Weekly Links (5/10/2013)

The concept of substitution may be said  to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.

Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accept penalties which belong to man alone. (John Stott)

by Richard Shin

  • This is an extremely powerful video. A must see. Takes 5 minutes.
  • Do you know the difference between judging someone and discerning truth? Whether you do or not, take a looksee at Randy Alcorn’s post on this topic here.
  • Here’s a good post by Thabiti Anyabwile on how the older members brighten the future of the local church.
  • Here is a powerful letter a mother writes to President Obama on the topic of abortion.
  • Michael Patton responds to an anonymous letter asking about why God is “hidden”. I find the response highly biblical and enlightening.
  • Paul Tautges summarizes the last chapter of Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling by Dr. Laura Hendrickson on “The Complex Mind/Body Connection.” This short summary contains a lot of good information on the mind, body, and psychiatric medication.
  • Russell Moore pens an article on being a burden to your children and humility. Click here to read through.
  • Tim Brister writes on why we are a deeply needy people.

That’s it for now. Have a great weekend, everyone

Coram Deo

Lumos Saturday Seminars

by Cesar Vigil-Ruiz

What was your experience like in your high school youth group? Did you make a lot of friends? Or were you the shy type who only opened up in front of a small, select few? Did you enjoy your time with those in your youth group, or did you secretly dislike some people there? How was the teaching? Was the Bible central in what was being preached during Bible study, or did it seem more like a footnote to what your leader really wanted to talk about? What do you remember most about your youth group? How big it was? How small it was? How many friends you made?

These are some questions I never entertained during my high school years, since I never attended my church youth group. I was always put off by some of the students’ attitudes, and no one ever reached out to me. I was actually more comfortable hanging out with some of the senior citizens in my church, since they were very friendly, and they always had stories to tell about their lives. Friendships with my peers at school were what meant a lot to me, and I always knew where they stood (since I perceived Christians to be transparently hypocritical during that age, I reasoned non-Christians weren’t because of their transparent disgust for Christianity, which made me think they were more honest).

One of the regrets of my life was the fact that I had easily judged those who went to my home church and yet had no desire to serve my peers and develop an atmosphere of fellowship among them. It wasn’t until college that I realized I wasn’t a Christian that I had wasted so many opportunities to learn from those who served specifically in the youth ministry. There was a disconnect between what I was learning in school, and what I was interested in studying: apologetics. I wanted to learn how to defend the faith before I actually had faith!

Now that God has placed in my heart a desire to serve the youth, it has been a goal of mine to train our youth to be ambassadors at their respective schools. One of the ways this youth ministry has moved in that direction is to have Saturday Seminars. These times are dedicated to specific training in issues that these youth are already encountering or will encounter in the near future. If you read anything related to youth ministry, numbers are thrown out that ¾ or more of the youth who professed faith in Christ during middle and high school enter college and abandon the faith they once held. Though statistics are not our guide for determining our approach, we do see a need for those within our church to grow deeper in their knowledge of God, that it would withstand the storms that will come their way.

As an extension of fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), we want to foster a ministry conducive to discipleship, which includes the preaching of the Word of God. What these seminars are intended to accomplish is to set forth a biblical worldview that meets daily life, and is immediately applicable to the youth. A couple years back, I had the privilege of going through evangelism training that encompassed the message, the man, and the method of Gospel witnessing.

This year, our focus has been on building a Christian worldview, and areas our youth can apply their faith towards. I had the privilege of presenting first the building blocks of a biblical worldview, followed up by Lumos leader Josh Liu on applying it in the areas of modesty and purity. Seeing the many changes in culture that are sure to drastically affect the world the youth will be living in, we spent another seminar on the issue of abortion, and plan on spending time focusing on the nature and history of Scripture, since it is constantly under attack.

Though we understand these seminars will not be comprehensive in scope, we hope and pray that they will be a guide for them to begin studying more in-depth the issues that we see are important for them to understand. We live in a day of moral compromise and lack of fidelity to the truth of God’s Word, when models of courage and character are hard to find. We must be in the business of discipling and modelling of spiritual maturity for those younger in the faith. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to speak to our youth in areas that many involved in youth ministry have not deemed vital to address in the youth culture.

It is my conviction that the youth can understand more than the culture promotes. Our youth are living proof that they can listen to a 45-minute (many times, longer!) sermon, and can be challenged to live out their faith with prayer and encouragement. It is a joy and honor to play a small part in the work that God is doing in the hearts of our youth, and I pray you too can play a part in teaching the greatness of God to the next generation. What one pastor is known for saying is “Theology matters.” Theology matters extremely for the youth, since knowing who God is and who we are will radically affect the beliefs they will hold and color the many decisions they will make. Pray that our youth will be the next group of leaders in the church and will themselves be great models of godly living and bold witnessing!

Thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbour

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

From Matthew 5:43

‘Love thy neighbour.’ Perhaps he rolls in riches, and thou art poor, and living in thy little cot side-by-side with his lordly mansion; thou seest every day his estates, his fine linen, and his sumptuous banquets; God has given him these gifts, covet not his wealth, and think no hard thoughts concerning him. Be content with thine own lot, if thou canst not better it, but do not look upon thy neighbour, and wish that he were as thyself. Love him, and then thou wilt not envy him.

Mayhap, on the other hand, thou art rich, and near thee reside the poor. Do not scorn to call them neighbour. Own that thou art bound to love them. The world calls them thy inferiors. In what are they inferior? They are far more thine equals than thine inferiors, for ‘God hath made of one blood all people that dwell upon the face of the earth.’ It is thy coat which is better than theirs, but thou art by no means better than they. They are men, and what art thou more than that? Take heed that thou love thy neighbour even though he be in rags, or sunken in the depths of poverty.

But, perhaps, you say, ‘I cannot love my neighbours, because for all I do they return ingratitude and contempt.’ So much the more room for the heroism of love. Wouldst thou be a feather-bed warrior, instead of bearing the rough fight of love? He who dares the most, shall win the most; and if rough be thy path of love, tread it boldly, still loving thy neighbours through thick and thin. Heap coals of fire on their heads, and if they be hard to please, seek not to please them, but to please thy Master; and remember if they spurn thy love, thy Master hath not spurned it, and thy deed is as acceptable to Him as if it had been acceptable to them. Love thy neighbour, for in so doing thou art following the footsteps of Christ.

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Weekly Links (5/3/2013)

“Redemption doesn’t make us more emotional (as some charismatics might suppose) or less so (as many Reformed would prefer), anymore than it makes us more or less intellectual. What redemption does to the intellect is to consecrate that intellect to God, whether the I.Q. is high or low. Similarly, the important thing is not whether you are highly emotional or not; the important thing is that whatever emotional capacities you have should be placed in God’s hands to be used according to His purposes.” (John M. Frame, Doctrine of the Knowledge of God)

by Stephen Rodgers

It’s the first Friday of the month…and that means I’ve been loading my article gun for a whole month. Enjoy!

RESOURCES

NEWS

  • If you haven’t heard about the Jason Collins / Chris Broussard story this week, you should check out Denny Burk’s coverage.  And then cruise on over to Triablogue for two very smart insights on our culture and its lack of logic.
  • Have you tried Stoogle yet?

See you Sunday!

Sparklers as a Place for Staff to Grow

by Hanka Rodgers

The more I thought about this article, the more I was convinced that God gives me the desire to serve – generally, but also specifically in Sparklers – to teach me and help me grow, rather than because people really need me to serve them.

I feel like sometimes we focus so much on the fact that we serve in our ministries that we fail to notice how much we can learn and grow in them. Honestly, if you go on a mission trip to the Czech Republic or Argentina and you come back talking only about how much you helped them, I am not sure you really understood what you were doing. The same is true for ministries at church – we do serve to serve (and ultimately to glorify God), but at the same time, God is so gracious that He helps us benefit from our ministries as well, and we would be foolish if we didn’t see it. Sometimes I am not sure if He puts me in a ministry because He wants me to serve the other person, or because He wants the ministry to serve me.

Serving the body of Christ and people who don’t know Jesus is a privilege. Philippians 2:13 says that He works in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure – even the fact that we want to serve is only by God’s grace. Without His changing our hearts to grow the desire to serve, we would never want to serve Him or other people. Serving in Sparklers is a privilege, and that is what I would like to focus on here.

To be honest, as much as we sometimes love talking about “planting seeds” in children’s ministry, the reality is that we don’t always see much fruit. If you ask a random Sparkler what they learned the past Sunday in Sunday school, most of them will say, “I don’t know.” Or they will say they learned that Jesus had long hair. Or something equally important and spiritually enriching. It is ok. God doesn’t tell us to only do ministries that “bear much fruit”. He tells us, however, that if we stay in Him, we’ll bear much fruit (John 15:5) and that’s the kind of fruit we can see if we look at our ministries from a different perspective than the “I am serving them so much” perspective.

One of the privileges we have as staff on Sparklers is teaching. I am not planning on fighting for women’s rights to preach more at church (I did go through that stage in my early Christian life, but I promise it’s over), but I am very thankful that Sparklers are also taught by women. Not because I love preaching to people and telling them what they should do (even though I kinda like telling people what they should do), but because of the studying and the listening part. Don’t get me wrong, I am not that dumb. I know I could be studying the Bible for hours, even without teaching at Sparklers. But I am a sinner. And in my sinner’s life, really deep study of the Bible moves up the to-do list much faster when I have a lesson to teach, or a Bible study to prepare for. And you know what’s best? When you start studying for one lesson and the lesson gets changed the week before you teach. That is God’s grace. From certain perspective.

It is not just the studying though, but also the actual lesson. Every Sunday morning we all meet before the service to listen to the person who is teaching that day. Everybody always first teaches the lesson in front of all the staffers, so that we can criticize – excuse me, encourage – him or her and share some comments. Seriously though, it is one of the times I am very thankful for. There have been lessons that made me thankful for the truth of the gospel more than “adult” sermons. I myself just taught a lesson on Acts 5, where God sends an angel to let the apostles, who were thrown in jail for preaching the gospel, out of prison. I talked about God’s amazing power and the amazing power of the Holy Spirit who can do great things through us – not because we are so good, but because He is so powerful. It was the Holy Spirit who gave the apostles words, courage, and wisdom to teach God’s Word, and I have the same Holy Spirit as they did. That is quite encouraging to know when you mess up the “morning teaching training” in front of the adults, and you feel like those kids won’t learn anything from you that day.

Another great advantage of serving in Sparklers is that children are so honest. We should all do our best to show everybody around us how great God is, and be good examples. However, with adults we sometimes get away with things. Adults won’t ask their parents what was Mr. This-and-That doing with his phone (that had the word “Facebook” on the screen) while pastor Patrick was preaching. You also won’t see adults innocently copy some of your sinful behavior or calling you out on it when you do something wrong.

We don’t get to only listen to the kids tell us things, but we should also listen to us talking to the kids. In some way we are getting used to telling kids all the time they are sinners. Whenever they disobey, we try to show them that in disobeying us, they disobeyed God. And we try to help them understand that they disobey because they are selfish sinners. But do WE understand what great sinners we are? Do we try to find the “heart issue” behind our disobedience, or do we only care about “heart” when children are involved? When children get in conflict, we always tell them to talk to the other child first and if it doesn’t work, we help them resolve it. How do we resolve our conflicts though? Do we go to the person first, or do we talk to everybody else? If you are in children’s ministry dealing with quite honest sinners all the time, you can’t avoid examining yourself from time to time concerning some really important issues.

Last, but not least, if you serve in Sparklers, it takes about two weeks for you to discover R.C. Sproul’s book The Poison Cup. For some reason, some of the kids love the book and want us to read it all the time. I’ve read the first half of the book much more often than the second half, but I don’t mind. I can never be reminded too much of how evil we were before God saved us, and what a great price He had to pay to do it.

These are just a few lessons you learn if you serve on Sparklers staff. There are definitely more, but I think you got the idea. If you really want to learn and grow, come serve in Sparklers. Or any other ministry.

Time and Functional Atheism

by Richard Shin

I have no idea who came up with the term “functional atheism.” It’s a catchy phrase: those who claim to be theistic—Christian—function like an atheist, one who does not believe in the existence of God. Atheism can take on many forms, but at the center of it, it’s a rejection of the God of creation. Even with the insurmountable evidence around him, the atheist chooses to ignore such evidence and live his life without acknowledging his Creator. And the one who claims to be Christian functions like an atheist when he lives his life saying he believes in his Lord and Savior, yet his life does not show for it. He’s the type that Jesus will reject at the end of days, like it says in Matthew 7:21-23.

The idea itself is certainly not new: Paul himself addresses Timothy’s church in Ephesus that “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). He categorically dismisses the idea that the head of a household who does not provide the physical means for his family to live, can call himself a Christian. That “Christian” is a functional atheist. There are, of course, rare exceptions that would preclude one from falling in this category, but the guideline generally applies to every Christian man. Another example can be derived from 1 Thess. 4:3-5. Paul here exhorts the Thessalonians to keep their bodies pure from sexual immorality. In doing so, he likens people who do not control their own bodies to the Gentiles who don’t know God, thereby giving in to the passion of lust. The “Christian” who does not learn to control his own body is a functional atheist.

Now let’s switch gears and talk about time for a bit. Without getting too philosophical about it, time is a creation of God. Genesis 1:1 says that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” which means that God is transcendent, outside the bounds of this physical universe including the passage of time. Second Peter 3:8 also shares that God sees time differently than we do; whereas for us, one day is one day, not a thousand years. Psalm 90:4 is another example. I don’t understand how it all works, but I’m not one to question what seems absolutely clear in the Bible: God is the creator of time, and He is not bound by it like we are.

So, how do we as Christians understand time? In all things, our perspective changes as we grow in our understanding of God’s Word. How we view time is the same. First of all, we begin with the fact that we are God’s creation. He created us in His image. But due to our sinful nature, we became a dead people, both physical and spiritual. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for us—the elect—and give us life. And because God purchased our life through His blood, we no longer live for ourselves, but for God (which is what we should have been doing in the first place). So the time we now spend isn’t solely for ourselves, but primarily for God. First Corinthians 10:31 is clear in that we must glorify God even in the mundane, everyday things, such as eating (although if you ask me, eating is oftentimes quite exhilarating). The glorification of God is to be our primary focus. The Paul who wrote Ephesians 2:8-9 also wrote verse 10: “by grace [we] have been saved through faith… are his workmanship… created for good works.”

And this is where the gap between time and functional atheism is bridged. Simply put: if we don’t spend our time to glorify God, we are functional atheists. This means that the way in which we spend our time says a lot about our position before God. Needless to say, many Christians live like functional atheists; we don’t spend our time with an understanding that our time is not our own. Every waking moment of our lives—from birth to death—is an expression of God’s holy mercy because of His holding back wrath from us the sinners (We are still alive, yes? We know unbelievers still alive, yes?). And to some, He grants pardon and a growing desire to glorify His good name. And yet we who are called to be his ambassadors muck it up by spending that time for ourselves alone. We, in effect, become functional atheists.

I don’t mean to say that how we spend our time has a one-to-one correlation with how much we are glorifying God. Despite our best efforts, many of us sleep and work for a half to two-thirds of our time. Sleep is a necessary component to our daily living, and, well, we read what Paul said above about work. However, there is a point in which either of these activities can become idols. The time spent doing certain activities can be an indicator of where our hearts are. For instance, for me, I can function a full day with around seven hours of sleep. The day I start sleeping ten hours regularly is the day I should be called a sluggard (Prov. 6:9; 13:4) and find myself needing a good kick in the behind.

Nor am I saying that the activity in itself is always clear-cut as well. However, there are certainly some that are more profitable for us than others (1 Cor. 6:12). At the end of the day, we are accountable to God for how we spend our time. We will account for the works in which we performed for (or against) God before the Judgment Seat of Christ. And my concern in this article is for those whom God will not see any evidence of saving faith because they do not consider time to be a gift from God to be used for Him. It will show at the end of days whether their time was spent only for themselves or for God.

Our understanding of who we are as Christians should motivate us to spend our time wisely. We were created for the purpose of glorifying Him, and even though we are sinful and have fleshly desires, that mandate has not changed: we as redeemed people are to still glorify God. In fact, our entire bodies are to be living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1). Yet, too many of us live functionally atheistic lives by spending time doing activities that have no redeeming value or omitting those that do.

How do you spend your time? When you look at what you do, can you confidently say to yourself and to God that you spent it seeking to glorify Him? If not, this is a good opportunity to take a step back and reassess your priorities.

Thou Shalt Be Called, Sought Out

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

From Isaiah 62:12

The surpassing grace of God is seen very clearly in that we were not only sought, but sought out. Men seek for a thing which is lost upon the floor of the house, but in such a case there is only seeking, not seeking out. The loss is more perplexing and the search more persevering when a thing is sought out. We were mingled with the mire: we were as when some precious piece of gold falls into the sewer, and men gather out and carefully inspect a mass of abominable filth, and continue to stir and rake, and search among the heap until the treasure is found. Or, to use another figure, we were lost in a labyrinth; we wandered hither and thither, and when mercy came after us with the gospel, it did not find us at the first coming, it had to search for us and seek us out; for we as lost sheep were so desperately lost, and had wandered into such a strange country, that it did not seem possible that even the Good Shepherd should track our devious roamings. Glory be to unconquerable grace, we were sought out! No gloom could hide us, no filthiness could conceal us, we were found and brought home. Glory be to infinite love, God the Holy Spirit restored us!

The lives of some of God’s people, if they could be written would fill us with holy astonishment. Strange and marvellous are the ways which God used in their case to find His own. Blessed be His name, He never relinquishes the search until the chosen are sought out effectually. They are not a people sought to-day and cast away to-morrow. Almightiness and wisdom combined will make no failures, they shall be called, ‘Sought out!’ That any should be sought out is matchless grace, but that we should be sought out is grace beyond degree! We can find no reason for it but God’s own sovereign love, and can only lift up our heart in wonder, and praise the Lord that this night we wear the name of ‘Sought out.’

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Weekly Links (4/26/2013)

From the first sin in the garden of Eden to the final judgment of the great white throne, human beings will continue to embrace the love of God as the gift of everything but Himself. Indeed there are ten thousand gifts that flow from the love of God.

The gospel of Christ proclaims the news that He has purchased by His death ten thousand blessings for His bride. But none of these gifts will lead to final joy if they have not first led to God. And not one gospel blessing will be enjoyed by anyone for whom the gospel’s greatest gift was not the Lord Himself. (John Piper)

by Richard Shin

  • I’m not a big fan of rap (I can barely understand slower songs, let alone conversations), but this open letter to Paula White Ministries by Shai Linne is quite good.
  • In case you haven’t heard, there’s an ongoing trial revolving around abortion practices of Kermit Gosnell. He is facing a number of charges, including murder. You can find why may not have heard about it here. Trevin Wax imagines how Planned Parenthood would respond to such practices here. Russell Moore comments on it here. Stephen Altrogge considers how to pray for such a man here.
  • Apologetics315 links us to an interview Michael J. Kruger did on the canon of Scripture, talking about his book Canon Revisited. He also has a new book coming out in November on why the New Testament exists at all. You can find an introduction here.
  • Kevin DeYoung shares a set of advices for raising godly children from John Witherspoon. You can find them here.
  • Do you know what the Holy Trinity is? What’s the “essence” of each person in the Trinity?  Here‘s a short primer and some resources you can use.
  • How does one grow in holiness without reeking of the “holier than thou” mentality? By actually becoming holy.
  • I came across this set of videos through Challies on frontline missions work. I plan on buying the full set as soon as I’m done with this article, so let me know if you want to watch any of them. Maybe we can have a movie night or something.

Hope you enjoyed them. Have a great weekend, y’all!

Coram Deo

A Heritage From The Lord

by Pastor Patrick Cho

The term “heritage” is not used much in our day, but this is the word employed by the Psalmist to describe God’s gift of children to parents. A heritage is equivalent to an inheritance or legacy. It is something passed down from one generation to the next, intended to be a blessing. In Psalm 127, however, children are not a gift from the previous generation, but from the Lord. Indeed the Psalmist says that the “fruit of the womb [is] a reward.”

This passage comes in the context of a Psalm dedicated to the raising up of families. It is one of two Psalms attributed to Solomon, the wisest man to ever walk on earth (excepting Jesus). Solomon recognizes, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (v. 1). In other words, we are not in control when it comes to family planning and bearing children. Children are a gift and blessing from the Lord. He exercises His sovereignty and grace to give or withhold children. Because of these truths, Solomon confesses that the one whose family is filled with numerous children is considered blessed (vv. 4-5). A couple’s children help provide strength to the home and fill their parents’ hearts with joy and pride.

It is no surprise that the prevailing attitude towards children today (sadly even in the church!) is completely antithetical to the principles of this passage in God’s Word. Children are often considered a chore, nuisance, and inconvenience. Parents are sometimes resentful about the things they have had to sacrifice in order to raise their children. In order to pursue personal ambition with their careers, many parents have surrendered the responsibility of raising their children to grandparents, daycares, and nannies. Many couples put off having children so they can pursue personal pleasures and freedoms like traveling and other hobbies.

The great heart issue that needs to be addressed is whether we believe the Scriptures and trust that children are a gift according to God’s goodness and grace. Instead of cultivating worldly and even sinful attitudes towards children, we ought to promote parenthood and be thankful for God’s grace to us. Many godly couples come to find that they are unable to have children, though they intensely desire it. For whatever reason in the plan of God, He has withheld this blessing from them (perhaps to bless them by some other means).

If God has blessed you with children, it is important to develop a biblical understanding of your role as a parent and to view your children as God views them – a gift of His grace. We need to guard ourselves from having a worldly attitude and think God’s way. For the sake of our children, let us consider ourselves tremendously blessed by God because of the precious heritage he has passed on to us. Parents serve as stewards of God’s gift and our children are entrusted to our care so that we can raise them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

Sin…Exceeding Sinful

by Charles Haddon Spurgeon

From Romans 7:13

Beware of light thoughts of sin. At the time of conversion, the conscience is so tender, that we are afraid of the slightest sin. Young converts have a holy timidity, a godly fear lest they should offend against God. But alas! very soon the fine bloom upon these first ripe fruits is removed by the rough handling of the surrounding world: the sensitive plant of young piety turns into a willow in after life, too pliant, too easily yielding. It is sadly true, that even a Christian may grow by degrees so callous, that the sin which once startled him does not alarm him in the least. By degrees men get familiar with sin. The ear in which the cannon has been booming will not notice slight sounds. At first a little sin startles us; but soon we say, ‘Is it not a little one?’ Then there comes another, larger, and then another, until by degrees we begin to regard sin as but a little ill; and then follows an unholy presumption: ‘We have not fallen into open sin. True, we tripped a little, but we stood upright in the main. We may have uttered one unholy word, but as for the most of our conversation, it has been consistent.’ So we palliate sin; we throw a cloak over it; we call it by dainty names.

Christian, beware how thou thinkest lightly of sin. Take heed lest thou fall by little and little. Sin, a little thing? Is it not a poison? Who knows its deadliness? Sin, a little thing? Do not the little foxes spoil the grapes? Doth not the tiny coral insect build a rock which wrecks a navy? Do not little strokes fell lofty oaks? Will not continual droppings wear away stones? Sin, a little thing? It girded the Redeemer’s head with thorns, and pierced His heart! It made Him suffer anguish, bitterness, and woe. Could you weigh the least sin in the scales of eternity, you would fly from it as from a serpent, and abhor the least appearance of evil. Look upon all sin as that which crucified the Saviour, and you will see it to be ‘exceeding sinful.’

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