For the past few weeks I'd been trying to repair my '88 Honda Civic. Last week I finally gave it up, took it into a mechanic who told me the timing belt had snapped... and valves may have been bent. I was looking at $450-500 with a possibility of $1700-1800 to repair a car older than some of my coworkers.

This week I purchased a 2002 Nissan Altima that was supposedly in good shape and had less than 100k miles on it. I test drove it and had a couple of hesitations but got it for a decent price so I figured I'd go for it.

The day after I got it home I the check engine light came on and I took it to a mechanic. The verdict?

• Leaks oil
• Needs new exhaust
• Needs new brakes
• Needs two new tires
• Needs floorboards replaced
• Needs motor mounts replaced
• Needs air conditioner recharge
• Needs door hinge

And there's probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.  There's $3900 down the drain.

Let's just say I haven't had the joy of the Lord for the past few days.

But today I forgave the guy who sold me the car, who I'm pretty sure knew what the problems were when he sold it to me.

I was trying to think if there's anything I could do to get back at the guy, any way I could sue him in small claims court.  But today I forgave him.

And while I'm still hoping to get some of my money back, I'm also hoping I can somehow witness to him about Christ.

Hopefully the weekend will be better.

The Protege Program at National Community Church is a year-long internship/fellowship, geared toward preparing you for full-time ministry in the church or in the context of business-as-mission.

What does this have to do with you and me?

For me, the Protege Program was a step into full-time ministry after a short career on Capitol Hill. Almost four years ago I started my Protege year, working with Pastor Heather Zempel on the Discipleship Team, and last year I became a Department Mentor for Andy Backus, one of this year's Discipleship Proteges.

For you, the Protege Program is an opportunity to get hands-on, practical ministry experience. You'll do real ministry work. This isn't just about folding bulletins or stuffing envelopes (although you'll do those things too).

I'm not sure I can quickly sum up what I did as a Protege, but a few of the experiences included: creating humorous videos; serving as a Campus Pastor; producing our small group catalog; preaching at our Alpha course; leading a small group; writing, designing, and editing a "newspaper" for our leadership retreat; and a thousand other things.  Of course, your mileage may vary.

Oh, and it's not paid. You'll have to raise support or work a second job to provide for your living expenses while you're here, so you're not in it for the money.

Why NCC?

More than anything else, you should consider coming to NCC because God is at work here. He has by His grace chosen to work in and through us. I don't know how else to say it, but God is doing something big among us. We're trying to seek His face, steward what He's given us, and hold on for the ride of our lives.

Look, I won't pull any punches. Things aren't perfect here. We have personality conflicts, disagreements, sin problems, communication problems, and all sorts of other issues. You'll find yourself variously exhilarated, exhausted, fulfilled, and frustrated.

Working at NCC is a blessing and a privilege, but it isn't perfect. Then again, if you think there's a perfect church out there, I've got some real estate on Mars to sell you.

To continue our candid conversation, some people see NCC as a "hip" or "cutting-edge" church, and there's a certain appeal to working at a place like that. Two years ago that's probably how I would have pitched NCC to you. But that perspective almost always stems from pride and desire for recognition, both yours and ours. So come here because God is moving. Come here because you're called here. Come here because you think you can learn here. Come here to help advance the Kingdom. But don't come because of a "cool" factor.

What can I do at NCC?

I'd love to have you come work with us on the Discipleship Team, but don't let me scare you off. There are a bunch of other great departments you could be a part of including Production, Campus Pastors, Ebenezers Coffeehouse, Student/Children's Ministry, Worship, Missions, Outreach, Media, Business/Finance and probably something we've never thought of!

What's my next step?

There are details on the program at http://theaterchurch.com/about/protege. The Protege year runs from September 2012-August 2013, and the deadline to apply is May 25.  (Here's the application.)

I'm always happy to talk more about NCC's Protege Program. Just drop a comment here, and I'll follow up with you either via comment or email.

I want to draw you into an analysis of how that came to be

Part 1
I still love the ministry of God's Word, my spiritual calling as a husband and a father.

I complete this year 60 years of being a Christian, 32 years of being a pastor at Bethlehem, 44 years of being a husband, 40 years of being a father. We are about to install my successor at Bethlehem.

I am amazed that I have lasted as a Christian, a pastor, a husband, a father. I want to draw you in Biblically to why I am amazed.

An entry from my journal in 1986. I was 40 years old, and it is not untypical. It is a reflective of an emotional vulnerability I have lived with as far back as I can remember. My sons were 14, 11, 7, and 3.

"Am I under attack by Satan to abandon my post at Bethelehem, or is this the stirring of God to cause me to find another ministry, or is this the stirring that we must go another way at Bethlehem than building. I hate building. I have no desire to lead the church through this. I am a preacher, poet, writer, thinker. This is where my heart flourishes. Can I be the pastor of a church moving through a building program? Yes, by dint of a massive effort of will and the help of God. The planning meetings have left me feeling very empty. The church is looking toward a vision, and I don't have it. The vision the staff zeroed in on, building a new sanctuary, leaves me feeling empty. I have no desire to do it. Or perhaps I am just in the pits today. Lord, have mercy on me. I feel so discouraged. Even when I know most of my people are before me, I am so blind to the future of the church. Is it because it is not my future? Perhaps I shall not live out the year and you have spared the church a vision I cannot live out. Have mercy on me. I must preach on Sunday, and I can barely lift my head."

That was 26 years ago. We built that building, and another one, and another one. And I hated it every time. There were worse days, much worse days, days when my marriage was under attack, my soul was under attack.

I am amazed that I am still a Christian, amazed that I am still a pastor.

If my faith in Jesus and my eagerness to know his Word, and my sexual continence and my spiritual marriage committment, if any of that were dependent on me, I would have failed long ago. If the decisive cause for any of those things must come from me, it will not come, because it isn't there.

Therefore I am amazed that I am still a Christian and still love the ministry.

Personalizing Jude, "Now to him who is able to keep me from stumbling and to present me blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24, 25 ESV)"

I think Jude was amazed when he wrote that, amazed at the keeping of God. It took glory and majesty and power and authority beginning to work before creation, working at the moment of my now, and working forever to keep me a Christian, to keep me in the ministry.

This is the ways doxologies work. First, they say something about God, something he has promised to do, then they ascribe attributes about God that account for his doing that.

God's actions:

Attributes

Jude is amazed at what it takes to keep you a Christian.

Do you have any idea the degree of Divine glory and majesty and power it took to keep you alive to this very moment. How would you talk about the measurement of the glory, power, and dominion? It sounds big. How big?

How do you quantify the force or power of a Spirit creating a being and keeping it alive forever. Is it like pounds of pressure, like kilowatts of electricity?

God creates spiritual life when we're dead. We know that.

That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. John 3:6 - Once we had no spiritual life. I am born of the Spirit. The demons are spirits, this is not like that. This is Holy Spirit. This is God emenated, God sanctified spirit, and God made that. He brought it into being.

The life that you would have without the Holy Spirit, if you disunited with Christ, you wouldn't be a Christian. There would be no life. This being a Christian would be being united to Christ, having the Spirit, being in the vine. There's no autonomous life in me. He creates that, and only he can, and then, for 60 years, having begun before eternity and having been at work every millisecond of my life, made me a Christian, and if He doesn't keep it up, I won't be.

The giving of this life, and the moment-by-moment sustaining of this life is a work of God, which is why I said at the beginning, if the decisive cause of my faithfulnees must come from me, it will not come, because it is not there. It is not in me as mine, autonomous, independent. I bring nothing decisive to my creation, and I bring nothing decisive to the ongoing spiritual life in me. I exist as a Christian by it. I didn't create it, and I don't keep it in being.

Jude is amazed at this.

So how are you going to measure that?

I can only think of two ways.

Any measure of authority can't be measured in some sort of scientific measurement. This text is saying it takes glory and majesty and power and authority. You should be absolutely stunned that you are still a Christian.

Part Two - An analysis of how that happens.

How does he keep me when I have given no evidence at all that I haven't shown faith that he can save a neighbor much less a terrorist? How does he keep me when the fuel tank of death defying devotion to world missions seems empty. How does he keep me when he holds out a treasure that I want as much as anything and he tells me I can't have it?

How does he do it? How does he keep me alive? You alive? Serving, married, etc.

The book of Jude begins and ends with a strong statement of assurance that God is decisively our king. I don't think the word able there is intended to mean he is able but he might not. I think it is, "He is mighty to keep you."

To all those who are

When a person is called the are kept. 1 Corinthians 1:8-9. He will sustain you guiltless to the end. God is faithful by whom you wre called, meaning, if He called you, you were done. You will be kept.

Romans 8 - Those he predestined, he called, and those he called he justified, and those he justified he also glorified.

It's done in the mind of God. No dropouts. There is an absolute certainty between being called and being kept. That is the framework of Jude. This is a book about being kept by divine, omnipotent, faithful power.

Between those things, he wanted to go one direction but says he must address false teachers. There is a kind of Christian who perfers the grace of our God into sensuality. They think they're saved, they're in the church. They're not saved. THey're like those who were saved out of Egypt and then were destroyed because they don't believe. They're professing Christians, and they're not called, and they're not kept, because they crave sensuality. They don't crave Christ. That's the difference between a Christian who is not called and not kept. People who are prize the God of grace. They don't just use the grace of God to get what they want.

After all these warnings, Jude tells us what we must do and what we should do not only for ourselves in order to be kept (21-22), but what we must do for others in order for them to be kept (22-23).

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. Do what you have to do. And praying, guided by, animated by, carried by the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God. There goes your message. Or, not.

Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

I worked harder than any of them, yet it was not I, but the grace of God, as Paul says. Or as Jude says, keep yourselves in the love of God because God keeps you in the love of God. This is the Christian life. This is the mystery, not only of sanctification but of preservation.

V. 1 - The order and the logic in this book is very important. The love of God called you, and the love of God will keep you. Therefore, keep yourselves in the love. Keep yourself in God's committment to keep you.

What does that mean?

Keep yourselves in the love of God. That is the main verb in these verses, and they are particples, which I think jude is meaning for us to take as referencing the main verb.

Keep yourselves - main verb - building in faith, keeping in prayer, waiting for mercy.

Keep yourself in the omnipotent committment of God's love to keep you. Trust His committment to keep you. And then, wait patiently for God. Life won't always go the way you hoped. This is so simple. I suppose in my little prayer nook in my study where I have a prayer bench I built in 1975, I suppose as I bent over that bench thousands of times, the most common prayer has been lead me not into temptation, keep me from evil. My kids are at the breakfast table. Keep me. I can hardly remember their name.

Pray by the Holy Spirit, not by yourself, by your own energies. If you are crying out "Abba, help!" the Holy Spirit is witnessing with you. THe means of God's keeping you. From him and through him and to him-I am so thankful-are all things. The Psalm I've prayed this with most often. Preserve me O God, for in you I take refuge.... Even if I can't even move, I won't let Him go.

And here I am, amazed. I mean, how many days in this weird, emotional cauldron called me, how many days have there been when it felt I can't go on? I can't go on. I can't preach the sermon. I can't go to the meeting, and yet here I am.

And my praying and trusting doesn't rob him of any of his glory and majesty and power and authority. My praying is a gift. My faith is a gift, which means my doing these two things, which are the two things I do along with waiting to keep myself, are being enabled by God. I am kept by being kept to do the things I must do. It's not of me but of you. I couldn't even be here if it weren't for you.

There's a way to do effort by faith.

The glory and the majesty, the first two, I think consist very much in the power and the authority of God to keep you that way. You say, what's glorious and majesterial by God's keeping me in order to pray and trust in order to keep me? God would say, it's power and authority. It doesn't matter if you understand how his soverignty and your will interact. What you need is to say he's got the power and right and authority to do it, and that's glorious and majestic.

I'm still saved after this kind of bellyaching and wallowing in self-pity. What makes you think you're going to wake up a Christian tomorrow. "Now unto Him who is powerful." I am called. He will wake me up a Christian tomorrow.

When He acts on you this way to keep you and stir you up from within, He is fulfilling the new covenant.

Jeremiah 32:40 - I will make with them a new covenant, that I will not turn away from them.

I will not allow them to shipwreck their lives.

Here's where this covenant shows up in the text. We know that the new covenant was bought by the blood of Jesus. If this covenant, if these terms are going to come true, he had to purchase it with his blood. He purchased absolutely everything, including their new birth, which is what we offer people in the Gospel.

So, when you read verse 25, that's what you should hear "through Jesus Christ our Lord." The only God, our savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

How does that prepositional phrase work here. If you were diagramming the sentence, how would you attach it. The glory and power and majesty is moving in on my heart every day. It's coming through Jesus Christ, and when I am granted to awaken from the stupor of my self pity, I do that through Jesus Christ. I can't even do that except through my Lord Jesus.

Through Jesus Christ is the Gospel in this doxology. Don't underestimate the power of the Gospel to keep you. He will not let your foot be moved. He keeps you. He who keeps israel will not slumber or sleep . The Lord is your keeper. He will not smite you by day. He will keep your going out and coming in from this time forth and forevermore because that has been bought by the blood of Jesus.

Therefore, keep yourselves in the love of God.

Carl, what is a celebrity pastor, and talk about some of the concerns you've raised.

Carl: We live in a celebrity culture. We tend to invest peculiar power in specific individual even outside of the sphere of influence. Hollywood is a great example. They're great actors, but round-about election time they start talking about things about which they are quite incompetent.

I teach at Westminster, and when I ask young men preparing for the ministry who have been the most influential preachers in their life, they usually mention a celebrity pastor, not their pastor. They also aspire to be like those men, when the reality is that most of them will go on to pastor at small churches. Praise God for the pastors of large churches and for large churches, but most men will not end up there.

My two primary concerns are the detachment of the preaching ministry from pastoral influence and the aspirational model of ministry. That isn't primarily the fault of the megachurch pastor, although it does add to you the responsibility to be sure not to promote yourself, even surreptitiously. My hope and prayer is that the very influential pastors of large churches do the work of minimizing themselves. Church history hasn't shown much success in their successors either.

Duncan: Thabiti, you interacted with Carl some with this online. React to that.

Thabiti: I should not have done that. I'm writing against Carl Trueman, I should not do that. Let's begin where Carl ends. Paul says to find faithful men, but he also says show double honor to those who serve well, especially those who preach the Gospel. What concerns me is the wide, indiscriminate use of the term "celebrity pastor." I think it's important to distinguish between the celebrity, the sort of famous for being famous, and notoriety, because the other thing Carl is not saying is that celebrity is the same as being publically known. There is a notoriety that grows up, that isn't about myth-making or story-making. In appropriate ways we should honor that.

Duncan: I think it's also helpful to remember that certain types of media can build up a platform that doesn't have a basis. People view me as someone of significance because I'm on television, yet it has no basis in substance. It's no difference than anone else who's on television.

Thabiti: We live in a day where media access is pretty easy. The other thing you're going to need in celebrity making is not just the person and the story around them but also a celebrity conferring public. There is a chain of responsiblities from the pastor to the media to the public, who needs to be discerning about how they show appreciation.

Duncan: When we wanted to put John Piper in front of you 8 years ago, it wasn't because he was a celebrity but because he was a faithful pastor and God had given him a wide voice. We did not intend to say to a brother pastoring a 65 member church, "You're nobody. He's somebody." We wanted to encourage that brother in that 65 member church. The aspirational thing still is an issue we have to deal with, but that motivational thing is something we have to deal with.

Mahaney: The conference exists to dissuade people from aspiring to be a celebrity pastor but to honor them for doing a great work. CJ, David, and Matt, we are grateful for how God has given you a platform, but I know you have to do things to protect your own heart.

David: To be perfectly honest, this whole conversation is really frightening personally. It brings to the fore poison that is put before my own soul personally. John 3:30 - He must become greater. I must become less. I am tempted to turn that around, and this was before anybody was listening to me. I wanted to say, "He must become greater, and it wouldn't be bad if I became greater along with Him." I want to fight it. I want to fight seeking glory for myself. I want to show that on that day that I am fighting toward that end.

Matt: I agree, and because of the cultural thing, I feel like I'm fighting a beast that won't die. If I try to say, "Here's what I'm doing to fight that." It's like I'm looked on more highly. To be frank, if anyone says there isn't part of your soul that enjoys that, I would probably call them a liar. What I'm worried about in my own life that this week I'm going to go, "Well I'm Matt Chandler dad gummit." But I'm worried about the next 15 years. I don't know if this happens to you, but people get in my ear. "Oh, you shouldn't be doing that. They should be doing that for you." I try to build some defenses against that, and I think it's helpful that I'm in ministry with some guys who knew me before. Plus, at home there is no celebrity culture.

Duncan: What's our attitude towards our brothers who have been given a large platform?

Mahaney: There are temptations in the heart of brothers who are know, temptations in the heart of brothers who aren't know, temptations in the heart of the congregation to place too high an emphasis on the role of pastor.

I don't have any unique council for brothers in smaller churches. It is simply pride being identified in your heart and cultivating an appreciation for men pastoring larger churches. I don't think it's good to become preoccupied with my own pride. I need to celebrate the wins of others.

Carl: Having been an administrator at a seminary, I understand the need to raise money. YOu get a couple of OPC guys in an arena like this and you're not going to fill it. BUt would it be impossible out of 9 speakers to have 2 be guys no one has ever heard of? So that yeah, it's not like we're just patronizing them.

I was reluctant to come to the conference. I was asked to come, and I was like, no, I've gone on record against celebrity pastors, I can't go to the celebrity pastors' conference.

Mahaney: So what has your experience been?

Carl: I've tried to fly below the radar, but I've been able to meet guys from so many different denominations. It's been great to be with so many brothers and sisters, I don't get this opportunity ever. My wife asked me if I was looking forward to going, but I said it will give me something to write about. I must admit I was looking forward to going.

Hope without time of fulfillment is delusion. We're not a delusional people. From the outside looking in, we look delusional. That's where you can contextualize to a fault. It will always reek of death to some if you are proclaiming it in its fullness.

What I want to talk about in my remaining time is the finish line.

Revelation 21

The Village Church is very involved in the Sudan, and when we fly there we fly over the Sahara Desert. And there's very little life there. Life that is there is so remarkable that we marvel when we find it. When God is done, the Sahara is going to smell like roses.

Isaiah 65 - We learn that there will be more sounds of weeping, and the wolf and the lamb shall feed together. I mean, that happens now, but it's very different. This violence that is so woven into the world we know will disappear.

Habbakuk 2:15

1 Cor 15 - This is the text the Lord used to minister to me during those 18 months of chemo. CJ starts with how we feel pressed down, but one day we'll all have strength and vitality in such a way that shames the body you have right now. Those abs are going to betray you. Work all you want, crossfit all you want, your body is going to betray you. If you live long enough, Ecclesiastes says, you will start to hate when you woke up, but whatever is sown in dishonor is raised in honor. There will be a day when we're no longer looking forward to this day.

As the deer pants for the water so my soul longs for you is not a cute text.

Psalm 27 does not belong on a coffee cup.

There will be a day that the immediate presence of Christ is not a future thing. It is right now.

I love this quote from the Chronicles of Narnia, "The things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. For us, this is the end of all stories, but for them it is truly the beginning. All of their stories in this world and in Narnia were only the cover and title page."

Most of the time I feel like my work is just straw and I'm trying to put glitter and glue on it so I can help the Lord see its potential. And then I get over here and see what God is doing and what he is accomplishing, and see how he is cleansing and shaping and purfying his bride through a steady faithfulness. There is a day when the Bride of Christ will cease to be the suffering servant of Jesus and will be the church triumphant.

We've had a few mentions of how we feel on Mondays. I used to call them bread truck Mondays, because that's when I'd dream of driving a bread truck. No one sends the bread truck guy hate mail.

I feel as a pastor that with the Word of God I'm dealing with shadows. Here's what He's like. We don't need a temple or a time that worship is going to take place. It will always be there, always be ever increasing. I've been in rooms like this where we're worshipping and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs, and I can feel myself hitting a ceiling. I just want to sit down. I'm getting a little tired, and this thing inside of me wants to explode, and I just can't get there.

"By its light will the nations walk..."

You've got all of the pieces here that have been discussed over the past few days. Think about how hard diversity is here, but on this day all nations walk by the light of the lamb. The call that David issued last night is fulfilled. All that is restored and renewed and made right and put in its place.

I'm watching the sun set over the water in San Diego's perfect weather and I realized that somehow this is broken, as spectacular as it is. It's going to get even better.

I want to get my mind in this Scripture often, but I don't want to do it as a type of escapism. This view of tomorrow drives me today. Let me be faithful to this day. I'm not just trying to get there now unless the Lord takes me there.

When all is said and done, if He is done with me, if my time is up, then let's get there, but if not, then let me be faithful. I look at the spotlessness of the city. I look at the charge to shape the purity of the Bride on us as pastors, and it doesn't make me want to escape, it drives me. Everyone at the end is perfectly holy, and it took striving to be that way.

At times you have got to get over you. A lot of times our hope drains because we're not high enough to see what God is accomplishing. You kinda believe what God is doing, so you're hedging your bets. You keep one foot in this world and one in the Kingdom. Sell out. It's this view that has the Apostle Paul calling his trouble light and momentary. If there's ever been someone who has everything going wrong, it has to be Paul. He gets shipwrecked and then bit by a snake. Paul isn't hedging his bets. He says that if Christ isn't raised we are to be pitied more than all men.

Some of you weren't really called. Some of you don't believe this, and you need to repent. This is going to happen, so for those of you who do believe it, rest on it. Just as surely as last week you were looking forward to getting here this week, it is going to happen.

Find hope in that Jesus Christ came and saved you. Find hope that you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Find hope in the fact that there is a finish line.

Dever: In our theological education, there was a critique of inerrancy that it is a modern construct.

Piper: The teachers that I loved and influenced me most didn't talk about the Scriptures as anything but inerrant. I happily missed it.

Dever: We know that inerrancy was clearly taught in the Reformation. Simon, is this solely a Reformation or enlightenement doctrine?

Simon: No, Augustine taught this in his confrontation with the Manicheans. If you do find an error, it is probably an error in the translation, your particular manuscript, or your interpretation.

Duncan: Even the Hensen brothers who were no friends to Evangelicalism or Biblical inerrancy agreed that this is what Christians had always believed.

Dever: Peter Williams is now the warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge. You have done doctoral work in Biblical Studies, and you believe what about the Bible?

Williams: It's authoritative, innerrant, basically clear, sufficient. A lot of people are trying to weaken inerrancy because they're signing an inerrancy statement for their paycheck.

Dever: Can you explain why you've come to the conclusion that the Bible is true?

Williams: If you believe in verbal inspiration and in God's trustworthiness, I don't know how you can say that. How can God have inspired errors?

Dever: Can you help us to understand why even Evangelicals don't believe in inerrancy?

Mohler: It often surprises people that heresy often preceeds orthodoxy. The codification of the faith often comes in teh face of a heresy being presented. We have to respond to contemporary denials of the total truth of Scripture.

The first comes from the New Age movement and don't believe in God or you don't believe in words as actually able to carry truth, but nevertheless there is an ideological assault. But that's not the major concern for us.

Another objection is apologetic in nature. People say that it is intellectually absurd to believe in inerrancy. It makes us to defend the veracity of every single text. It's the same argument where you have people come along and say you can't talk about the teachings on sexuality or creation.

The third objection is moral. If you are committed to the total veracity of the text, then you have God and His people acting in immoral ways. But there you have people judging God. You're dealing with the reality that if you're going to try to impose a human standard of morality. If you're going to read the Bible honestly, there are going to be things that make you uncomfortable.

Simon: The central thing for me in the view of Scripture as inerrant is that it was Jesus' view. If you just look at the way Jesus treats Scripture, the way he treats and uses the Old Testament, that must be a cornerstone for our doctrine of inerrancy. And it is a matter of following Jesus.

Williams: If heresy preceeds orthodoxy, apologetics preceeds heresy. Apologetics often wants to defend Christianity from embarrassment, so if they have a Christianity that can explain away difficult texts, then maybe more people will come. The problem is that they get persuaded by their dreams and aspirations like Ligon was talking about. Sometimes people get persuaded in theological education that the most honest reading of a text is to read it in such a way that it conflicts with another text.

Mohler: Liberal theology is always an attempt to rescue Christianity for a modern people. This is what Bultmann was trying to do. A lot of the things you're seeing right now is an attempt

Duncan: Schliermacher was offended by the doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement and thought the message of Christianity must change. He wasn't trying to destroy Christianity, but he did that with apologetic, missionary motives.

Williams: Going back to Marcion, he thinks he can defend Christianity better by ditching the OT.

Dever: A lot of people studying when you were studying didn't believe the Bible was the inspired word of God. How did you end up with that belief.

PIper: There are layers of questions to answers like that, like, "My momma told me it was true." Second layer would be, "God made me see it." That's the deepest layer. I couldn't believe the Bible was untrue if I tried. I was taken by Him for it. You can't persuade anyone with that.

Above that are layers like my experience with it. It makes sense of the world. You don't take every sentence and relate it directly to the world, but year after year you deal with the book and live in the world and it brings coherence to the world.

One other I would mention, "Liar, lunatic, and Lord" works for for me with Paul: "Liar, lunatic, or apostle." He's either a liar or stupid, or an incrediblly thoughtful, insightful person. I have never, frankly, been tested very much by the devil or whoever that this wise liberal offering his arguments makes more sense. I read Paul and I say, this man is smart, rational, careful about what he's saying. Once you've got Paul speaking self-authenticating, worldview shaping, authentic truth, the rest begins to shine as well.

That's a few layers, there are others.

Dever: Want to give us one more?

Piper: Yeah. Why are you married after 43 years? You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. How are you still married through loss? How do you fight off pornography and depression? It's the power of this book.

Dever: For people who haven't had the time to self-consciously accumulate those experiences, anything you would encourage them to read?

Piper: I haven't read a book on teh Bible in a long time, and you always ask me that. Scripture and Truth by Grudem.

Dever: It's okay. You just keep writing the books, and we'll read them. I'd mention another one, JI Packer, "Fundamentalism and the Scripture." What about the unsettling thought that people are signing statements of faith but don't really believe this. Maybe that's mainly in the academy. How are we bumping up against this?

Mohler: How few of our Statements of Faith are clear about this in the first place. There are some who claim you can use the world and eviscerate it. The denial is that you can dehistoricize an inherently historical text. People say you can deny the historicity of the text without denying the truth of the text. There's an argument now that this is the kind of text to which the issue of inerrancy doesn't apply. You find these nuances and very clear points of friction. Do you have to agree with the historicity of the first 11 chapters of Scripture. Those Evangelicals who feel accountable to the academy say there has to be a different way to deal with this. You have people plucking a historical Adam out of thin air even though the

Dever: Al, what was the closest you ever came to not believing in the inerrancy of Scripture?

Mohler: I never really came close to that, but I thought there may be other ways of understanding the text, but JI Packer's book dropped a bomb on that little experiment.

It was intuitive, but I also had intellectual guardrails. Apologetics hit me in a crisis as a teenager. Francis Schaffer had a profound impact on me. His thinking in his lectures is very clear.

And being raised in a Gospel church that preached the Word of God and just assumed when you sent the Word of God it meant all of this.

Duncan: This is a conversation in the conservative background in which I was raised. I had a good pastor who was happy to have me ask him questions about this. He was a real help to me. When I went to Edinburgh, I already had a solid foundation in the doctrine of Scripture from Covenant Seminary. I had read some Barr in Seminary that was helpful, but I decided I needed to read all of it. It was the most soul killing six months I had ever spent. I had a professor who was very helpful who had already thought through all of these issues. I had another professor who as we sat down he said, I've walked through all of these issues long ago, and I'm happy to walk through them with you now.

But then it was the reality of the Gospel in the lives of believers that did not know they were ministering to me. That person wouldn't be who they were without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They had no idea how they were ministering to me. THey were just being themselves. I realized they could not be who they are if Scripture was not true.

Dever: Mothers in this room, don't miss how many times mothers have been mentioned as an influence in the lives of these men. I don't know how much this conversation interests you, but your faith in Christ is shaping the lives of your children who may be studying things you don't know.

Pete, the things you believe about the Bible have to be uncommon in the circles of people you run with.

Williams: Yes, that is true, and I went through a period of doubt, but there is nothing in lliberalism that has the explanatory power of Scripture.

Go back to James Usher going back to calculate the kings of Israel and kings of Israel, and he gets the date of Tiglath-pilaser to within one year without any sort of archaelogy. This was 350 years ago. It's an amazing story of accuracy.

Dever - Sunday school is not the main way of delivering Christian education.  That happens in the sermon.  It's also not discipleship.  That happens 1-on-1.  70% of our members are involved in community groups.  We do very basic Christian education in these.  The primary purpose of those meetings is educational, having regularly available specific teaching.

Michael - Our sunday school groups are educational.  Community groups provide pastoral care.  We spend the majority of the time in the community groups in facilitating discussion and praying.  The majority of the time in Sunday School is actual teaching.

Chandler - We're a bit of a hybrid.  We want to get our members into groups and then those groups are driven by materials based off the sermon.  Sometimes that's in house materials, sometims that's outside stuff we've purchased and adapted.  Twice a year for 8 weeks we have classes at our campuses.  That can be everything from theology to parenting to dating/courtship.  Predominantly we want everybody in home groups.

Host - When these groups meet, there's different learning styles.  At CHBC it's more lecture based.  There's a discussion model.  There's the master teacher approach where there's some lecture but also discussion.

Dever - We are trying to get people to get the basic parts of the Christian worldview.

Kelley - We do more of the master teacher.  Part of it is expectations of your leaders and the leaders God has given you.  If you have 40 people with a seminary level education, that's different than if you don't have those sorts of folks.  We don't expect our community group leaders to be teachers.  But our Sunday School classes are a bit more information based.  People in our church culture have grown to expect that from Sunday School.  I think the leadership that the Lord puts into your church is going to drive some of the model.  The strength of the lecture based is that it is very efficient for communicating essential information.  The corresponding weakness of a discussion based is that it can quickly go off the rails.  I think that can be overcome by effectively training leaders.

Chandler - Our groups at homes will be discussion based. They have homework throughout the week.  No one in our home groups is allowed to use curriculum that is not approved by the Village Church.  From Feb-June we want everyone at the Village to be on the same page.  We have an alignment.  Come June, if they put in any effort at all, they're going to know Galatians

Host - Back with the small group explosion in the 70s or 80s.

Chandler - Back in Acts 2...

Host - A lot of churches moved away from the traditional Sunday School model to a discussion model, and people found it refreshing because they've never had the ability to discuss the text.  But then as the educational component moved to the side, the discussions became more shallow because the people discussing were less educated.

Kelley - One of the disadvantages of the small group model is that you have to guard against asking "What does the text mean to you?" without asking "What does text mean?"

Host - That requires actual teaching.

Chandler - But if you've got a leaders' guide that actually leads them into the text and the people have homework that teaches them, that can be effective teaching.  But yes, I don't care what people thinking about the text.  I think it's what you give them to do during the meeting.  If you ask them to do nothing and they just show up, then people just go to their feelings.  If you give them meat to eat, that's what they want to talk about.

Kelley - I think you can take that one step further back, and I think one reason that works for you guys (Chandler) and I've heard you (Mark) talk about it, is that you're creating a culture where people understand the primacy of the Word of God, so we're not trying to take a hard right turn when people get to small groups where we're serious about Scripture there but not in other contexts.

Host - I think we've hit on some of the pitfalls of discussion based, but I think it can be an effective way to learn.  At T4G, we're information dump people.  What are some of the pitfalls on this side as well.

Dever - Because week-to-week there's no consistency of attendance, we try to mitigate against that by having manuscripts that people can access, but teachers can take that and make it horribly boring.  When lecture works well, it is great.  When it doesn't work well, which is easy to do, it can make people yawn.

Kelley - I would agree with that as well.  It can be dry as dust.  There's also a danger that there can be a distinct lack of connection between people in the class because you're implicitly telling them that they're there to get information, not to meet people, which is, I suspect, what really led to the emergence of small groups.  You really have to make sure that you're providing ways for people to connect with one another intentionally.

Chandler - One of the things that forced us to adopt the model we did is the space concern, but another thing is that we're already doing it in the sermon.  It forced us to create based off of some of the conditions that we have.  I don't think everything has to be in alignment, but now you're not thinking about what Mark just preached on but also what happened in the Sunday School class.  That's not necessarily bad, but it can be.

Host - Sometimes I wonder what we sacrifice when we move so quickly toward alignment is that we're causing people to miss the richness of the whole of Scripture.  The alignment is great, but at what cost.

Dever - What Matt does when he puts on Galatians, he doesn't just put on Galatians, he's looking at the whole of life with the special concerns of the book of Galatians.

Chandler - As I've walked with the members of the Village is not that they don't know enough but that they don't apply the information they know.  I have to slow down and confront them with information they need to do something with.  I think what we're doing right now is smart and good, but I don't know for sure.

Dever - Just to speak in favor of the lecture thing, even though I'm preaching through James right now, there's a lot of folks in our 20s and 30s and they live in a horribly ungodly dating culture, and I can't preach on that every week, but it is needed.

Host - How do you all determine what information needs to be presented to people?  Sometimes what happens is a young pastor goes to seminary and wants to teach all of the great stuff he learns in seminary, but that stuff isn't necessarily important for everyone.  How do you determine what is truly important to act upon.

Kelley - We do that through a combination of things that are static and that is dynamic.  We try to always have something that we know people need.  We have an ongoing survey course for OT and NT.  We try to counterbalance what is happening from the pulpit.  We have a couple of classes that are driven by the culture of the church.  We have a very fertile church.  We know that we need parenting classes.  We rotate those things in and out based on what's happening.

Host - Mark, how do you decide what to have in those courses.

Dever - There's nothing very advanced about it, we have OT, NT, Systematics, Missions, Apologetics, etc.  It has grown over the years but at the core it's classical Christian catechesis.

Kelley - Mark, do you feel like the curriculum is driven by the context is in your city?

Dever - We figure we've got 2-4 years?

Chandler - We'll get some movement because of American Airlines, but for the most part we're pretty stable.  Dallas and Texas have been kinda shielded from the economic downturn, and people tend to stay there.

Host - A question that comes up a lot is about age/life stage.

Dever - We'll do that for kids, but not for adults.

Chandler - For us groups are geographical, and then there's age-based stuff for through 5th grade, starting in 7th grade, we have home groups.  Even for our kids we have them in small groups on campus during the service because we're trying to teach them the rhythm of life at the Village Church.

Host - Can the age graded be a danger if we get separation if older people are not sowing into younger people, but on the other hand, does it help new people to be in an environment where people are like them.

Dever - We want to see an expression of the fullness of the body of Christ in the local church where people who are unlikely to be friends become friends.

Kelley - You are sacrificing something, but look at what you're gaining.  There's two guys in my Sunday school class named Andy.  One is 25, single, very bright.  The other is a retired doctor, 65ish, regularly makes trips overseas to work with women in war-torn countries.  These two guys have started sitting next to each other in Sunday school.  The other week, young Andy and old Andy went to the roller derby together.  It was awkward for young Andy at first, but now they are genuinely friends.  When you deal with the awkwardness, look at what you gain.  People look in and say there's no where else on earth that this happens.  This is where generational, racial, and social barriers breaks down.

Host - A plumber can be teaching and in a place of spiritual leadership over PhDs.

Kelley - So from a vistor's perspective, you've got to wonder what is more powerful, to be comfortable or to have your mind blown by all of these different people together.

Chandler - Where we've had to battle is that it doesn't take long for that to no longer be about helping a weaker brother.  The stronger has to take care of the weaker.  We have to remind them that someone who was strong had to help them.  And as the community deepens, there is a tendency to silo.  We're always going to have new believers here, and we have to be willing to reach them, even if it's not easy or fun.

Kelley - I think that you build missional into the fabric of our group.  Maybe the expectation is that you spend three weeks in someones home but you spend the fourth week out.  I think you put into the DNA of your groups a reproducing kind of mindset.

Chandler - You have to put language around them that maturity is found in reproducing, not in acquiring knowledge.

Host - What would you all say to a pastor who has inherited a church with a Sunday school structure, who has space?

Dever - To me it would totally depend on who the guy is, what the gifting is.  I would say leverage what you've got, and if you were going to change, do it slowly.

Kelley - Purposefully articulate to the leadership what you are trying to accomplish what you are doing with your classes.  If you want it to be the moment of fellowship and genuine community, then empower your leaders to know that's what it is.  If it's not, if you're trying to accomplish education, then let them know those expectations as well.  You have to have clarity and everyone moving in the same direction.  It will decrease the amount of frustration.

Chandler - Wholesale change is rarely ideal.  What happens when guys try to revitalize places is that they have a crush on another church, and since they idolize that, that's what they try to do.  That's immaturity.  Don't come in and make war against faithful saints.  I think the whole idea of we've got to change it is beating that drum too much.

Here's my concern and fear, that we would settle for Gospel transformation in our own hearts but that that Gospel would not spill out into our cities.  We would not do the hard work of taking the Gospel out because where we're content in our own lives.

Megachurches are growing.  We're now planting as many churches as are closing.  Church planting networks are multiplying.  The reasons aren't always right, but movements beget networks.  You can go to a conference every weekend.

Yet, the number of people who do not trust Christ is increasing.

We need the Gospel to go from the innermost places of our heart to the outermost places of the world.  Contextualization is when we communicate the unchanging Gospel in changing ways.  We communicate with the world's terms but not on the world's terms.  The Gospel is not useful if it is not understandable.  In a couple of weeks I'll talk about the dangers of overcontextualization with the seeker and neo-seeker crowd, but here our danger is undercontextualization.

What I am seeing with movements coming out of a Gospel centered, Reformed worldview is that we have a conversion problem.  We're not getting new converts.  I'm part of the group.

We don't like tension.  We don't like to live between Biblical truth and the world, which is funny because we love tension theologically.  But that kind of tension doesn't affect our free time or our church structures.  That kind of contextualization does.

God loves to make himself known.  Paul does this.  He quotes the poets that the Greeks knew.  That's what Paul does.  He's not doing it because it's cool or trendy but because he wants people to know and love the Gospel.

Paul talks about Jesus as wisdom (1 Cor 1) because that's what Greeks talked about.

You have to ask questions when contextualizing the Gospel.
You have to ask head questions.  What are people thinking in my community?  What is their understanding of epistemology, science, etc.?
You have to ask heart questions.  What are people passionate about?  What do they sacrifice for?
You have to ask hand questions.  What do families do together?  What events energize the community?

You have to actually talk to people.  You can't get this from websites.

Contextualization is listening to people's questions and answering them with God's truth in a way they can comprehend -Tim Keller

They may not like the answers, but that's what we do.

While the Bible cannot be corrected by non-Christian cultures, but Christians can be.  For otherwise to be true is to assume our Christianity is perfectly Biblical. -Keller

When you cross cultures you see your idols.

My neighborhood is 40% African-American.  And people started showing up and they wouldn't leave the service and it was time for us to start the next one.  And meetings weren't starting on time.  And one of the guys humbly told me, "You do realize there's a white way of doing church and a white way of doing meetings."

Contextualization will lead you to a multi-cultural, multi-faceted way of doing ministry.

Paul was not content with just having a bunch of smart white people in our church.  I wonder if there's any place for blue collar people in our churches.  I wonder if there's any place for minorities in our churches.

When you do Biblical contextualization you empower people to take the Gospel out across cultures not just into the world but into your communities.

Abraham Kuyper said there were two understandings of church, the institutional church and the organic church.  The institutional church involves the preaching of the word and the sacraments.  The organic church grows out of that.  And you get people in your congregation who say, "I cannot sleep while that is happening in your city."

My city has lost 600k of 900k people in 50 years.  Only 45% of people graduate from high school.  Tons of single moms.  We compete with Detroit for most dangerous city.  One of our guys says I can't handle that, so he starts a non profit to help education.  We've got an artist who started an artist ministry and then moved it out as a non-profit.  You have to get them out of your church so you can stay focused, but you empower them.  A 50 year old stay at home mom started a ministry to victims of sex trafficking.

It's institutional and organic.  This is what happens when you contextualize.  Guess who serves at all of these non profits?  All of the church plants.  What could happen in our city, in your city, if you took the mission seriously.

Romans 9:3 - I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers... You know what he's saying here?  That he wishes he could go to hell so his Jewish brothers could go to heaven.

Paul is saying in 1 Cor 9, if the Gospel is not real to him, it is not going to be real through him.  The Gospel is quarantined from part of cities because it is quarantined from part of our hearts.  It is about planting good churches, but it is also about transforming cities.  This is our opportunity, that the Gospel would go from the innermost places of our hearts to the outermost places of the world.

Dave Harvey
My assignment is to talk on the more practical topic of the church planter.  There's a lot of different directions one can go with this topic, but I thought it might serve you to talk specifically about how to spot a church planter.

Most churches in the United States are under 200 people, so most pastors are working with a relatively small pool of people, and you know that the right guy in the wrong role doesn't serve the church or the guy.  What puts guys in the church planting category and not in the serve an existing local church category?

You're looking for a pastor, that 1 Timothy 3:1 guy, the guy who has this aspiration, these desires.  The first line of evaluation is to discover whether that man has the grace to meet the requirements of a pastor from Scripture and for your denomination.

Pastoring connects the church planter's role to people.  Sometimes church planters want to do great things but conceive of these things apart from people.  At it's core, our mission is not about movements or great things but about people.  If he doesn't get what it means to be a pastor, then he doesn't get what it means to be a church planter.

Pastoring is what this guy will be doing for the rest of his life.  Are church planters nowadays thinking beyond the launch to what it means to build a healthy local church.  There's a way of thinking about church planting that equips men for the launch but not for the ministry.

We start there and start there in Scripture, but we don't end there.  This initial stage of the launch of planting does require some unique attributes.

Is he Godly?
How is his home?
Can he preach?
Can he shepherd?
Does he love the lost?

Fit to Preach
It's interesting that the requirements for an elder are pretty unremarkable, not that they're unimportant but that they're pretty much required of all Christians.  But one stands apart that's not required of deacons or church members, able to teach (1 Tim 3:2, Titus 1:9?).  In the same way that an architect is called to design, a pastor is called to teach and a church planter must do it well and often.  That gifting in his life should be sufficient to generate a kind of gravitational pull on people that draws people in, that draws them to the Savior, that draws them to the Word of God.  That gift has to be there, and it has to be a strength.  We use this tool called the E5, and the first thing we look for is a quality of preaching, and it is based on different factors, does this preaching lead people to the Gospel?  Are people excited? Do guests want to come back? Is his message cohesive?
This doesn't mean that every guy gifted to preach is a church planter, but every guy who is going to plant a church must be gifted to preach.

Fit for the Lost
Paul said to Timothy, "Do the work of an evangelist."  It's assumed that every pastor must have a burden for the lost.  A church planter needs to be in and among the lost, not only himself but with his church.  It's not just about building the church community, it's about penetrating the local community.  One of the ways we know we have a church planter and not just a pastor is that he is going to bring a fundamental outward orientation.  He sees life beyond the congregation.
Pastors tend to want to strengthen the congregation, but a church planter will want to catalyze and mobilize, not just stand strong but to go forth as well.  It's not always going to come naturally, but it's got to come.  A church planter will understand that conversions will be an important part of what God has called him to.  The church will grow in part from conversions.  Their definition of success will include the question of who has been converted lately.  There's this sense in which the rigor of ministry insulates us.  I wake up next to my Christian wife.  I go to an office full of Christians where we talk about how to help other Christians be better Christians.  I sit in front of my Christian computer and send Christian emails.  Or I can do the work of an evangelist.  Church planters must feel called not just to the church but to the lost as well.

Fitted for Leadership
In the cluster of gifts for the church planter, there is that Romans 12:8 leadership. There is a grace upon his life that manifests itself.  Other leaders, other men of responsibility are drawn to him.  When other people talk about him, they talk about the impact that he has on them.  People are interested in his ideas, solutions or council.  A man gifted with leadership can define and inculturate vision.  He can delegate to others and not just create ministry that orbits around him.  I was talking to a guy recently who was talking about a church planter's ability to inspire faith in others, to take risks for God.
Church planting is a leadership intensive enterprise.  If you have an established leadership, a pastor's weaknesses can be supplemented, but most church planters don't have the luxury of a staff.  They've got a team, but they have to lead that team.

Those aren't the only things, but they are indispensible things.

In disappointments and discouragements, we're tempted to forget that God is God and that God is good. And it doesn't matter how long you've been teaching this to the people of God, you are still liable to not believing that.

In these times, we are tempted to succumb to idolatry because we are tempted to think there is a greater treasure that has been withheld or taken away from us, a greater treasure than what God has or can be given to us.

We want to live in 1 Kings 18, not 1 Kings 19. In 1 Kings 18 is where God demonstrates his power through Elijah. That's where you want to be in ministry. You don't want to be in 1 Kings 19, but you get there. It's a total textual shock. I"ve read it countless times, and I still get there.

What are your greatest losses in life? Your unsatisfied and unsatisfiable longings? Your hopes and treasures that you've never obtained or you've had taken away from you? Your greatest dreams?

We all have them. The question is, "What do we do with them?" Because how we respond there may be the most important thing we do in life.

I wonder what you've hoped for after you ask why and have no answer. Good things that you've longed for. Holy things that you've longed for. Right things that you've longed for. And you've never been given them.

I wonder if God has ever drawn close and held your greatest treasure up before your eyes and said, "You can't have it." And then done it again and said, "You still can't have it."

No one but Moses himself had this kind of ministry of power that Elijah had, and yet he knew what it was like to walk right up to the end of this life and have his hopes utterly dashed, to have his every dream lost, but he also can testify to you of the ruthless, compassionate, pursuing grace of God with which he relentlessly goes after his ministers for His everlasting glory and their joy.

Even people who believe in the soverignty of God can fail to believe that the Lord is God. Elijah has just been the facilitator of a spectacular display of the power of God on Mount Carmel. He has outrun a chariot, and a messenger arrives. And the messenger brings a message from the woman who has killed the prophets of the Lord in the Northern Kingdom, and she says, "You think I'm impressed by what you did yesterday, by the killing of my prophets, the prophets of Ba'al, the god who I worship? By this time tomorrow, you'll join them."

You're just not expecting Elijah's response. You expect him to tell the messenger, "You remember that fire from heaven thing I did yesterday? You tell her I'll be right here. Just who exactly is she bringing to me?" But that's not what happens. He is afraid and runs for his life. What's your name? "El-i-jah" My god is Yah.

This is where modern commentators psychoanalyze Elijah as manic-depressive. But that's missing the point of the text. Elijah is afraid. He has had his world fall down around him. This is not a craven fear. This is a craven fear. Because what did Elijah want? V. 10 - I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of Hosts... and I, even I, am only left. (Also in v.14.) Elijah longed for that encounter on Mount Carmel to bring about revival in Israel, and he thought God was going to do it there in spectacular fashion and in the very wake of that he gets a message saying you're going to be dead this time tomorrow, and he realizes that it's not going to happen the way he wanted.

Elijah cares more about his message than most of us. There's no way a man who did not care about his message to be disappointed like that. When it doesn't materialize, his world almost comes to an end.

You're faithfully ministering in the church, and you don't see the conversions like you want to. Or you're faithfully ministering in your church and you see the false prophets gathering their hundreds and thousands, and you have 65 people who can't get along. Or you have conversions and success, but you've been praying for 25 years for your son to know Jesus. Or you love Jesus and your wife loves Jesus, but you say to God, "I just wish you liked me."

I don't know what your discouragement is, but when it comes, you learn what you love, what you believe, where your treasure is, and what your ultimate satisfaction is. That's what happens with Elijah.

Even people who fight against idolatry can succumb to it. THe expression of Elijahs discouragment is this flight in fear. THe source of his discouragement, though is he forgot his name and he forgot his message. This is a theological crisis.

When God comes to Elijah at Horeb, first he comes in a whirlwind. This is an EF-6. The mountain is dissolving, but God is not in it. ANd then and earthquake and fire, but God is not in them. What is the picture? This is what Elijah wants, a spectacular ending of the worship of the Ba'als, but that is not God's plan. God did not purpose to answer the cries of Elijah's heart that He would operate spectacularly, with a yes. God is in the whisper.

God sends Elijah to Syria. This is going to happen through a Syrian, a pagan, and not through your ministry but the ministry of another, Elisha. It's almost like Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. God shows him the Promised Land but says you're not coming in.

When you hear that voice, you know it's from God. When you hear the voice that says, "You ought to have everything you want." That voice comes with a hiss.

One of my finest students I've ever taught in my 25 years, his son is born, the doctors call him in and say, "It's cystic fibrosis." When his son is six he says, "Daddy is something wrong with me? Am I sick?" And he has to sit down and tell his son, "Son, you're not going to live as long as other boys. And there's nothing I can do to help you. But your heavenly Father, God, has a purpose in this. And Jesus, your savior, only lived 33 years and accomplished more than anyone else." He wrote me a letter about this and talked about how his son loves the Scriptures and he wrote, "I'd rather have him born again than well."

God weans the affections of His people from everything except Himself, not their good desires, not their bad desires, nothing but Him.

God will not let you preach a message that you have not believed and experienced yourself. Here is God ruthlessly pursuing His servant into the wilderness because he wouldn't let His idolatry stand.

You say, "He just wanted God to be exalted." But he had a particular way he wanted that to be done.

When your Savior was sweating drops of blood in the garden and says, "Not my will but your will be done." Do you realize he's fighting idolatry there? And God loves Elijah too much not to bring that message home.

And you know what God does? He puts Elijah on the shelf. This is effectively the end of his ministry. He doesn't finish well.

And you say, "Lord, you are hard to your servants." When he comes up to Elijah in the wilderness, he says, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" That's supposed to be a rebuke. The Lord is not looking for information. He's saying, "How did you get from here to there? You forgot your name. You forgot your ministry."

Even in the wilderness when Elijah can't eat, God sends an angel to cook Elijah a hot breakfast and prod him into eating it. And when God comes to Elijah, he comes to display His glory. As far as we can tell, Elijah doesn't even come out until he hears the still, small whisper. And what does he do? He wraps his cloak around his face. God is saying, "I'm going to show you my glory," in a scene reminiscent of Moses, but Elijah doesn't want to see the glory of God. All he wants to do is die.

And then the Lord puts him on a shelf. This is it. This is the end of Elijah's ministry. He is sent on these errands, which as far as we know he never does until 2 Kings 2.

Even when it looks like God is being hard on His servants, you can be assured that his provision is staggeringly loving and good.

Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah's blessing. What's up with the whole, "If you see me when I depart..." thing.

Elijah goes up by a whirlwind into Heaven. You don't think God knew the greatest desire of Elijah's heart? You think He leaves His soldiers on the battlefield? A call goes out from Heaven, "You go down and bring him home, and you bring him home by fire and by whirlwind?"

And why does Elisha have to see that? Because he has to give testimony to the inspired author of 2 Kings.

And you think God doesn't care about his servants.

This is not the last time you see Elijah in the Bible. Turn with me to Luke 9.

Elijah would not go out and look on the Lord's glory, but one day a call goes out from God, "Elijah, I want you to go down on a mountain again."

And that's how God works. He gets at our most fundamental idolatry, and He ruthlessly crushes it and goes after our greatest treasures and leaves us with nothing but Himself so we go limping on in our lives so that we learn "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness." Don't underestimate his committment to His glory and your good. He is working for your joy and your good, even when you cannot perceive it and have ceased to ask for anything anymore.

I want to ask Elijah what the Lord said to him after his return to glory after his return from the Mount of Transfiguration, because there we see the Lord give him more than he could ask or think. When he thought that the Lord had taken away everything he had ever wanted. And I just want to ask him, "What was that conversation like.

That's the God you preach. That's the God we proclaim. DOn't think that He will use you as His servant and leave you to writhe in your disappointments, because he has a plan for your everlasting joy in your declaration of the Gospel that gives everlasting joy to all in the nations why by faith embrace him.

The Lord does not treat his servant's lives as cheap.

Pastors who believe that God is sovereign over all things will lead people to die for the sake of all peoples.

Local ministry and local mission are totally necessary. I'm not saying that we should neglect local ministry or missions.

Yet, global missions is tragically neglected.

What do I mean by this?

I was near Yemen recently. The northern part of Yemen has approximately 8 million people. Do you know how many believers there are among 8 million people? They estimate 20 or 30. There are more people in our average Sunday School class. They are part of nearly 2 billion people in our world today who are unreached.

Unreached is different than lost. Unreached means you are born, you will live, and you will die without ever having access to the Gospel.

Pastors have the priveledge and responsiblity to lead the way in global missions.

To the pastor belongs the priveledge and responsibility of the mission problem.

We love people in our local community to the end that one day all peoples throughout the world.

Revelation 5

4 Theological truths in this text:

1. Our sovereign God holds the destiny of the world in the palm of His hand.
   The scroll contains God's foreordained plan for our future, of the foreordination of believers and the condemnation of unbelievers.

   All things were created according to His will. Every star in the sky comes out at His call. There is not a speck of dust on this earth that exists apart from His will. He is soverign over the political rulers of this world. He is sovereign over you, and He is sovereign over me. American Christians, you don't have rights. God has rights.

   Yes, we bear responsibility. We make choices, but God is in control.

   If we're not careful, we'll start looking around at the lostness in the world and think God needs our help.

   When I was hiking through the mountains delivering literature to unreached people groups, I sat down for a few minutes to read Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy, and I had this thought: God must be glad to have me on His team. As I began to read, Tozer told me just how wrong that thought was.

   Brothers and sisters, let me remind us from the start, God does not need us in this room. God does not need our churches. God does not need T4G. God does not need our denominations and associations. Every one of us could drop dead, and God would still make a great name for himself.

2. The state of man before God apart from Christ is utterly hopeless.
   V. 2, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break it's seals?" And no one was able.

   George Whitfield used to speak with tears about people burning as a coal forever and ever, for millions of ages upon ages and realize they are no closer to the end than they were at the beginning.

   This is why John is weeping in this chapter.

   Every unreached person in this world has knowledge of God, even if they haven't heard the Gospel. Romans 1:18 teaches us this, but they have rejected God.

   The innocent unreached person would go to heaven, unquestionably, but there is no innocent unreached person.

   There are over two billion people in the world, at this moment, whose knowledge of God is only sufficient to damn them to hell. Forever.

   They know He exists. They've rejected Him. They deserve His wrath, and that's where the story ends for them. They exist apart from Christ, and they are utterly hopeless in that state.

3. The greatest news in all the world is that the slaughtered lamb of God reigns as the Lord of all.

   Thoughout history, since the beginning of time, men have come and men have gone, women have come and women have gone, and all of them, the noblest of them, the best of them, have succumbed to sin and death.

   But then came another man, unlike any other before or after him. This man did not fall prey to sin. This man did not succumb to sin. WHere o death is your victory? Where o death is your sting?

   He has come, and He has conquered. John turned around to see a roaring lion, and he saw a slaughtered lamb. The people of God were saved from the judgment of God under the blood of the Lamb at the passover. How would the lion conquer? By suffering as a lamb.

   He was marred, despised, rejected, afflicted, wounded, and pulverized in our place, and all who hide under his blood will be saved. And he has not only endured death in our place, he has defeated death.

   God doesn't share the spotlight with just anyone. God only shares the spotlight with himself.

   This is the greatest news in all the world, the greatest paradox in all the world: Salvation through sacrifice.

   There is hope for all peoples.

4. The atonement of Christ is graciously, gloriously, and globally particular.

   Ephesians 1: God has chosen you

   Before the foundations of the world, the Almighty set his sights on your soul and decided to send his son for you.

   We're talking about billions of people who are born, live, and die without hearing the Gospel, and you and I were given grace to be born in a place where we heard the Gospel, and we had nothing to do with that.

   And it's globally particular. Jesus died to purchase people from every toung and tribe and nation, from every people group.

   Matthew 28:19 is a specific command to make disciples among every people group in the world. If there are 6000 people groups that have not been reached, then we have missed the point of the atonement. Our commission is not just to make disciples but to make disciples of all the peoples, of all the nations. That's the point of the atonement. Particular atonement is driving global missions.

   Do we do it because of guilt? No. What drives passion for unreached peoples is not guilt, it is glory, glory for our king. What drives us to go is the believe that our King deserves praise from every people group. Can you see the beauty if every single ethnic group in the world joined around one throne.

   This is what we live for. And this is awhat we die for.

Four implications for pastors who believe in the sovereignty of God. Does divine sovereignty mean we sit back and do nothing? No.

1. Let us lead our churches to pray confidently for the spread of the Gospel to all peoples.
   God's sovereignty does not negate prayer. God's sovereignty necessitates prayer.
   God has sovereignly ordained the prayers of His people to bring about the coming of His kingdom, so pastors, let's teach our people to pray, "Your kingdom come."

   Show them how to pray for every nation in the world. And assure them as they pray that every one of their prayers is piling up at the altar of God and assure them that one day He will bring His kingdom.

   People ask, "How do you know?" How do you know we're asking the right questions? How do you know you're defining people groups right? No, I don't know. God alone knows the definition of terms. I cannot define what Gods means by people groups, but so long as Christ has not returned, our work is not done.

2. Let us lead our churches to give sacrificially.
   North American Christians give approximately 2.5% of their income to the local church, and local churches give approximately 2% of that amount to global missions. That means that for every $100 made by American Christians, approximately 5% goes to global missions.

   God has blessed us so that all the ends of the earth might glorify Him. God has given us wealth in the world so that his name may be glorified.

3. Let us lead our people to go.
   Are your people going to unreached people? Are you going to reach unreached people?
   Let us send people on short-term missions. There are stupid ways to do short-term missions, but there are good ways to do it as well.
   We sent a short-term missions team that partnered with an organization and helped bring the Gospel to an unreached people group.

   THen we have mid-term missions. We classify that from anywhere from two months to two years. We call it the Mormonization of the Church at Brook Hills.

   Then there are long-term people. There are people called to Paul type ministry and people called to Timothy type ministry. Are you leading the church to fast and pray? Are you listening to see if He's calling you to do that?

   The church sending out in a variety of ways, not just traditional missions, although we do that too, but people doing business as mission, teaching as mission.

   Are you leading the Church to go intentionally?

   Aren't there locals who can do it better? No, that's the point. In these peoples, there are no locals. They don't have local churches.

4. Let us lead our churches to die willingly for the spread of the Gospel to all people.

   Pastors who believe God is sovereign over all things, will lead people to die for the spread of the Gospel. People who are unreached are unreached for a reason: because it is hard to reach them.

   We know that nothing can happen to us outside of the sovereign will of God.

   Jesus suffered to provide the Gospel. We suffer to propgate the Gospel. That doesn't mean we seek suffering, but there will be suffering in the spread of the Gospel. Satan's attempts to stop the Church only served to spread the Church.

   Pastors, will we lead people in our churches to embrace suffering for the spread of the Gospel.