanted him to be your emperor or not, he was. And that’s why you wanted to know the news. It affected you, whether you wanted it to or not. Whether you accepted it or not, it was what really happened.”

The most famous example of this is the Battle of Marathon

AD 490. Persians were invading Greece. Athenian army went out on the plain of marathon to try to defend against the Persians. But back in Athens, everyone knew that the Persians were probably going to win. So the whole city was in an uproar trying to prepare for the Persian invasion. Panic. But to everyone’s surprise, the Greeks won.

But as soon as they won, they realized, they needed to communicate the gospel. They needed to tell everyone in Athens the message of good news. Unless they got word back, there would be panic in the street. It was absolutely critical. So they sent a single runner from Marathon to Athens. Guess how far that was? About 22.5 miles. This is where we get the modern distance marathon.

When Jesus said, go and proclaim the gospel to every creation. Do you know the enormity of what he was claiming? He was claiming to be the uncreated second person of the Triune God. I am God’s King. God’s messiah. I am God!

Now, if he’s just a prophet and he has some teaching about God, then that’s advice. Your might say that the gospel is “here’s some advice”

But if he is who he says he is, then his gospel – it is a history changing, momentous event that you have to respond to – or history is going to leave you in its wake.

And that’s the whole point behind of being sent out into the world. We have a gospel. We have good news that Jesus is God’s royal messiah.

When a person says, it’s okay to believe in Jesus, you just can’t convert anyone else to it

What you’re really saying is that you must not believe in Jesus – the gospel isn’t true. Now, they don’t want to say that, but that’s really what they are saying, isn’t it?

You’re really saying, “He can’t be God’s unique Son who has broken into history”

If he really is God’s royal Messiah, then you have a gospel to tell

And to not publically proclaim this gospel would be the most radically unloving, radically wicked thing you could do.

It would be like finding the cure for cancer, but saying, I’m not going to tell others. I’ll just keep it to myself and to my children.

That would be utter wickedness!

Jesus is infinitely beyond any prophet or any guru – he’s God! He’s God’s King.

When they say that it is wrong, narrow for you to proclaim the gospel to others, what they are saying is,

“My cosmology is right. Abandon yours. Adopt mine.”

Ok, you have the right to say that, but why is it any more or less tolerant for you to say that than for me to say that the gospel is true?

Which one is more narrow? Neither is more narrow. They are the same. It’s just that one is more disingenuous at best and dishonest at worst.

Everyone is proselytizing for their worldview. To say, “Stop it” is actually impossible. To say that there is no absolute truth that applies to everyone is self-contradictory – because to say that there is no truth is itself a truth that everyone must submit to. It’s dishonest.

So Jesus gives us a mission and he gives us a message.

We are a sent people. And we are sent with a message. And when the culture tells us that it is narrow and wrong to proclaim the gospel, we don’t need to be shaken or intimidated by that because what they are doing is no different from what we are doing. We are both proclaiming a message, a worldview. We are both proselytizing for our worldviews – and one is no worse or better than the other.

So the question is not “Should you proclaim the gospel” – the question is, “Is Jesus really who He said He was?” If He is God’s royal Messiah (and not just a good teacher), then you have to respond to that.

Jesus gives us a mission, a message and finally a motivation.

A Motivation

Let me be brief here. There are two motivations here in the text for being sent into the world.

The first is how Jesus began his address to the disciples: “Peace be with you.” When Jesus says, “Peace be with you”, he not just saying hello. It’s not just a greeting. It’s a benediction. It’s a blessing. That is a statement about the gospel. The peace of Christ is upon us. We’ve been blessed in the gospel. We have peace with God. The striving is over. We have peace.

The gospel calls us in – we have peace – then the gospel sends us out – because we have peace.

Do you remember how in Luke 9 Jesus sent out 72 the disciples two by two to proclaim the gospel, cast out demons and heal the sick? When they came back from the their mission, what did they say to Jesus? They marveled that even the demons obeyed them. And what did Jesus do? He rebuked them. He told them “Do not rejoice that the demons obeyed you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in the book of life.”

You see, there can be a bad motivation for publically proclaiming the gospel. It is possible to be motivated by pride. One is especially tempted to pride the moment that they experience some success if sharing the gospel. And Jesus says, “Don’t go there. Beware of pride. Don’t let your identity become based on ministry success, but keep your identity based on the grace of the gospel.”

Perhaps you’ve seen the movie Elmer Gantry. Or The Apostle. Or you’ve seen one of the dozens of television preachers who have fallen in a very public and humiliating way. Proclaiming the gospel becomes a harmful, dangerous thing when pride begins to become the motivation. The culture is right about one thing: proclaiming the gospel can turn into something destructive. But Jesus is wise enough to know that the problem is not the proclamation of the gospel, the problem is the motivation of the heart that proclaims the gospel. Beware of pride.

Let your motivation be nothing other than the gospel of grace. And if people begin to be influenced by your ministry and service, and if they begin to look to you, then be especially careful of pride. Rejoice only in the peace of Christ. Rejoice only in the fact that your name if written in the book of life.

The second motivation to mission is this: you have been sent second. God sent himself first.

See what our text says, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you.”

Mission is not primarily a human activity.

It is primarily something that God does.

What you and I do is secondary (derivative) and it is in partnership with God.

Mission is less of a human activity and more of a divine attribute.

The mission of the church is not derived from obedience to a command. It is derived from the very nature of God.

God is a missional God. The Bible is his missional book.

Mission is first and foremost not a movement of believer to unbeliever.

Mission is first and foremost a movement of God to this world.

To participate in mission is to participate in God’s mission to the world.

Mission begins within the Trinity. God is the fountain of sending love.

That’s why it is utterly significant that Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon the church in verse 22.

The Father send the Son. The Son and the Spirit send the church. You are sent in the peace of Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. God has prepared beforehand the good works in which you are to walk.

No get out of yourself and go. You are a sent people. Now go.

Yelling at my kids

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:23:00 +0000

...ever have that temptation? Of course not. ;-) But I'm sure you know someone else who does. Here is a good article from CCEF for them on the subject. And while you are looking it up, you might as well read it for yourself too!

"I Believe in the Gospel" sermon notes

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:45:00 +0000

INTRODUCTION: THE KEYNOTE OF ROMANS

Not all of the books of the Bible are equally significant. Although every book of the Bible provides us with invaluable teaching, some books of the Bible establish a foundation that other books of the Bible build upon. Genesis 1-3 provides presupposition about God, humanity and the world that the entire Bible is built upon. Deuteronomy, the giving of the Law, provides the foundation upon which the Prophets built. In the New Testament, there is no writing that does more to fully explain Christianity with all its implications than the book of Romans. So we have just read from what is arguably the most important book of the New Testament. (John’s Gospel would be a close second.)

In the two verses I just read to you, Paul has given us the master theme of the greatest book. And the keynote of Romans is undoubtedly the message of the gospel itself.

NOT ASHAMED

Paul begins his keynote statement with something rather curious. He says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” Notice how he put that. He didn’t say, I’m proud of the gospel, though he certainly was. He didn’t say, I glory in the gospel, though he certainly did do that too. He said, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel.” This way of speaking in the negative is called a litotes. I heard Sinclair Ferguson say once that Scottish people are much more subdued and reserved than Americans. So if you ask an American how they’re doing, they’ll says, “Great!”. But if you ask a Scotch how they’re doing, they’ll answer, “Not bad.” That’s a litotes.

Why does Paul put it this way? Well, the obvious implication is that it is possible for Paul to somehow be ashamed of the gospel. And it is possible for you and I to be ashamed of the Gospel. But in what way? How? Note that question. Hang on to that question, because we are going to come back to it.

IT IS THE POWER OF GOD

Then Paul goes on to say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation.”

Now read those words carefully. Paul does not say that the gospel is one of many ways to describe the power of God. He doesn’t say that the gospel is one way of acquiring the power of God. He doesn’t say that the Gospel is just one way to enter into the power of God. He says something remarkable. He says something here in the keynote to perhaps the most important book of the Bible that is absolutely breathtaking: the gospel IS the power of God for salvation.

The good news of the gospel is the power of God for salvation because it is the message of grace-based acceptance. God in the person of Jesus Christ pays the price for my sin. He does this not based on my merit, performance or obedience. He does this out of sheer grace. Jesus lived the life I should have lived. Jesus died the death I should have died. Jesus did this in our place, as our substitute. And we are reconciled to God based on merit – it’s just not my merit – it’s Jesus’ merit. Christians who trust in Christ’s merit rather than their own are given an infinitely valuable, free gift of sheer grace.

Tim Keller (whose way of relating the gospel to moderns is very helpful to me and whose fingerprints are all over this sermon) has defined the gospel this way:

“Through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God fully accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which we can enjoy our new life together with him forever.”

It’s the very end of that definition that I think can be helpful for our thinking, and we’ll touch on that in a bit. But see the core of it: The gospel is the person and work of Jesus Christ.

I bet that if I asked 100 Christians what the gospel is, 99 of them would say this: “Believe and you will be saved.” But actually that is not the gospel. That is our appropriate response to the gospel. Belief and trust is what we do with the gospel, but it is not the gospel message itself. If you say that the gospel is believe, then you put the emphasis on what you do. But if you say that the gospel is the person and work of Jesus Christ, then you put the emphasis where it belongs: on what God does.

The gospel itself is the person and work of Jesus Christ. His incarnation, his righteous life, his substitutionary death on the cross, his victorious resurrection from the dead, his glorious ascension to the Father’s right hand to rule over His Kingdom, and his awesome second coming, when Christ the King will renew the earth in an act of final judgment and redemption.

JEW AND GENTILE

The gospel is radically different from religion. Religion says, “I obey, therefore I am accepted.” But the gospel says, “I am accepted, therefore I obey.” Religion operates on the principle of self-earned merit. The gospel operates on the principle of free grace.

Now notice that Paul says that the gospel is for different kinds of people. It is for the Jew and the Greek. Or if I could put it in modern terms, the gospel is for both the religious person and the irreligious person. It is for both the conservative moralist and the liberal relativist. And the gospel critiques both kinds of persons. And the gospel is something different than either conservative religiosity or liberal secularism.

The early church father Tertullian once said, “Just as Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors.” Tertullian meant that there were two basic false ways of thinking, each of which steals the power of God for salvation and the joy of the gospel. These two errors are very powerful, and they represent the natural tendencies of the human heart. All of us either default to one or the other, and they equally undercut the power and joy of the gospel.

The religious moralist says that one must obey in to be saved. The moralist says that you are acceptable to God because of your attainments. Moralists tend to be conservatives (red state) and their lives are often filled very firm rules. Moralists tend to emphasize the holiness and justice of God, but have a harder time really accepting the grace and love of God. And the religious moralist lives life on the performance treadmill, working harder and harder to make sure that he attains God’s approval. And this does not always play out the conscious level of life – sometime it is an unconscious motivation that drives the religious person.

Now the problem with the moralistic religious person is that either they will eventually fall into one of two conditions: a) self-hatred because they can’t live up to the standards, or b) self-inflation, because they think they have lived up to the standards. Ironically, both the inferiority complex and the superiority complex have common rootage: they both believe that I must obey in order to be accepted. Moralistic people are often deeply religious (often, they are evangelical Christians), but there is often no transforming joy or power in their lives. Moralistic people often compensate for this by being excessively judgmental towards others.

Now the other thief to the gospel is the permissive, secular irreligious person. Irreligious people tend to be more liberal in their outlook (blue state). They can be religious people, but often belonging to a liberal religion. On the surface, they seem more joyful and tolerant than moralistic, religious people. They believe that everyone just needs to decide what is true for them, although they usually have one or two areas in their life (often politics) where they insist upon their own high ideals of morality, such as perhaps the environment or human rights. (So even though they say that everyone has to decide for themselves what is true for them, they don’t really live consistently with this, because at some point they impose a certain kind of morality on others just like the religious person does.)

Relativists tend to see God as a loving though somewhat impersonal force in the universe. They struggle with the idea that God is holy and just. They talk a great deal about the love of God. But they do not think of themselves as sinners, and therefore God’s love costs nothing. It’s cheap love. The way they see it, a lovely God loves lovely people. Sin isn’t really in the picture and therefore the cross isn’t really necessary and personal repentance and faith isn’t really necessary. The irreligious person says, “Of course God is going to accept me because there’s nothing wrong with me and God is so welcoming.” Perhaps the viewpoint of the relativistic irreligious person can be best summed up by the French philosopher Voltaire who famously said on his deathbed, “Of course God forgives – that’s his business.”

But the gospel’s concept of God’s love is far more rich and electrifying than this kind of bland, generic love.

Now the gospel is for both kinds of person – for the religious and the irreligious. And both kinds of people have equal need of the gospel, because both kinds of people have something critical in common. Even though they come at it from completely different ends of the spectrum, they really are the same.

They are the same in two ways: 1) Both kinds of person always avoid Jesus as a real Savior. 2) And both kinds of persons always keep control of their own lives. They both avoid Jesus as a real Savior and they keep control of their own lives. (By the way, if you want to see a picture of someone who lost complete control of his life, you should have been here last week when I baptized my fourth child, Mary Grace!)

The irreligious secularist says, “I don’t need a savior because I’m not a desperate, needy sinner to begin with.” He says, “Nobody’s going to tell me how to live my life. I will determine what is right or wrong for me, not anyone else.” So the irreligious person doesn’t need a Savior and doesn’t yield control of his life to anyone else.

The moralistic religious person seeks to be their own saviors and their own lords through religious pride. They say, “Look, I am more moral and more spiritual than other people, so God owes me. He has to listen to my prayers. I’ve performed for him, so now God owes me a happy life. I’ve earned it!” The irreligious person rejects Jesus, but the religious person uses Jesus as an example and a helper and a teacher to aid his obedience – but not really as a full-fledged Savior. You see, if you perform well enough, then your strong showing gives you a kind of leverage over God and you don’t need to fall down before in him desperate need.

Flannery O’Conner once wrote that religious people think “that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin…” If I can avoid sin, then I don’t have to give control of my life away and I don’t really have a deep, down dirty desperate need a Savior, and God will owe me happiness.

These are two different ways to do the same thing – which is to gain control over your own life.

Ironically, moralists, despite all their emphasis on traditional standards, are in the end self-centered and individualistic people because they have set themselves up as their own Savior. Relativists, despite all their emphasis on freedom and acceptance, are in the end moralistic because they still have to attain and live up to their own standards or they too will end up in despair.

So both kinds of person really avoid Jesus as Savior – the irreligious person on principle and the religious person not on principle, but in practice.

Furthermore, both the religious and the irreligious have distorted views of God. The irreligious person loses sight of the law and holiness of God, and the religious person loses sight of the love and grace of God. And in the end, they both lose the gospel entirely.

Only the gospel holds together both the holiness of God and the love of God. Without a full understanding of the holiness of God, the reality of the cross will seem unnecessary and merely symbolic. Without a full understanding of the love of God, the reality of the cross will seem distant and unreal.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation because it and it alone shows us the true horror of our sin (God’s Son crucified) while at the same showing us the exhilarating heights of his love (His death in our place, our place with him secure forever).

Christians are those who have adopted a whole new system of adopting God. They may have had both irreligious and religious phases in their lives. But they have come to see that the reason for both their religion and their irreligion was essentially the same – and essentially wrong!

Christians are those who come to see not only their sin as the problem, but they even come to see their righteous deeds as part of the problem because ultimately their good, righteous deeds were nothing but an attempt to avoid needing a real Savior and avoiding really yielding control of their lives to God.

Christians are the only people who not only repent of their sins, but they also repent of their good deeds, and they confess that it is God’s grace that supplies all their needs in Christ, not anything that they do.

I want you to see that Christianity is not fundamentally an invitation to become more religious. It’s not an invitation to become a conservative moralist. One of the difference between a moralist and a Christian is that moralists don’t repent of their righteous deeds, but Christians do.

A Christian is one who has stopped trying to gain God’s acceptance through obedience. Instead, they have repented of all their efforts to gain God’s acceptance and have laid their lives down to God and have taken Jesus Christ to be their most necessary Savior. And they trust only in his merit, not their own.

Ironically, this change in mindset (heart) actually rewires your entire motivation system. You obey because you’ve been fully, completely accepted. You become generous not stingy because God in Christ has been generous not stingy with you. You become forgiving not hard-hearted because God in Christ has been forgiving toward you. And for the rest of your life, you dive into the deep waters of the gospel.

It has been said that the gospel is simple enough to dip your toe in, but deep enough for elephants to swim in. And as you spend your life diving into the heart of the gospel, as you meditate on the blessings and glorious of this counter-intuitive, electrifying act of God, you begin to change yourself. And this change is a life-long process that involves your interaction with the gospel message.

Contrary to what some may think, we never get beyond the gospel in our Christian life to something more advanced. The gospel is not the first step in a stairway of truths. Rather, it is the hub of the wheel from which everything radiates. The gospel is not the ABC’s of Christianity, it is the A to Z of Christianity. It is everything.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that the gospel is for non-Christians, but once you become a Christian, then you revert to being a religious moralist who has to spend the rest of your life performing for God. Big mistake.

You see, the gospel isn’t just how you become a Christian, it is also how you LIVE as a Christian.

I can tell you this, every Christian (your pastor included) at one time or another loses sight of the gospel in his life. And as a result he loses his joy. He becomes apathetic and depressed. Or angry and resentful. Or cynical or self-righteous. We become this way not because we’re not running fast enough on the performance treadmill. We become this way because we have forgotten the gospel and its full implications for our lives.

So the application for you (Christian or not) is this: live in the Gospel. It is God’s power for your on-going salvation today. And the message for religious and irreligious alike is this: Christianity is not what you think it is. It is neither conservative or liberal. It is something altogether different.

I told you earlier that we would come back around to Paul’s statement that he was not ashamed of the gospel. It is possible that we could be ashamed of it. We could be ashamed to admit we need a savior. We could be ashamed to give up control of our lives. We could be ashamed to admit we find the power of God for salvation not in our strength, but in our weakness. We could be ashamed of the gospel because it runs counter to the natural tendency of human nature. But the gospel doesn’t give us a spirit of fear, but rather a strange kind of new, humble confidence. To the naturally proud, the gospel brings humility. To the naturally weak, the gospel brings security. To everyone, the gospel brings the joy of knowing God.

The gospel is for you. It is for you today. So live in the gospel. Trinity, abandon moralism and joyless performance-oriented living. Get back in touch with your deep, desperate need of a Savior and throw yourself on Jesus. Get back in touch with that letting go of the control of your life and entrusting back to God. Plunge into the depths of the joy of the gospel. Live in a place where you can hear the grace-filled cries of Calvary. Live in a place where you can hear the stone rolling away and the Resurrected King moving to redeem the world. This is what we mean when we say that we are a gospel-centered church. This is the gospel message we live and proclaim. This is what we are about as a church. This is our mission. This is our identity. This is our purpose.

The gospel is not good advice. It is good news. Martin Luther said, “The truth of the gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine… Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into our heads continually.” All of us, to some degree or another, still don’t “get” the gospel. None of us have moved past it. So camp out in the gospel.

Engage in a continual re-discovery of the gospel. Pray it hot into your hearts. Read it firm into your minds. Sing it sweetly from your mouths. Read Romans. Internalize Ephesians. Consider Colossians. Gulp down Galatians. Take joy in John’s gospel. And pray it deep into your own and meditate on its truth – and keep at it until the joy returns. Turn away from self and turn in faith to the Jesus the Messiah, your Savior and Lord.

The decline of the doctrine of the Trinity

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:59:00 +0000

Last week in preparing for my "I Believe in the Trinity" sermon, I came across an article written by the late, great John Murray in his Collected Works. Murray gave a positive review of "In This Name: The Doctrine of the Trinity in Contemporary Theology," written in 1952 (which in the world of theology isn't that long ago!) by Claude Welch.

Welch begins his historical survery of the doctrine of the Trinity by noting that in the first half of the nineteenth century the doctrine was reduced to an issue of second rank. Despite centuries of emphasis on the Trinity, somehow people began to believe that it wasn't that important in the early 1800's.

Welch gives three reasons why the Trinity fell on hard times:

1. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Schleiermacher was a very influential German theologian and philosopher who sought to intergrate Christianity with philosophical Enlightenment thought. (That is like trying to reconcile the theology of St. Paul with the Thomas Jefferson's cut and paste Bible. This oil and water just don't mix.) Somehow, Schleiermach convinced a whole bunch of people that what mattered wasn't the specific dogma of the Bible, but simply an absolute feeling of dependence on God. Schleiermach tried to turned Christianity into a mere feeling of deep dependence. In the process, he implicitly denied the knowability of truth. Christianity became a feeling. He is sadly known as "The Father of Modern Protestant Theology" because so much of modern day liberal theology began with him.

2. George Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel was a very influential German philosopher who said that various truths evolve and synthesize over time. Hegel did not believe that there is any one, fixed truth out there. Hegel said that there is a thesis and its antithesis. These two battle one another in history until they finally synthesize together and form a third truth. Hegel's philosophy and his view of history, again, undermined a biblical concept of knowable truth revealed from God to us. Without revealed truth, the doctrine of the Trinity is lost. Interestingly, Hegel claimed that his philosophy was based on a kind of trinity. He paid lip service to the trinity, but knocked the legs out from under the stool of it at the same time. (Perhaps the lesson thus far is to beware of anyone of German descent bearing the name Frederick and talking about philosphy! That's a joke for all the defenders of the German Motherland out there.)

3. Albrecht Ritschl. Ritschl was a German theolgian (1882-1889). Ritschl took all of this yet one more step. Ritschl developed an entire system of theology and thought that divorced Christianity from metaphysical truth. Ritschl said that there is a difference between "faith knowledge" and "metaphysical truth". In other words, you can sincerely believe and that is a good thing, but you can't claim that what you believe is based on any objective truth about what's "out there". Entire generations of pastors attending theologically liberal seminaries were trained in the school of Ritschl. As people broadly began to accept the presupposition that "heart knowledge" (a feeling) was somehow to be distanced from "head knowledge" (objective truth based on God's revelation), then the conditions became ripe to begin to devalue the difficult teachings of Scripture, such as the doctrine of the Trinity. Truth became secondary at best.

So what lessons can we learn?

First of all, ideas have consequences. There is a steep price to pay for apathy in leaving the 'wisdom of the world' unanswered by the church. The church must stay engaged in the debate of big ideas in the culture. We cannot retreat to our corners and bury our heads in the sand. We must be winesome witnesses of Christ (1 Peter 3:15).

Second, ideas have a history. They develop over time. What is taught in one generation is absorbed and expanded upon in the next. It is helpful to our defense of the faith to attempt to gain a little understanding of the history of ideas. One will eventually learn in this study that there is nothing new under the sun. The same old errors are presented every century in new packages.

Third, that Christians must always lean against the culture by standing for the truth that there really is a God out there and that he has really made himself known to us and that he really can be substantially and personally (thought not exhaustively) known by us.

Fourth, we must avoid the trap of setting religous feeling against knowledge and truth. There is always a kind of false piety among us that pretends that it is too concerned with godly things to do the hard work of studying the Bible and examining difficult ideas in the light of what God has revealed. We must avoid the trap of this kind of false piety in the church. (Of course, it is possible to make the opposite error, which is to be so concerned with examining truth that we don't cultivate any personal piety at all! This error is seen in the lives of those who build careers on attacking other people and finding errors and heresies under every rock.)

What precisely is the doctrine of the Trinity?

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:41:00 +0000

The staff of John Piper's ministry 'Desiring God' published a helpful overview of the doctrine of the Trinity here. It is worth a read.

Trinitarian joy and what heaven will be like for us

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:19:00 +0000

The follow notes are from a talk that I gave at a New Year's Eve service in 2002. Because it touches upon the great truths of the Trinity, I'm posting them here praying that they will be edifying for you.

John Piper, in “The Pleasures of God”, wonderfully explains that God exists to glorify himself and enjoy himself forever. If God's ultimate joy and glory is found in anything outside of himself, then God himself would be guilty of worshipping and serving the created thing rather than the Creator. God exists to glorify himself and have joy in himself. If God existed to glorify anything else other than himself, then God himself would become an idolater. God gives glory to the greatest thing in the universe worthy of glory – which is himself. God delights and rejoices in the most enjoyable thing in the universe – which is himself.

When we speak of these things, we quickly realize that we are speaking of the great truth of the Trinity.

The Father rejoices and delights in his own glory as he beholds the Son, "for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell" (Colossians 1.19) The Son is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1.3).

The Father beholds the Son. And the Son beholds the Father. And the Holy Spirit communicates and carries the glory of God from one back to the other from the other back to the one.

And they (and here I use this word very carefully) infinitely love one another. And they infinitely rejoice and delight and find joy in one another. At the center of all reality is love and joy. It is the love that God has for himself. It is the joy that God has in himself.

Love and joy are not peripheral concerns. They lie at the heart of all reality. 1 Peter 1.8 describes the essence of Christian experience, and it has everything to do with love and joy.

The implications of this for our lives are enormous. What a statement of great hope and joy for us! The very center of all existence is love and joy!

Consider how we fit into this picture. God determined that the greatest way to maximize the glory of his joyful love in himself was to cause creatures to come into being – and to bring fallen creatures into the circle of the experience of that same love and joy through a Redeemer.

You and I exist to bask in the refulgence of the glory of Trinity. Refulgance means “to shine brightly” or “a radiant or resplendent quality or state.” You and I exist to bask in the radiant, resplendent light of his inter-Trinitarian love and joy.

When the beams of his glory shine upon us, they gradually but powerfully transform us and by so doing we refund to Him His glory, love and joy.

God has redeemed you to draw you in to the circle of inter-Trinitarian love and joy. This is what John 17 is really all about, isn’t it? The is the ultimate design of our redemption.

Think about what heaven will be like. How long does it take to fully know the infinite love and joy of an infinite God? It takes an eternity. I believe that we will for all eternity continue to learn and delight in ever increasing personal knowledge of his love and joy. We will go from one degree of glory to another. Heaven is progressive joy. It never ends. And I can’t wait to begin.

Amazingly, in the gospel of Jesus we can begin that journey now. We can begin to taste heaven today as we experientially and covenantally enter into this union. What Isaac Walton said of Richard Sibbes at his funeral can also be true of us: “Heaven was in him before he was in heaven.” A primary way that God uses to accomplish this gospel work in the Christian’s hearst is the “means of grace”. The means of grace are God’s ordained, common ways of increasing his grace in the life of his redeemed child.

The means of grace (such as Bible reading, prayer, fellowship and the Sacraments) are the God-ordained pathways by which His glory, love and joy flow over and through our lives, just a strong current flows over the rocks on the riverbed.

Remove a rock from the riverbed, and it will soon dry up. Remove a Christian from the means of grace, and she will soon dry up. As we immerse ourselves steadily in the means of grace and as we diligently follow every teaching of Jesus in our lives, we begin to taste heaven in our hearts.

So do you see the picture?

You have been brought into existence so that God can shine the beams of his glory upon you – and change you – so that you refund that same glory and love and joy back to God. And you enter into the circle of Trinitarian delight.

When I gaze at the center of reality, I am amazed and delighted with what I find. I want to know it and taste it. Do you?

Insightful quotes about the Trinity

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:44:00 +0000

Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) is an important, highly respected Christian theologian whose main theological four volume work has just appeared in English in its entirety for the first time. (It is said that old Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield learned Dutch just so that he could read Bavinck.) Bavinck was especially careful to ground all his theology in the progressive revelation of God recorded and given for us in the Scriptures. Here are some choice quotations from Bavinck on the Trinity:

"In the outpouring of the Son and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the one true God is revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit...All salvation, every blessing, and blessedness have their threefold cause in God - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The New Testament revelation is trinitarian through and through." (volume 2, page 256)

"The confession of the Trinity is the heartbeat of the Christian religion. All error is traceable to a departure from this doctrine." (vol 2, p. 258)

"In fact, the entire Christian belief system stands or falls within the confession of God's Trinity. It is the core of the Christian faith, the root of all its dogmas, the basic content of the new covenant... It is in the doctrine of the Trinity that we feel the heartbeat of God's entire revelation for the redemption of humanity. We are baptized in the name of the Triune God, and in that name we find rest for our soul and peace for our conscience. Our God is above us, before us and within us." (vol 2, p. 260)

I hope that these thoughts will help you esteem the doctrine of the Trinity more in your own Christian thought and life. It is helpful to reflect on what each person of the Trinity has done for you in your salvation, and to use that reflection to fuel your own worship and praise to the great One in Three.

My sermon notes from "I Believe in the Trinity"

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:34:00 +0000

I want to share with you the manuscript that I took with me into the pulpit this last Sunday. I wondering if you would find the publication of these sermon notes beneficial? Here they are:

“I Believe in the Trinity”
John 3:1-15 – 9/28/2008

(This morning a new series. Explain the sermon series guidebook. 3 things each week. Keep this guidebook in your Bible. Bring it every Sunday and also take it with you to small group.)

Begin new series today. The vision and mission of TPC - "Credo – I believe"
We begin with the Trinity.

Trinity is a very common name for a Christian church or school. Trinity Pres/Baptist/Methodist/Episcopal/Catholic Church, Trinity College in Cambridge and Trinity College in Dublin Trinity University in Chicago, Trinity Christian Academy, even Trinity Industries.

Along with Covenant, Trinity is the most common name for a Presbyterian Church.

What interesting is that we have all these school and churches named Trinity, yet today we rarely talk about the Trinity. Why is that? I think it is because years ago our forefathers understood the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity in a way that we do not today

Trinity is not only our name, it is our starting point and our destination.

We begin with the Trinity, because God is our starting point.

There’s a lot of great things that happen at our church: music, children, women’s, men’s, small groups, outreach, mercy, etc.

But none of those things are why we exist.

We exist for God. God is the great subject of our church and He is the object of our lives. We begin with the Triune God because we strive to be God-centered in all our living.

Romans 11:36 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

You see, Trinity is not only the word we hang on our front yard sign, it is, in the words of theologian Charles Lowry, “the most comprehensive and the most nearly all-inclusive formulation of the truth of Christianity”.

The Trinity is a greatly underappreciated truth. We see it as something abstract. Something so mysterious that it does us practically no good.

But is the Trinity really all that impractical?

Go back with me to Jesus’ last night on earth.
He is praying to the Father. He has begun to sweat blood.
The suffering of the cross is now biting at his heels as his betrayal is underway.

And he is in prayer. Deep, soul prayer. And in those prayers – called the High Priestly Prayer – what thought is filling his mind?

What thought does he return to over and over again both to comfort our Lord and to give our Lord courage to finish his mission?

It is nothing less than the thought of the Trinity.

The Father delighting in the Son. The Son obeying the Father. The Holy Spirit ministering the love of the Father to the Son.

In Jesus greatest hour of need, the remedy for his soul was the awesome truth of the Trinity.

So don’t tell me that the Trinity is an impractical doctrine!

Jesus shows us otherwise. It is the most practical of all doctrines.

Because it is the truth about who our God is.

And nothing – nothing – is more practical to our lives than a robust, accurate, living knowledge of God.

The Trinity is that biblical teaching that there is only one God, but that He eternally exists in three person, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

These are three distinct persons.

Some have that God is like an actor who plays different roles in the same movie (like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove). Sometimes he appears to us as the Father. Sometimes he appears to us as the Son, and other times as the Holy Spirit. One God who may appear to us in three different ways. But this is actually an ancient heresy called Sabellianism. God is doesn’t just appear in three different ways, he is actually three persons.

Each of these persons is fully God. Yet they are of the same essence and they are one in substance.

There are a lot of passages I could have gone to today to teach about the subject of the Trinity.

I could have gone to the High Priestly prayer in John 17, which I just mentioned a moment ago. The Trinity is there.

I could have gone to the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river where the Father sends His Spirit upon the Son and says, “This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” The Trinity is there. I baptized my daughter this morning in the three-fold name. It’s there in the Great Commission.

I could have gone to the letters of Paul where he repeated speaks of each member of the Godhead working in concert to bless us with benefits of Christ.

I could have gone to the letters of Peter, who says in the very first very of his first letter that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.

But many years ago – in fact in the year 1662 – as the English were putting together their prayer book, they set aside one Sunday a year on the Christian Calendar to be Trinity Sunday. Every year, seven weeks after Ascension Sunday, every church would pause and celebrate the Trinity. And in that old book of common prayer, they assigned their preachers a text, John 3, Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.

Have you ever thought about this passage as a revelation of what faith in the Trinity is all about? Perhaps not.

In fact, I may have read this passage this morning and as I was doing so, you may have been asking yourself, “this is a great text, pastor, but what in the world does this have to do with the Trinity”?

Oh, it’s there.
But it’s not there as some abstract doctrine.

It’s not there as some litmus test for sound, orthodox Christian doctrine, though the Trinity certainly is that.

In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus we discover that faith in the Trinity is really just the sinner’s way of salvation.

We find that teaching on the Trinity and teaching about our salvation are interwoven so tightly that it is difficult to even pull the fibers apart.

Once when I was in seminary, four of us drove to Maine for a little vacation. We went to Acadia National Park and did some hiking. One morning we started off on a random trail and begin climbing higher and higher. Two hours later we emerged at the top of small mountain overlooking the ocean. It was beautiful and well worth the hike. When we were at the top, we asked someone what this hill was called. “The Beehive,” came the answer, because from a distance it looks just like a beehive. The point is that it wasn’t until I got to the top of the mountain that I even knew what mountain it was that I had climbed.

John 3 is like that.
It isn’t until we come to the end of Jesus’ teaching about the way of salvation – until we have climbed the mountain – that we discover that all along we’ve been talking about the Trinity, whether we realized it or not.

Look at it with me now.

Nicodemus was a senior Jewish ruler and theologian. He was as prominent as any cardinal or archbishop or mega-church pastor today. Nicodemus has come to meet Jesus, who is this novice preacher from the Galilean back-woods, who is in Jerusalem, it seems, for the first time since his ministry started. Nicodemus, being older (and he does seem to refer to himself as an old man in verse 4) speaks first. His opening words are kind and gracious. “Rabbi”, he says, “Teacher”. He gives this young country preacher a little respect from up front. Teacher, he says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” It’s as if Nicodemus is saying,

“I am sure, Jesus, that you are wondering whether or not we in the religious establishment here in Jerusalem accept you and approve of what you are doing and whether or not we regard you as one of us. Well, now, Teacher, I’m here to assure you that we do, and we will be happy to have you as a regular member of our discussion circle – the Jerusalem Theological Society, you might call it. So come Jesus and join us!”

Now do you see what was underneath all of that politeness?

By treating Jesus as if he were a recruit for the Jewish establishment, he was patronizing the Son of God!

But Jesus did not accept patronage from Nicodemus or anyone else while he was here on earth, just as he will not accept your patronage or mine now that he reigns in heaven. It is for us to bow down before Jesus, not for Jesus to bow down before us, no matter how politely we may ask.

So notice that Jesus does not respond by thanking Nicodemus for his kind words. No, Jesus strikes a different note.

He tells his visitor the plain truth – that “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus is bewildered.

Jesus goes on to explain in verse 5:
Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

And then from this point we’re off into the main idea of our passage.

Now, as we work our way through the rest of this passage, I want you to notice that John’s camera has something in the foreground and something in the background.

The first major thing I want you to see is what is in the foreground.
The second major thing I want you to see is what is in the background.

Let’s start with what’s in the foreground of the story.

In the foreground of camera’s focus there are three stages to this story. Perhaps you can call them three acts to this play.

Stage one is found in vv. 3-10
Stage two is found in vv. 11-13
Stage three is found in vv. 14-15

In the first stage (vv.3-10), Jesus asks, “Do you want to see and enter the Kingdom of God?”
In the second stage (vv.11-13), Jesus asks, “Do you want to be born again?”
In the third stage (vv.14-15), Jesus asks, “Are you willing to trust in me and learn from me for your salvation?”

1. So let’s take up the question of the first stage: “Do you want to see and enter the Kingdom of God?”

What is the Kingdom of God?

The whole New Testament makes clear that it is not a territorial reign – unless of course you think of the human heart as a territory.

No, the Kingdom of God exists is any life where God is made King and Jesus the Savior is acknowledged as Lord.

The relationship brings salvation from sin and Satan and spiritual death.

Jesus bestows forgiveness of sins, adoption into God’s family, and the joy of eternal life on all who entrust their destiny to him and give him the love and loyalty of their hearts.

The path to this new relationship is – as Jesus explained to Nicodemus – called the new birth.

What is the new birth?

What does it mean to be “born of water and the Spirit?”

Water and Spirit are two aspects of the same reality – and that reality is God’s renewal of the fallen and unresponsive human heart.

Spirit and water are two words describing the same inner work of God in the life of the soul.

I believe that Jesus here is alluding to Ezekiel 36:25-27, where God says “I will sprinkle water on you… I will put my Spirit in you.”

It’s two different ways of saying the same basic thing.

The point is that in order to come into a renewed, restored relationship with a holy God, you must first have an inward cleansing and a change of heart that only God can accomplish in you. You must be born anew. There must be a new creation that happens inside of you. You must start life all over again, but this time in a completely new way.

So in stage one: Jesus asks, ‘Do you want to see and enter the Kingdom of God? Then you must be born again.’

2. Now in the second stage, (vv.11-13), Jesus asks, “Do you want to be born again?”

And in order to be born again, you must be willing to listen to and accept the teaching of Jesus. You must be willing to receive the Word of God.

There’s an old saying: “You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.” Lots of people are that way. You can’t tell them anything because they are not teachable. Nicodemus at first wasn’t teachable. He challenged Jesus. He told Jesus that it didn’t make any sense to him.

Jesus replies to him and says,
“11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.”

If you are to be born again, you must begin by listening to and receive the testimony of Jesus.

You see, there are some questions that cannot be answered by Google, but must be answered by God.

3. Now in the third and final stage (vv.14-15), Jesus asks, “Are you willing to trust in me and learn from me for your salvation?”

Jesus says he is the one we look to in order to receive God’s free gift of salvation.

And he teaches us this by once more quoting from the OT. Numbers 21:6-9 is the story of how poisonous snakes infested the camp of the Israelites and God instructed Moses to make an image of a brass snake and lift him up high on a pole.

All who looked to the snake – the symbol of their suffering – would be healed.

Jesus says that he is the fulfillment of that brass snake.

He takes on the sin of the world
and on the cross in which we will be lifted up,
he will be the symbol of the curse of sin –

so that all who look to him and trust in him will be saved from the poinsonous affects of sin.

The final message to Nicodemus is: Don’t patronize Jesus.

Believe in Jesus. Trust in him, rely on him, tell him that he is your only hope, embrace him as your Savior and Lord – and yours sins will be forgiveness, your sickness of spirit healed, and your uncleanness shall be washed away. You will be born again and you will see & enter the Kingdom of God.

This is the message of our text. And it is God’s Word for everyone today sitting here in this room. I encourage you to respond personally and quickly to this teaching from Jesus.

These are the three stages telling us about what it means to be born again. This is what is in the foreground of camera’s focus. This is the first major thing I want you to see this morning. But now let’s look at what’s in the background.

The second major thing I want you to see is that there are three persons at work in this text.

The story of the new birth is in the foreground. But these three persons are in the background, working together so that the new birth is even possible.

All three persons of the Trinity are present right here in verse 5.

1. “Truly, truly I say to you” – who is this “I”? It is Jesus, who is John 1:14 has already been called “God’s one and only Son”. In the famous verse 16 of our chapter, Jesus is called “God’s only Son”. So the eternal, coexistent Son of God is here in verse 5.

2. And notice whose Kingdom it is that we must enter? It is the Kingdom of God – the one whom Jesus calls Father. The one whom Jesus taught his disciples to call our Father in Heaven. Here is God the Father, whose Kingdom Jesus is now announcing.

3. And notice that in order to enter this Kingdom, you must be born of the Spirit. And here is the third person of the Trinity. Here is Holy Spirit, in whose new creation power we must start life all over again – what Jesus calls, the new birth.

There they are: the Father (whose Kingdom it is), the Son (whom the Father has sent to save) and the Spirit (whose power of new creation must be experience in our hearts). One God, eternally existing in three persons.

This is the first of a number of places in John’s Gospel where all three are spoken of together.

What I want you to notice is that the entire conversation with Nicodemus presents us with profound teaching about the Trinity by setting before us the person and work of both God’s Son and God’s Spirit.

Here we learn that Jesus is the God-sent, divine-human sin-bearer, who by his cross and resurrection secured for us eternal life.

Here we learn that the Spirit is the divine regenerator who by transforming our inner disposition, and in that sense by changing our nature, enables us to experience the life of the Kingdom of God. Without the Son and Spirit there can be no salvation for anyone.

What this all comes down to is this: the truths of the Holy Trinity and the truths of saving grace are not two different truths, but actually just one truth.

They are inseparable.

The truth of the Trinity is the poor sinner’s path of salvation.

The doctrine of the gospel (good news) is that the Father has given us His eternal Son to redeem us, that the Son has given himself on the cross to save us and that the personal, eternal Holy Spirit has come to our hearts to give us new birth so that we can enter in to this salvation.

The truth of the Trinity is the sinner’s path of salvation.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the good news of three divine persons working together to raise us up into spiritual life and bring us to the glory of God’s Kingdom.

The Vision and Mission of Trinity Presbyterian Church begins and ends with the reality of our Triune God. That is why we are Trinity Presbyterian Church.

Oh, there’s so much more to say that I can’t get to today.

I wanted to say how the Trinity solves the ancient philosophical problem of the One and the Many. God is both One and Many. There is both unity and diversity in the universe because God is one and three.

I wanted to talk about how joyful, loving relationship doesn’t begin in Genesis 1 when God created man and entered into a relationship with him. No, joyful, loving relationship has been on-going from eternity past with the Godhead, as the Father, Son and Spirit share a holy love for one another. Relationships are made possible by the Trinity

I wanted to talk about how heaven will be an entrance into that same eternal joy and love that exists between the persons of the Trinity, and how heaven will be nothing but an eternally increasing experience of infinite joy and infinite love.

I wanted to unpack for you a famous statement by Cornelius Van Til, when he said, “Every truth is nothing but an externalization of the personality of the Trinity.” Every truth is ultimately related an expression of the personality of our Triune God.

So Charles Lowry was right: the doctrine of the Trinity is “the most comprehensive and the most nearly all-inclusive formulation of the truth of Christianity”. J. I. Packer was right, “Trinity is the Christian word for describing the Christian God.”

But all of that is too glorious and too much for us to approach right now.

So let me end with a prayer. This is an old prayer and it is printed in a marvelous book called “Valley of Vision”. If you don’t have a copy of Valley of Vision, by all means go and get one. I want to end on a note of worship and praise and adoration, because this is where the doctrine of the Trinity invariably leads us.

[read “The Trinity” from Valley of Vision]

"Credo: I Believe" series begins this Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:33:00 +0000

I begin this week by picking up a happy burden. This Sunday I have the privilege and, yes, sobering job of preaching a sermon on the great doctrine of the Trinity and what it means for us.

The background to this is also very exciting to me. I am beginning a new sermon series this Sunday on the vision and mission of Trinity Presbyterian Church. It is called "Credo: I Believe". It will be an 11 week series that covers such grand topics as the Trinity, the Gospel, the mission of God, worship, discipleship, community, family and more. I am particularly excited about a sermon handbook that will be given out this Sunday with information about the sermon and a song for private/family worship for each week. A collection of musical accompaniments is also being created today for families to use to help them sing the songs. These will be distributed by CD and/or website. My friend Ben Geist has created some beautiful artwork for these sermon guidebooks as well, so I'm very excited about this resource to put into our church's hands.

Now the first sermon in the series will be on the Trinity. It is the doctrine that teaches that there is only one true God, but that this God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of these three persons are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. The doctrine of the Trinity has stood for centuries as a legitimate litmus test of what is orthodox, historic, biblical Christianity. The early church perfected its understanding of this biblical doctrine in its major church councils at Nicea (in 325 AD), Costantinople (381 AD), Ephesus (431 AD), and finally in Chalcedon (451 AD). One theologian has correctly called the doctrine of the Trinity "the most comprehensive and the most nearly all-inclusive formulation of the truth of Christianity." Roughly speaking, the whole Bible is really nothing but the unfolding of the knowledge of the Triune God - in creation (Father), in redemption (Son), and in the church and future (Holy Spirit).

When we speak of the Trinity, we are peering into the most mysterious, most glorious of all realities. And as Cornelius Van Til once famously remarked, "Every truth is nothing but the externaliziation of the personality of the Trinity," which is a very compact, formal way of saying that every truth we come into contact with is related back to the Trinity. The fact that I am an individual but am also so connected with others in deep relationship is itself an expression of the unity, diversity, personality of the Trinity. This doctrine is an expression of the heart and essence of who God really is. It's mind boggling! The Trinity informs us that God is both unity and diversity at the same time. The Trinity informs us that God is both vastly glorious beyond comprehension, but also eternally a very personal God. In fact, if God were not triune, then there could be no salvation for us.

"The verbal expression of the Trinity is the most difficult job man has had to do," said J. I. Packer. I definitely feel the truth of these words this week! But shame on me and shame on the church that we do not preach on the Trinity often enough. (If we all followed the old liturgical calendar, at least there would be one day a year in which all churches would preach on the Trinity. But the modern church has taken away Ascension Sunday, Pentecost Sunday and Trinity Sunday and replaced it with Memorial Day, Independence Day and Mother's Day. What a shame.) Back to the point: I am very excited to launch a new sermon series on the vision and mission of our church by beginning at the core of all reality: the Godhead. We begin at the place from which all else flows. Our redemption and our mission begin here. So, just as Moses had helpers to keep his arms up as he watched over Israel, pray for me (if you are a praying person) this week as I prepare an important sermon. Pray that my full strength would be restored as well as my voice. And more important, pray that the glory of the Triune God would so grip my own heart this week that my preaching would simply be an overflow of that same glory experienced by my own soul.

Helping Kids Love Missions

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Poteet) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:17:00 +0000

Some good ways to help your kids love missions:

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1164_10_ways_to_help_kids_love_missions/

Parenting in the Pew

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Poteet) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:03:00 +0000

Parents, I hope you realize how training your children to worship is one of the most truly important and life-changing things you can do in all of life and parenting.

I want to offer some encouragement from Robbie Castleman’s wonderful little book, Parenting in the Pew that will hopefully help in your perspective, focus and practicality. If you have not read this book I suggest you take a look at it and even review it from time to time.

Parenting in the pew helps you pay attention to the most important thing you can ever train your child to do: worship. Worship is one of the for sure things we will do forever.
Sunday morning starts Saturday night! Sunday morning should be a time of joyous expectation for a family who loves the Lord. But too often it is a morning riddled with strife and filled with regret. To help relieve this strife begin worship planning Saturday night. Put out clothes, breakfast foods, Bibles, and even offerings together. Remind them before bed that they are going to meet with God’s people, the church, for worship. Remind your spouse too and check your attitude – why are you going to worship? Remember also that Sunday morning can be a time of spiritual warfare. Good warriors prepare for the battle and do not encourage the advance of the enemy!
Avoid water fountain visits and make bathroom stops between Sunday school and Worship to keep children out of the potty parade.
One of the biggest challenges for Parenting in the pew is training children to pay attention to what is happening – the worship of God – and making them a part of it. Point to words of hymns, songs, responsive readings, etc. with your finger as your child follows along. As soon as children are able to read even a few words, ask them to read the words they recognize and listen to the meaning – this might need some quiet explaining.
Help children listen to the sermon by encouraging them to listen when the stories are being told. Ask questions about the stories like, “What did you learn today about God in the story.” As they grow older ask them questions that push them to listen for detail.
Point out various aspects of the service that a child might find interesting, such as who was baptized, how communion was meaningful, a particular song or testimony.

May God Bless you in this journey.

Praying for Our Pastor's Preaching

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Poteet) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:46:00 +0000

Justin Childers gives good advice on how to pray for our pastor as he prepares to preach each week:

Here are a few suggestions of what to pray for those who preach:
1. During the week, pray for God to reveal the burden of the text to him.
2. During the week, pray that God would grip the preacher’s heart with His glory revealed in the text.
3. On Sunday morning, pray that God would free him from distractions.
4. On Sunday morning, pray that he would proclaim the truth boldly and clearly.
5. On Sunday morning, pray for God to powerfully speak through him.
6. On Sunday morning, pray that Christ would be treasured by all gathered.

To read to whole article go here for good practical advice on how to encourage John in this way.

Christian Education and Communication

noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Poteet) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:55:00 +0000

One of the things that always amazes me about communication is that it is incredibly tricky. We struggle with communicating enough. We struggle with miscommunication. We struggle with misinterpretation. I often wonder how we ever communicate at all.

This is especially true in closer relationships including those in the church. In communicating to those in the church I find it especially hard to remember to whom I communicated to and what. In my mind it often goes like this: “I did think that right? So, I must have told them right? I did tell him, oh, but I forgot to tell her!! I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe you thought I said that.”

You see how hard it can be? One of the areas of mass communication is to keep communicating because we tend to forget, loose our way, need to clarify or even add new folks into the mix of the needed to be communicated to. That is why you keep hearing that commercial over and over and over again on the radio while driving home!

So, for all of us, including me, I wanted to communicate (or try to) what our youth and children’s ministries have at their foundation as I have been reminded through some denominational reading. I do not think this should come as a shock but theology is at the foundation of our ministries.

First, we are Reformed which means that the Scriptures alone reveal to us that it is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone that we are saved and included into the people of God. Therefore, some foundational theological basics for us would be:

God is absolutely sovereign
The Bible is the Word of God and absolutely true
We are dead in our sins from birth
Jesus is the Son of God and salvation is through him alone
God is the author and perfecter of our faith – he chooses us, regenerates us and seals us for eternity by the Holy Spirit.
Repentance and faith is the response of God’s people
We are called to live a life that glorifies him and to call others to faith and repentance

Second, we are covenantal which basically means:

Through his electing grace God has established a promise with his people where he loves them unconditionally, is present with them and is all they need.
God’s Word is about Jesus who proves this promise true
God’s covenant promise is to us and to our children
God works is families and in the family of families – the church.

(See Heirs of the Covenant by Sue Jakes for more unpacking of this in our lives)

Now that we see theology is at the foundation of our ministries, what does this mean for our ministries and how we do them?

We focus on God and his glory over “only” the needs of our kids.
We trust in God’s covenant promises for the salvation of our kids.
We teach the Bible as one story about God’s promise of redemption. Christ is central!
We see teachers as the whole church – even those without or with grown kids.
We expect true disciples at an early age.
We strive to integrate families into every area of ministry and home plays the key vital role for this biblically. Parents, think of your home as the everyday classroom and place for discipling the next generation. If you only leave it to church service and Sunday school it will not be enough. Your kids will learn much more from you than they ever will from a teacher in Sunday school. You must view your home as a part of the church because you make up the church. How does that change your focus of home life? In what ways? Think about it!

Obviously there is much more to our youth and children’s ministries but beginning to understand these foundational theological principles gives us better vision and understanding for what our ministries are about and how you all (TPC) actually play a part.

Our Goal: "A Missional Gospel Community"

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:18:00 +0000

After our 2008 Vision Meeting (1/28) and our Missions Conference last weekend, I hope we are communicating clearly with our church that we are, by God's grace, attempting to grow to a new place in the life of our congregation. There are many ways of possibly describing this vision, but for now let me use the 3 key ideas from our core values and call it "a missional gospel community".

Remember our 3 core values from our Vision meeting? 1. The Gospel has power to change lives (hence, gospel). 2. A Commitment to Christ is a commitment to the local church (hence, gospel community). 3. We are called to be Jesus' witnesses in our particular place here in Plano (hence, missional gospel community). Our goal as a church is to grow substantially into more of a "missional gospel community".

The word missional is just the adjectival form of the word mission. Covenantal is to covenant what missional is to mission. Providential is to providence what missional is to mission. It is an adjective used to describe what kind of people we are called to be.

Think about this biblically-theologically for a moment: the gospel saves us from bondage and condemnation and brings us into a new community of God's redeemed people called the church. The purpose of the gospel is to make us into a new community. Now, what is the call of this new community? It is to participate in God's mission to reach the world. (Jesus said, "Just as the Father sent me, so send I you.") So we are a missional community. We are a people gathered by the gospel of Jesus whose calling it is to extend the Kingdom of God. We are a gospel-forged community that has a mission. Hence, our goal as our church in the months and years to come is to substantially grow as a "missional gospel community".

There are numerous implications of this. I hope to share more of these implications in the near future. For example, does being missional mean simply that we share the good news of salvation with more people more often? Does it mean we start new evangelistic programs in our church? Does it mean we have more attractional outreach events? Or does it somehow also connect more broadly to my job as a software engineer, a manager, a mother, a lawyer or an educator? Or another question: does mercy ministry play a pivotal role in being missional? And if so, what exactly is that role? There are a whole host of other questions related to what it means for us to grow as a community together. I appreciate the ideas that were shared at our Vision Meeting about how to do this. The elders are examining these ideas and will be presenting a pathway forward after Easter.

By God' grace, good changes are on the way for our church family. We'll all need grace and humility to accept and adapt to these changes. I covet your prayers for Trinity as we grow to our next level in maturity and mission!

What thoughts do you have about these things I've shared?

Acts 13: "Neither Jihadism nor McWorld, but the Missio Dei"

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:09:00 +0000

This Sunday, if all goes as planned, I will preach on Acts 13. If the sermon comes together as I'm currently thinking it will, the title of the sermon will be "Neither Jihadism nor McWorld, but the Missio Dei." I'll explain that title on Sunday. We will learn some valuable lessons about the missio Dei (the mission of God) from this passage where Paul begins his first missionary journey. We'll also debunk some common myths regarding what it means to participate in God's mission to the world! I think this will be a good follow up to our mission conference the previous weekend. Let me encourage you to read Acts 13 prior to Sunday worship.

Orlando pastor's summit update

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:54:00 +0000

Just a quick update from Orlando. We did end up coming. Mindy had a flu, but has progressively felt better. Christopher still has a fever, but no more vomiting. They home with my parents. Our time at the San Pedro Retreat Center near Orlando has been very rich. We are very tired from meetings lasting all morning, afternoon and night. But these meetings have been stimulating and strengthening in terms of pushing forward with serving Christ in the church and world. They already started the next meeting without me, so I better run! We arrive home tonight. We'll be very glad to get back home and back into the normal rythyms of life!

We had to miss Sunday night

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:16:00 +0000

Unfortunately, Mindy and I had to miss Sunday night. Christopher has been sick with the flu and Mindy started getting it yesterday as well. Cheryl K called this morning to check up on us and she said that the Sunday evening missions events went very, very well. She noted how rich and enjoyable was the fellowship time together as a church family. We very much missed being there and getting to hear from the missionaries and have some down time with our church family!

Relationships

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:06:00 +0000

This week let's keep our eyes open for relational opportunities with unbelievers. Make it your goal to intentionally have one good conversation this week with a non-Christian. It doesn't have to be about the gospel. It just needs to be an enjoyable conversation where the unbeliever knows that you are interested in him/her and what is going on in his life. The goal is to bond. Of course, if any opportunities arise to share your faith, don't be ashamed of the gospel!

I'm in Orlando this week, but will be preaching next Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 19:54:00 +0000

Just a note to let you know that Mindy and I will be in Orlando this week, but I will be preaching from Acts 13 next Sunday morning. (Please come anyway!) Approximately two years ago, I asked the Session if I could accept an invitation to participate in the Pastor's Summit, a collaborative effort between Covenant, Reformed and Westminster seminaries. Our elders believed that meeting with 9 other pastors 3 times a year for two years would encourage me and further equip me for ministry here in Plano. It has. It's been one of the best experiences I've ever had. This week is our second to last meeting. Our last meeting will be in Jackson Hole, WY in July. As one of the pastor's said at the October 07 meeting, "I'm already angry about this thing ending. I don't know what I'm going to do without it." I agree. I'm already dreading the loss of this major support network in my own life. But nevertheless everything in life has a season to it. And Mindy and I are really going to enjoy this upcoming week. We'll see you all on Sunday.

P.S. - if anyone is thinking about coming over and robbing our house while we're gone, just remember three things. One, there's nothing worth taking except maybe our 19 inch television, which is worth more than $50! Two, our 3 kids with be with their grandparents all week, so you can't kidnap the most beautiful kids on the earth while we're gone. And three, there will be four bloodthirsty, ferocious dogs lying in wait all week long without any meat except the occasional robber! ;-)

Richard Pratt Talk #2: Genesis 1:26ff

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 19:22:00 +0000

This morning at 9am, Richard Pratt taught a combined all-church class. Again, I recommend that you just listen to the mp3 audio posted on the church website here. (You can put the sermon audio on your ipod by first downloading the mp3 file to your computer. You download it by right-clicking on it and selecting "Save Link As...". After it's downloaded, you open the file with iTunes and add it to your library.)

Here are some remembrances of his talk:

Introduction: Mission is not an add-on
When you add a room onto your house, no matter how hard you try, it always looks like an add-on. I never quite looks like it was originally built with the rest of the house. That is how the American church relates to mission: it feels like an add-on tacked on the end of all our activities. It's almost as if Jesus said and did all the things, and then before he ascended, he gave a little footnote that said, "Oh, yeah, and don't forget the Great Commission." But it's not that way at all. Mission didn't begin with Jesus. Or Abraham. But with Adam and Eve. God's missional kingdom is a pre-Fall reality, not a post-Fall necessity!

The idea of mission is actually bound up in the idea of what it means to be created in the image of God. Other Ancient Near Eastern religions also used the language of "image of God" and "sons of God" to describe people - but only Pharoahs and Kings. It was believed in the A.N.E. that Pharoahs were the true sons of God, made in his image. It was believed that they exercised dominion over the earth on God's behalf. Genesis takes the language of "image of God" from the surrounding religious cultures, adopts it and then co-opts it. It becomes evident very soon in Genesis that every single human being was created in the image of God.

It is a great part of our practical piety to go around saying, "Oh, I'm just a sinner. I'm scum. I can't do anything. God must do it all. I'm insignificant." Not true! This is a lie of Satan. Satan uses this kind of thinking to immobilize the church. Because we are made in his image, everything we do matters. We matter. If you convince yourself that you don't really matter and that you're life really doesn't matter for the Kingdom of God, and you won't try to do anything significant for the Kingdom of God with your life! This is the problem. But if you see yourself as an image-bearer, as God's vice-regent over creation, then you come to see that what you say, think and do matters greatly. We go around thinking that godliness is to dishonor ourselves and our lives. But godliness means living up to who we already are: image bearers of God. And if that isn't enough, we not only bear his image, but we've also been redeemed by his blood! He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and he is re-working his image in us by Holy Spirit. So live up to who you truly are. Be who you are.

Then, as his image-bearers, realize that he has given us dominion over all the earth. Earth matters. People matter. This planet and world matters. Because God has called us to make earth into his kingdom. Unfortunately, Christians don't believe this anymore. We have given up this world. We are just waiting for "heaven" - forgetting that redemption is a new earth as well.

The only people who really believe in sacrificing themselves for the sake of bringing God's kingdom to earth are the Muslims. They are willing to give all they are and have to make it Allah's kingdom. We aren't. We're giving it over to them by our own passivity. The census department tells us that there will be 5 major cities in the US with a majority Muslim population by 2025. That is tomorrow. Islam is gaining rapid ground, the evangelical church is losing ground rapidly, and we don't even know it. Because we don't think that exercising kingdom dominion over the earth is our calling or that it matters.

We see this in two ways. First, Christians aren't having children. Muslims have tons of babies. So Muslim growth is rapidly outpacing Christian growth generationally in the US. We're going to end up like England, where the Archbishop of Canteburry said a few days ago that England will have to adopt Sharia law if England is to survive. Archbishop Rowan Williams essentially laid down, rolled over and gave it up to the Muslims. We're going to be right there behind them very soon. And we don't even know it. We're too concerned about retiring at the same level of income in which we worked during our careers. So our materialism is keeping us from valuing children.

Then, we don't disciple our children. We aren't training them seriously in the faith. We let them go to a youth group or something, but we aren't serious about training them to be fully productive members of the kingdom of God. It just isn't a priority in our lives. We are loyal to our careers, but not to the kingdom of God. We're blind to the interests of the kingdom.

Our task is to turn the earth into God's Kingdom. We are called to make earth paradise by extending the reign of King Jesus everyway. Not with force like the Muslims do. With love and persusion. But also by laying down our lives. By giving away not 10% of our income but 50% of our income to the kingdom work of the church. Who believes so passionately in the kingdom of God that they give away 50% of their income. In wealthy American, this ought to be the norm among Christians. The King is coming and we must do we all possibly can to get the earth ready.

We continue to circle the wagons here. We are disengaged relationally from our changing world and especially our changing neighborhoods. But the problem is that we're going to keep circling the wagons until we don't have any more wagons. Meanwhile, our granddaughters will belong to a shiek's harem in Dallas. We've already surrendered. We treating mission as if it's a nice little add-on to the end of the happy Christian life. We have it backwards. Being a Christian is living with a mission. We must reconnect with the mission of God.

So what do we do? We fast and pray. We ask Holy Spirit to come. We fast and pray until that happens. Until we are changed. It's not just an extra. It's why we exist.

That's what I heard Richard say this morning. I'm curious - what did you hear him say? What struck you? Leave a comment and let me know!

Perseverance in Mission: Saturday morning men's breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:44:00 +0000

This morning our men gathered with a number of missionaries we support as a church family. Ryan Greene serves as the RUF college pastor at Texas A&M. Josh Geiger is the pastor of Christ Rey Presbyterian Church in Dallas, a Hispanic church plant. Jacob Yohannan is the church planter in the metro NYC area, reaching second generation Indian and Asian Americans. Caleb Dunn teaches and trains pastors in Mexico.

The common theme that emerged from all of their presentations was the joyful hardship of persevering in gospel mission and ministry. While they are seeing people come to faith in Christ, the work is slow and often discouraging. They are tired. They work hard weeks and long hours. Sinful people constantly disappoint. Yet, there is real joy in seeing people come to faith and grow.

I think this morning's presentations really balanced out last night's call to gospel confidence. We heard yesterday evening that the gospel is powerful and deserving of our full might and confidence. This morning we got a dose of reality. Ministry is a long road without any easy short-cuts. If you do ministry to bring glory to yourself, you won't make it. Your heart must be pure. You must be about serving Christ. Otherwise, you won't make it. I was very touched with how some of our missionaries shared how hardship in ministry exposed their own sin. They discovered that they were prideful. And they came to see their own sin as the greatest hindrance to their ministry. What a godly perspective.

I walked away from our breakfast encouraged by this: we have a high mission to fulfill, but we're not in heaven yet. So it's hard. But it's worth it. Every bit of it. So let's encourage each other more. Let's build each other up more and pray for one another more earnestly as we all partner together in kingdom ministry, whether to Collin County, Bergen County or Monterrey, Mexico.

Dr. Pratt Talk #1: Romans 1:14-17

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:01:00 +0000

Last night was the kickoff event to our 2008 Trinity Missions Conference, "Ordinary People in the Kingdom of God." Our plenary speaker was Dr. Richard Pratt, founder and president of Third Millennium ministry, which provides free theological education to anyone, anywhere.

Richard knocked it out of the ballpark last night, expressing a gospel vision that is the heart of the Session at Trinity. I urge you to listen or download the audio of the talk (go the bottom of the linked page). Here are some main points from Richard's teaching last night. I didn't take notes on his talk last night - I hardly ever do take notes during sermons because I want to let the main force of a sermon really settle into my heart, especially knowing that I'll learn much more when I download it and listen to it a second time. So this isn't a precise outline of his talk - just some of my general remembrances.

1. The Gospel is for Rome.
We think of Rome as a great vacation spot today, but for Paul going to Rome would be like us going to Mecca. It wouldn't be a vacation. It wouldn't be visiting museums and throwing coins into beautiful fountains. Our lives would be at stake. Yet this gospel was so valuable to Paul that he had to take it to the center of the world, despite possibly losing his own life in the process. Do we have that passion that our world needs this powerful gospel so much that we are willing to give up our comforts to get it out?

2. The Gospel is Powerful.
Paul had the confidence to take the gospel to Rome because he knew that it was the power of God for salvation. Richard knew a guy in high school that had a very ugly car, but under the hood was a powerful engine. He didn't think much of the car until he raced against it and was blown away. The gospel might not be outwardly impressive, but inside it has the very power of God. When was the last time that you truly experienced the power of the gospel in your own life? When was the last time that the story of Jesus really changed your life? If you are disconnected from the power of the gospel, you're not going to have the confidence to take it out into your world.

3. The Gospel has long arms.
Mike Tyson had a very powerful punch, but his arms were so short that he had to get in close to hit you. The gospel is very powerful, but it also has long arms. It can reach Jew and Gentile. It can reach both Jerusalem and Rome. The reach of the gospel is so extensive it can even reach me! Paul says that the gospel is for the Jew first. This is the religious person who grew up going to church, Sunday school and VBS. This is the person who feels that he needs to be moral in order to go to heaven, and knows a little about Moses and Jesus. That gospel is for that kind of person. But the gospel is also for the Greek. This is the non-religious person. This is the person who doesn't know if Moses came before or after Jesus. This is the person who doesn't even necessarily believes he has to be moral in order to go to heaven. This is the next door neighbor. This is the gay couple across the street. This is the poor person who cuts your lawn. This is the co-worker struggling through divorce. This is your son or daughter who isn't walking with Jesus. The gospel has power to reach the farthest Gentile. The gospel has long arms. Do we have confidence in the reach of the gospel? Are we participating in God's Kingdom plan to take this gospel out to our relational networks, with a conviction that this gospel really can reach these people and that all the trouble it takes to build these relationships is actually worth it?

Other Impressions
The lines between national and international are now mixed and greatly blurred. Geographical zones have been replaced now with relational networks, many of which cross national borders and time zones. So that the local Hispanic family has a stronger connection to a community in Mexico than our own missionaries might have. So that the local Asian community talks to their family in India far more than any of our own missionaries possibly ever could. The world is at our doorstep. Are we awake to this? Do we sense our call to this mission? Do we see the array of interconnections and mission opportunities that exist around us?

Last night I also had a keen sense of the lethargy of the American church. We are vitally awake when it comes to issues of personal success, kids education, politics, etc. But when it comes to the all-important vision of what God desires to do in and through us, we are largely asleep. We are unaware. We aren't giving our money. We aren't giving our time. If the good news that Jesus is King and that he is redeeming this world and recreating a new heavens and a new earth were to really take root in the heart of American Christians, we would be passionate about getting this gospel out to our relations. We would be passionate about using all of our resources to see the Kingdom grow. But we sit in church like little consumers of religious goods, filling our cups for the week so that we can have a little more success in life. Dr. Pratt called us to get back in touch with the power of the gospel. That's what I want to see happen in our church. I want to see that gospel confidence and that kingdom vision spread through our church as strongly and as quickly as a virus on the playground. A key to this is prayer. We have forgotten how to pray. We have lost a vision for simply persisting in prayer until God moves.

Holy Spirit, move upon Trinity Presbyterian Church and make us a missional community of your people with gospel confidence and kingdom vision!

These are my thoughts from last night's talk. What about last night's talk struck you? What did you think?

Just another way to keep in touch with our church family

noreply@blogger.com (John McCracken) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:59:00 +0000

Hi everyone! I thought I would start today a very simple little blog that would help all of us stayed connected to each other and with what's going on at our church. We may or may not use this long term. We'll see. But I'm going to start today by posting my thoughts on our missions conference here at TPC this weekend. Enjoy!