A Theology of Sleep

Few men are known for the preaching of God's Word. Pastors are often characterized as good men, faithful at visits, great administrator's, or visionary in leadership. But few men reach the heights as great preachers. John MacArthur is one of the few who can be labeled as a great preacher! Although we do not agree at every point in our theology, MacArthur is a role model to me in faithful exposition over the course of an entire ministry. God has blessed us with the opportunity to watch as He builds His Church through the faithful preaching of the Word at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California (Los Angeles). At T4G 2010, MacArthur preached a convicting and encouraging sermon based on Mark 4. I will give the outline with my comments in italics. The sermon can be downloaded at www.t4g.org. It goes without saying that you would benefit from listening to the sermon in its entirety. Here is a synopsis:

The Theology of Sleep
Mark 4

John MacArthur says, "My belief in the sovereignty of God is what makes me able to sleep. I travel all over the world, sleep in hotels, and I always sleep well. I do not sleep much but I do sleep well." This quote brought his introduction to a close. He spent most of the intro arguing that if the men who held to this neo-finneyist pelagianism (he made that up on the spot to describe the hyper free will people of our day) truly believed their theology, they would never be able to sleep. If you believe that your work is decisive in the process of salvation, and that every person is ultimately free to choose or not choose God's salvation, then why would you ever do anything besides preach and evangelize the lost? We must work to get the gospel to all men, but our confidence in the sovereignty of God allows us to trust him with the evangelistic ministry!

Mark 4 is the Magna Carta of Evangelism! You sow the gospel, go to sleep, and the gospel grows. We do not understand it. We simply have faith in God! (verses 26-29) One of the best insights in this section was in verse 28. MacArthur pointed out that the words "by itself" in the text mean that the seeds of the gospel grow "automatically." It is the Divine Automatic that causes the gospel to grow!!!

1. We need to live in humility (1-20)
   
2. We are obedient because we know we poses the light (21-25).
3. We go diligently to spread the Word (24-25).
4. We are confident because of our faith in God's faithfulness (30-32)

The overall encouragement of this sermon was to trust the sovereignty of God in evangelism. MacArthur says, "We are not the cause of conversion but we are the means. Success is measured not by the number of converts won but by the number of sees sown! Their is a biblical principle at work in evangelism. 'He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will reap bountifully.' Our eternal reward is measured not by the number of people who are saved through our evangelism but rather on how faithful we were to evangelize!" Thank you God that we can sow the seed and sleep because you are sovereign over all things! Talk to you soon... CW

Culture: What is it?

There are people who rise to the top of the conference circuit with meteoric success, and Thabiti Anyabwile is one of those people! He is a young, energetic, passionate, pastor/theologian who engages the audience with his obvious sense of the weightiness of Scripture. I was impressed with his confidence in light of the men he would share the stage with at this conference. Anyone would be easily intimidated with a panel of the greatest preachers of our generation, but Thabiti spoke with clear and unshakable confidence because of his obvious confidence in the Word of God. The subject of his talk was intriguing to me. "Culture" is one of those buzz words in evangelical circles today. Everyone knows that culture exists, but none of us seems to understand how it changes or even if changing the culture is preferable. Thabiti used this opportunity to challenge pastors and Christian men to engage the church not the culture! Culture is slippery and ever changing. Although it is tempting to turn our focus to the culture, the Bible is clear that our influence in the culture should be faithful presence as true believers. We are not to crusade against or for the culture. We are to crusade for the gospel of Jesus Christ! The following is the outline to the sermon. Again, I would challenge each of you to take the time to listen to Thabiti's sermon at www.t4g.org.

Paul's Pastoral Purpose: Colossians 1:24-2:5

• Paul's over arching design and purpose was to preach, teach, and disciple every member of the church so that they might be presented mature and spotless to Christ
• Before we engage the culture we need to see the beauty of the purpose of pastoring.
• There is great danger in making "plausible" arguments. We must always be aware of the danger of drifting away from the mission of the church. There may be many "good" things but there is only one "great" purpose for the church. We must live to present the truth of the gospel!!
• We must be ruthless in our commitment to the Word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the foundation and power of ministry.
• Thabiti reminded us that Paul had the culturally relevant topic of slavery during his work as a pastor. Paul did not ignore the issue. He engaged the church with the issue. Paul proclaimed that slavery is contrary to the gospel, and because slavery is contrary to the gospel, Paul pushed to the logical and radical conclusion that slavery should not be named among the people of the church! He did not engage the culture, but he did engage the church with the radical implications of the gospel. This is our place in the shaping of culture. Live the gospel while we preach the gospel so that the world may see the power of the gospel.

Paul's Pastoral Philosophy: Colossians 2:6-14

• We must teach the church to walk in Christ (6)
• We must be captive to Christ (8)
• We must teach the people of the church to live and act in the gospel (9-14). This means we must emphasize a high Christology (9) and we must teach them the promise and benefits of the gospel (10-14).
• Paul sees the danger in verse 8 that the people will be caught in worldly philosophy. We must remember that Christ cannot be blended with the culture. Christ is the antithesis of the worldly culture and its worldly philosophy.

Paul's Pastoral Practice: Colossians 2:16-23

• Warning #1 - Do not let others judge you based on the standards of "religion" (16).
• Warning #2 - Do not let anyone disqualify you based on asceticism (18).
• This was the highlight of the talk!!! We must push people to shed ethnic cultural skin. We must push people to put on the skin of the gospel culture. Even the culture of the Jews in Israel was a shadow but Christ is the substance.
• When we say church, we must think multi-ethnic but mono culture, Gospel Culture!!!

Paul's Pastoral Perspective: Colossians 3:1-4

• The only way to be any earthly good is to be heavenly minded.
• Other worldly perspective makes us strive toward Christ likeness!
• Christ must be our focus that will make us truly effective.

The highlight of this sermon was Thabiti's challenge to make sure the church remains multi-ethnic but not multi-cultural. We are all under the culture of the gospel. That is why Paul writes in Galatians 3:27-29, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise." We are the culture of Christ which gives us the position to bring true and eternal change to the culture of this world by the power of the unadjusted gospel! Talk to you soon... CW

Trajectories Toward an Adjusted Gospel

"Adjusted gospels are disasters. There have been many so called gospels from the beginning." Dr. Albert Mohler was clear in his description of the danger that we all face when we "adjust" the gospel for the ears of our audience. Galatians 1:6-9 says, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." Timothy was charged by Paul in 2 Timothy 1:8-14 to guard the gospel, and we will also do well to heed the words of Jude in verse 3 when he writes, "Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints." From the beginning of the apostolic era the gospel has been under steady and viscous attack. And the attack has been most successful when it is from within. Dr. Mohler took the time to give us "Eight Trajectories toward an Adjusted Gospel." I want to simply run through these with very few comments. It is easy to see that we are all faced with the challenge of avoiding these pitfalls. We can fall into these traps without even realizing our dilemma. May we all avoid any false gospel for the sake of the church and our own souls!

1. Modern Trajectory: Rudolph Bultmann said that we cannot live in the world of modern electricity and hold onto the belief in the supernatural. Modernist have tried to demythologize the Bible.
2. Post-Modern Trajectory: Modernity is like a universal acid. Once you have removed the supernatural from your conscience there is no stopping place. Modernity lead us into the loss of the objective truth standard. We now struggle to have a gospel of relativism.
3. Moral Trajectory: In this error people are led to believe that the world must be fair. Christianity is not acceptable because it is not fair. Dr. Mohler concluded this point by saying, "Perfect is infinitely superior to fair!"
4. Aesthetic Trajectory: This belief leads to the rejection of the true gospel because the Bible is not beautiful when judged by human standards. We should never forget that beauty must be determined not by my standard or your standard but by the biblical standard. Beauty does prove the existence of God, but only when we look to the Bible as the author of beauty.
   
5. Therapeutic Trajectory: This false gospel teaches us that sin is a syndrome. We all need therapy so that we can cope with our disease and live at peace. The problem hear is that sin is treated as sickness not death. The true gospel teaches us that we are dead in our sins. We do not need therapy. We need to be regenerated by the work of the Holy Spirit.
6. Pragmatic Trajectory: This direction leads to management philosophy, marketing, and the belief that if what we are doing draws a big enough crowd then it must be right. Dr. Mohler summed up his critique of this false gospel by saying, "Pragmatic Gospel Philosophy produces crowds that are not churches and results that are not regeneration!"
7. Emotional Trajectory: The emotionally driven gospel will avoid all truth that feels bad and run to the half truths that feel good. The only way to avoid this trap is to let the truth of God's Word drive emotions. We cannot drive emotions to find truth.
8. Materialist Trajectory: As we have all seen in the last few months, the Prosperity Gospel not only destroys the spiritual life of the church, but it leaves the church physically bankrupt. The emphasis of the physical nature over the spiritual nature causes people to lose sight of Christ as their one treasure. This gospel is rampant and is sending millions to hell because of false faith.

Although we grow weary in the fight against these doctrinal impurities, we must continue the fight! The Holy Spirit alone can make the gospel credible. Let us commit ourselves to the true gospel and trust Him for the outcome! Thank you Dr. Mohler for your clear vision of the dangers that surround us as we preach the gospel once for all delivered to the saints. May we continue to live and preach the only true gospel, The Gospel of Jesus Christ! Talk to you soon... CW

Messing with Mr. In-Between!

To call Dr. R. C. Sproul a theological giant is an understatement. God has been kind in the history of the church to dot the landscape with men of serious mental acumen. R. C. Sproul is one of those dots. We might say he is a peak in the mountain range of church history. He soars above his colleagues, pointing us to the person and work of Jesus Christ. I dare say, as others have said, he is the "Martin Luther of the Modern Age!"

Having said all of this, I must admit that at times he soars above us common pilgrims. As the aged theologian spoke with passion and tremendous energy, he left many of the attendees of Together for the Gospel 2010 sitting in a mental stupor. We could not grasp every thing that he said because our small brains were overwhelmed. But do not misunderstand. This is not his fault. This is a challenge for all of us to think deeper, meditate longer, and study to show ourselves approved.

Dr. Sproul spoke on "The Defense and Confirmation of the Gospel - What I have Learned in 50 Years." Sproul listed the greatest danger for the evangelical church as a desire to synchrotize the gospel with other forms of religion. He warned against the loss of thesis/antithesis in modern theological discussion. Sproul is well aware of the dangers of Neo-Orthodoxy, Liberation Theology, Death of God Theology, Process Theology, and the latest attempt at synthesis, Open Theism. The danger for most is the failure to understand the dangers that are lying at the door. We drink from the wells of bad theology because we do not sit and ponder the source and the outcome of the belief we are espousing. Sproul leveled the argument of those who worked just a few years ago under the title Evangelicals and Catholics Together. He posed the question, "Has Rome accepted the Solas of the Reformation? Is there now a readiness on all parts to except the biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone? If they have not, then how can Evangelicals and Catholics ever truly come together. We must not mess with Mr. In-Between!"

Dr. Sproul concluded his talk by saying that the second great danger for evangelicals is the desire to improve the gospel. His grasp of the issues that face the church was clear, and his challenge to pastors and churchmen alike was pointed. He urged, "The greatest challenge to every minister is fidelity to the Gospel!" Sproul pleaded with us all to hold on to the gospel that was delivered to us by the apostles in the pages of Holy Writ! "Because it is not your gospel, it is God's gospel. You cannot improve His gospel!"

Thank you God for the dot on the landscape, the mountain peak in the mountain range, R. C. Sproul. We may not be able to soar as high as him or ascend to greatness as effortlessly as he does, but when we sit at his feet and learn, we are pulled upward into the vision of Christ that he presents! May we all live, think, and preach the unadjusted, unimproved gospel of God! Talk to you soon... CW.

The Church is the Gospel Made Visible

Mark Dever had the pleasure of getting the T4G 2010 conference off to a start. My first observation is that Dr. Dever has lost serious weight since I last saw him (30 to 40 pounds). He looks great, and he is his normal straight forward, convicting self! After seeing the title of his talk, I knew that as a young pastor it was going to be a challenging 90 minutes.

His first two questions set the table: How does Grace Fellowship make the gospel visible? Would it be better for the evangelization of our community if Grace Fellowship did not exist?

Those are not the questions you here at your typical conference. Most people are trying to promote their big idea on church growth at a conference. Mark is challenging 7,000 people to seriously consider if their local congregation displays the gospel, and he goes on to have us question if our church should exist as a part of the transformation movement in the community. Typical of Dever, things got better from that point. By better I mean more convicting!!

"A healthy congregation displays the proclamation of the gospel in living color - the church is created by the gospel, and then the church exists to reflect the gospel" He explained with precise detail the process of reflecting the gospel by doing the following things well:

1. We reflect the gospel by displaying and proclaiming the character of God. Specifically we are to make known the holiness, love, and authority of God.
2. We reflect the gospel by truthful analysis and insightful teaching on the nature of human beings. All humans are created in the image of God, but all humans are totally depraved. Mark did a great job of emphasizing the necessity of humility, confession and the need to keep the church gathering from becoming a gathering of self-righteous people rather than gospel transformed followers of Christ.
3. We reflect the gospel by holding out the beautiful Savior! Under this point Dever stressed that the unity of a church congregation should be Christ and Christ Alone. If our churches are nothing but homogeneous gatherings, then the world we see little difference between us and a social club! Christ unites us by his grace, and this should challenge us to reach beyond all man made boundaries of race, social, economic, etc. Though Dever is strongly Southern Baptist by denomination, he challenged everyone to move beyond denominational boundaries to come together for the gospel!
4. We reflect the gospel by responding rightly to the gospel. Repentance and Faith! We should be a group of people who live in daily repentance, God's grace, and full faith in Jesus Christ. Dever said, "The local church is a group of people acting on what they cannot see with their physical eyes. The church is people acting on what they see with eyes of faith!"

To answer the questions from earlier. I believe that Grace Fellowship by the grace of God does display the gospel. We are not perfect but we are on a gospel trajectory. I do believe that we can and are able to be part of God's awesome work in transforming the community by His Gospel!!
Talk to you soon....CW

T4G Conference Review!

I was unable to review the conference while in Louisville because of technical difficulty. The entire conference is available on the T4G website for those who are able to listen or watch, but over the next few posts I would like to review each session with you. First, the conference was amazing! I have been to many conferences all over the nation, and this was by far the best conference I have ever attended. I do not know where you will be during April of 2012 but I will spend one week at T4G without a doubt. Second, the conference was challenging! Each day I left the sessions with a new thought, application, or point of repentance. God worked in my life through the preachers who poured out their heart to teach us the Word. There will be eternal fruit from this past week. Third, the conference was encouraging! When you spend day after day in a little out post of the Kingdom in Anniston, Alabama, you tend to think that you are all alone. This conference reconfirmed the movement that God has started in the hearts and minds of people all over this nation and around the world. T4G sold out over one month in advance, and there were 7,000 people at the conference with many more wanting to attend. The Spirit of God is blowing across our land. Finally, the conference was edifying! At each session we began by singing to our Lord. I have never heard the sound of 7,000 men singing from the depth of their heart. If you have not had this experience, then you need to sign up for 2012 ASAP. Often people think of the Reformed tradition as dead and stodgy. I was blown away by the passion in the room. The words of the songs were incredible, the voices were staggering, and the freedom was unparalleled. Over the next eight post I will be reviewing each session. I will only hit the high points from each talk. You can get the entire talk at www.t4g.org. You will not regret the time spent listening and learning and worshiping. Talk to you soon...CW

P.S. - I must mention that the conference was a book lovers dream. They gave us 20 free books, and had a tremendous collection of books in the bookstore. I will have plenty to chew on over the next two years while we await another great week in Louisville, KY!

T4G!

This week is a week I have waited for almost 1 year! I will be blogging for the next week (beginning Tuesday)from the conference. I will be giving a round up of the days events each night. The main event is beginning!!!!! Talk to you soon....CW