You can watch Driscoll interview Kraft here.

MacArthur ESV Study Bible Promo from Crossway on Vimeo.

For all of you MacArthurites it is a happy day in your neighborhood.  Pastor MacArthur’s study notes have been combined with the ESV Text to create an incredible resource in studying the Scriptures.  I personally began using the MacArthur Study Bible many years ago and gained greatly from it.  I prefer the ESV Study Bible at this point, but MacArthur’s is a fine addition to your bookshelf as well.  Enjoy!

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

For all of you fellow Mac Users the newest nanoBundle from MacHeist is a must grab.  They are offering 7 Top Apps worth over $240 at the incredible price of $19.99.  MacHeist consistently offers great bundles, so if you have never stumbled across these guys you should get acquainted.  I have been following them for years and have never been disappointed.

Check it out!

Jonathan Dodson offers 10 great Tips For Missional Community Leaders.  If you are leading Small, Life, Love, Missional, Care, Core, Flock or fill in the blank community groups then this is a quick read that you need to spend some time in.  Convicting and challenging for me.

Kayla: Daddy, what do you do for the church? You sound pretty important…
Dad: I do a little of this and a little of that. I try to do whatever needs to be done.
Kayla: Well, what’s your title?
Dad: Titles don’t mean much sweety. I’m the Executive Director.
Kayla: That really sounds important.
Dad: (chuckling) Its not as glamorous as you think.

After service today Ill be able to show her one of the many things I enjoy doing.

We have launched a new class for our church called the New City Class.  It’s an introduction to who we are and what we believe.  Much of the material comes from a sermon series we previously did as well as other documents and sermons in the past.  The first time I sat through the class I was thinking ‘Man, I just heard this and now I have to hear it again’.  Just being honest.

We are offering the same class twice a week for those who have scheduling conflicts.  Tonight was our second class in the first lesson.  Afterwards, I was standing around chatting with people when I overheard a portion of an incredible conversation.  A guy was talking to our Pastor, Keith, and this is a close paraphrase of his words.

I came to New City over a year ago and had been off and on at the service.  During the spring of last year you guys preached on Expiation, Propitiation, Justification culminating into Resurrection.  That series opened my eyes to so many truths that I had never understood. I had no idea about the two lambs in the sacrifice and what they meant to me.

I had heard of the ‘Lamb of God’, but man when it was preached I really understood it.  Jesus was our lamb that was the expiation, propitiation and justification.  It’s incredible!!  I was so excited when I heard it that I even sent the mp3’s to a friend out of state.  He listened to it and said that he was blown away by the truth of the Word.

Tonight when you were talking about this stuff again I was so excited. Although I have heard this several times since being here,  you can never hear what Jesus did for us enough!

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We have been working through the book of Ecclesiastes at New City.  It has been a great book to study through and I have been  challenged on many levels.  This past week Keith preached through Ecclesiastes 9 and really focused the message on living, dying, and not wasting it all.  This is a theme that I think on more often than not.  There is not a week that goes by that I do not consider my time and the spending of it.  I am constantly asking, ‘are you wasting it?’  I fall off the side that many probably don’t.  I have to fight to not dwell on wasting my life.  I have to fight to not picture myself as an old man looking back on my life and being overwhelmed with the sense that I wasted it.  It can quickly grab my heart, drive me to depression and leave me hopeless.  The thought of wasting my life can often drive me to work harder and longer than I should, to try to please people in ways that I shouldn’t.  I confess that there are times that I feel like I need to pay God back for all that He has done for me and continues to do.  I know that I don’t deserve grace and at times I hate that I receive it.  How can someone so good love someone so evil?

But God…

I turn 37 this year and I feel like I have only truly begun to understand, apply, live out the Gospel…to live out grace.  I credit this awakening to the preaching and ministry at New City.  I have sat under many good men and they have been exactly who I have needed at the time.  It seems that God has me now at a place where I need to go back to the center of it all…the Gospel.  I have paired the sermon series with  Driscoll’s book ‘Death by Love’ and I must admit that there has been new freedom found, a new thirst for God’s mission, and a movement away from guilt to forgiveness.  Tears usually burn.

If you live in Macon, come join us as we gather at the Cox Capitol Theater and hear the Gospel…maybe applied in ways that you have never dreamed of.  If you do not live here, then follow us live on Sunday mornings or watch the recordings later on.  If you are not hearing the Gospel every week then you are missing it.  If you are not living out the Mission, then make the changes necessary to live it out.  Don’t waste it.  Jesus has called you to trust Him and there is a fine line between foolishness and faith – are you walking it?

This past Sunday I was reminded that I am dying.  I have one life.  I should feel the freedom to enjoy the good gifts that God has so graciously given as I join God on His mission.  I should be about His Kingdom and not my own.  I should not fear.  I should be a faithful fool that spends his life well.

Thank you Jesus.