Own Your Desperation

Don’t be fooled by the world’s paradigm for leadership, or the whisper of your indwelling sin.

We cringe at the thought of being seen as needy and coming off as desperate. Especially in positions of leadership. Don’t disclose your flaws, we hear from without and feel from within. Exhibit your strengths, demonstrate your capabilities, win their confidence. But a different word comes from above.

Good spiritual leaders — indeed, healthy Christians — are not those who suppress their failings and tell themselves over and over again they can do it. Rather, they own their neediness and acknowledge they are helpless to do what matters most.

“All true spiritual leadership,” writes John Piper in The Marks of a Spiritual Leader, “has its roots in desperation.” The spirit of the true Christian leader is not, “I’m up for the task,” but, “Who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Corinthians 2:16).   Continue at David Mathis

The Seven-Year Itch and the Joy of Lifelong Marriage

German politician Gabriele Pauli shocked her conservative party and sent waves through news outlets worldwide when she proposed in September 2007 that marriage should only last seven years.

Described at the time as “Bavaria’s most glamorous politician,” the 50-year-old, twice-divorced, motorcycle-riding Pauli campaigned for party head, in part, with the hopes of institutionalizing what some have called “the seven-year itch.” Her plan was that marriages would automatically dissolve after seven years, at which point the spouses could renew their union or go along on their own merry ways. Pauli did not win in her bid for party leadership.

Seven-Year What?

The “seven-year itch” is a widely recognized psychological term suggesting the seven-year mark as a common time when spouses sense they have drifted away from each other and desire to explore other romantic interests. It’s also the title of an iconic 1955 motion picture, which popularized the phrase in relation to marriage.   Continue at David Mathis

When Joy Is Hard to Come

You’re not alone in your struggle for joy.

With remaining sin in our hearts, brokenness in our lives, and fallenness in our world, every Christian experiences seasons where we simply don’t feel the joy. And many of the “greats” in the history of the church have been some of her most downcast and depressed.

The question is not whether we will one day feel the angst of David’s heart, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation” (Psalm 51:12), but how soon. Days will stand on end — if not weeks, months, and years — where our joy seems fragile and thin, if we even feel it there at all.

But in those times, is there anything we can do? Besides pray that God restore the joy, is there any more we can say — any steps of hope we can take?   Continue at David Mathis

Putting Golf in Its Place

It only takes a few bars of “Augusta” to confirm that spring is here. There is a promise of new life in the sound of the Masters theme song and the sight of electric green grass at Augusta National. The sun has risen in Georgia on the just and unjust and soon will come our way as well.

The game of golf has tied itself to the beauty of God’s created world like few other competitive pastimes. This is at the heart of the sport’s allure. With no standardized playing area, the designers and groundskeepers are commissioned to nest the course in the splendor of the natural terrain. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says Psalm 19:1, and the best of links do the same, if you have eyes to see it.

But enjoying creation is one thing, and giving hours on end to playing a game can be quite another. We may be able to drink orange juice to the glory of God, but what about playing golf?  Continue at David Mathis

Preach the Gospel to Yourself

No one is more influential in your life than you are. Because no one talks to you more than you do.

So observes Paul Tripp — and in doing so, he accents our need to daily preach the gospel to ourselves.

In our sin, we constantly find our responses to life in our fallen world to be disconnected from the theology that we confess. Anger, fear, panic, discouragement stalk our hearts and whisper in our ears a false gospel that will lure our lives away from what we say we believe.

The battleground, says Tripp, is meditation. What is it that is capturing your idle thoughts? What fear or frustration is filling your spare moments?

Will you just listen to yourself, or will you start talking? No, preaching — not letting your concerns shape you, but forming your concerns by the gospel.   Continue at David Mathis

God Is with You in Depression

Depression is often illusive. Some dark cloud gathers and hangs overhead. You feel constantly ill at ease. Whether triggered by negative events, or some undefined cause, you know despondency when you experience it, even if you find it hard to describe.

Sometimes it’s circumstantial, but often you’re left scratching your head, wondering, Where did all the joy go?

God Is There with You

Author Randy Alcorn is no foreigner to depression. He has journeyed through dark seasons — once for four months on end — and offers this word of hope to the Christian: “God is there with you in the depression.”

Don’t wait till the depression passes to seek God, advises Alcorn. He’s not waiting for you to come out of it before walking with you, but he’s eager to walk with you in the midst of it.    Continue at David Mathis

This Is Not Worth Quacking About

Did A&E know what would happen when it suspended Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson? Whether it was intentional or not, they are cashing in on trillions worth of free advertising.

Perhaps it’s really about LGBT rights at the cable and satellite television channel, half owned by Disney-ABC. But then there’s also the almighty dollar. Conceding to the LGBT agenda is increasingly what’s most profitable, what saves most face, and what brings least financial repercussion. And even more profitable is a firestorm that mobilizes the nation’s mass media and social media into doing more free promotion for the show and the network than anyone could ever pay for.

If it is a calculated move, we’re falling for it, hook, line, and sinker. And in trying to raise the question, even this post must slide halfway into the same trap. I’ll try not to mention the show and network by name again and lend any more help to the campaign.    Continue at David Mathis

When Jesus Haunts Your Halloween

Unclean spirits stir. Demonic thrones and dominions gather. Cosmic powers over this present darkness come to attention. And the devil himself, ready to devour and destroy, ignites his fiery darts and stretches his legs for the lion’s prowl.

As All Hallows’ Eve draws nigh, the spiritual forces of evil align, and Satan prepares his hordes for the party of the year — the grand harvest festival, celebration of darkness and death, when they pretend to be their strongest.

Halloween is almost here. But so is their final defeat. Jesus haunts their Halloween.

One Little Word

As the demonic rulers and authorities make ready, the one who sits in the heavens laughs (Psalm 2:4). To him, the devil is no threat, with all his orcs and goblins and the wickedest of witches. This is no evenly matched bout. If the incarnate Christ, in his humblest state, commands unclean spirits and they obey him (Mark 1:27) — how much more the risen and glorified Lord? Jesus does the real haunting.    Continue at David Mathis

Dieting, Botox, and Honoring Jesus with Your Body

Undistracting attractiveness is John Piper’s term for it.

It’s a vision for the Christian to steer a middle course between idolizing our bodies and neglecting them. It includes giving our bodies enough attention — with sleep, diet, exercise, and upkeep — to avoid being distractingly unattractive, and reining in our impulses to pursue a self-focused attractiveness that distracts.

Deeper Than Dieting, Botox, and Plastic Surgery

Your body is a precious gift from God. And the Bible is clear about its highest purpose: To make God look good.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20)

And so Paul writes, “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:20).

Beneath the flashpoints of dieting and exercise, botox and plastic surgery, lies this question for the Christian: Are we using our bodies in such a way that God is seen to be more precious than our bodies?    Continue at David Mathis

Entertaining Pulpits and the Legacy of “Tethered Preaching”

Initially, it may be tough to tell the difference. A gifted Bible-expositor and an entertainment-oriented preacher, with a penchant for garnishing his ideas with some Bible, may not demonstrate much disparity at first.

But give it some time. And check the congregation over the long haul. It will make a world of difference.

Tethered to the Bible

 

John Piper coins a term in his short article “In Honor of Tethered Preaching: John Calvin and the Entertaining Pastor.” “Tethered preaching,” he says, is cut from a different cloth altogether. It is Bible-oriented, rather than entertainment-oriented, even as it often proves captivating to the born-again palette.

The Bible tethers us to reality. We are not free to think and speak whatever might enter our minds or what might be pleasing to any given audience—except God.

A Relentless Reformer

 

While many fine preachers, no doubt, could be celebrated in the legacy of “tethered preaching,” Piper holds up the great Reformer John Calvin (1509–1564) as one example.

For Calvin, preaching was tethered to the Bible. That is why he preached through books of the Bible so relentlessly. In honor of tethered preaching, I would like to suggest the difference I hear between preaching tethered to the word of God and preaching that ranges free and leans toward entertainment.    Continue at David Mathis

Destroying the Sacred-Secular Divide

Dancing. Sports. Caffeine. Rock and roll. Food and drink. The college campus is a kind of microcosm of the flashpoints we face “in the real world,” just with the volume turned way up. And lots of video games.

For over a decade, this has been the everyday life and ministry context for Matt Reagan, Campus Outreach director at the University of Minnesota and elder at Bethlehem Baptist Church. Into such potentially contrasting environments, he has sought to bring an old, old story with all its biblical textures and hues and the mind-defying life-change it boasts. It’s emphatically not an easy day-to-day parish for gospel ministry, but some love it. Matt does.

Over the years of laboring to press the gospel deeply into students of increasingly postmodern orientation and sensibilities, Matt has discovered that one of the most important topics to tackle with freshman collegiates and new believers is the so-called “sacred-secular divide.” We all participate in this to certain degrees, and the lessons are relevant far beyond the college campus and this perhaps strangest of life’s seasons. It quickly gets us into realities as central as our hearts and as important as the realization that God is not boring.

With such application far beyond the college campus in view, we sat down with Matt to have him explain what is this sacred-secular divide, and how Christian theology and the biblical gospel takes it head on.    Continue at David Mathis

What Happened at Vatican II (And How to Pray 50 Years Later)

It was fifty years ago today that Roman Catholicism launched what many consider to be the most ambitious of its 21 ecumenical councils. Called the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, the three-plus-year series of gatherings began under Pope John XXIII on October 11, 1962, and concluded under Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965. Half a century later, Vatican II remains the most recent of Catholicism’s official worldwide councils.

For those of us younger than 50, all we’ve experienced of Roman Catholicism, whether from within or without, comes to us through the lens and practices of Vatican II. It’s an important reality to be aware of as we try to make sense of the (appropriately) deep rift between Protestants and Catholics on many central issues, and as we learn to get over our chronological snobbery and become aware of the full history of the church in her first fifteen centuries, and her unusual last half millennium.

Why Vatican II?

In October 1958, Italian cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected pope at the age of 77. Ascending to the papacy at such an old age, he was expected to be a mere caretaker and bridge the short gap to the next ecclesiastical head. But less than three months into office, in January of 1959, he surprised many by calling for the convening of an ecumenical council. Over two years of formal preparations went into launching the meetings on October 11, 1962. It was the first council to be called in almost a century (Vatican I ended in 1870), and only the third since the Reformation (the Council of Trent spanned 1545 to 1563).

Many have summarized the core purpose of the council as adapting Roman Catholicism to the modern world. Summoning and beginning the council proved to be John XXIII’s most significant work as pope, as he died midway through the council on June 3, 1963.   Continue at David Mathis

Jesus Says to Rome

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “Pray to Mary, and petition the Saints.” But I say to you that there is only one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). You need no other go-between than me. Do you not know that you already have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1)? Do you not know that I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)? So, when you pray, ask in my name, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13).

You have heard that it was said, “Kneel before the consecrated host, and worship the one sacrificed in the mass.” But I say to you that when I had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, I sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until my enemies should be made a footstool for my feet. For by a single offering I have perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:12–14). And have you not heard that where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer any offering for sin (Hebrews 10:18)? I meant it when I said on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

You have heard that it was said, “Honor the pope.” But I say to you that this is a sadly misguided understanding of the role my disciple Peter played and the reality of succession in the church. The Rock on which I have built my church (Matthew 16:18) for two millennia is not Peter alone, but the band of the apostles together (Ephesians 2:20). All my specially appointed apostles, not just Peter, are my expressly commissioned authoritative spokesmen for my church (John 14:26; 15:26–27; 16:13). Their authority is not their own, but mine. I am the one who has authority (Matthew 7:29), not your ecclesiastical scribes. And when I ascended, it was my apostles together, not Peter alone, who served as my authoritative on-the-ground spokesmen in the first generation of the church. At my word, it was the apostles’ spoken and written words that served as the early church’s final authority — and when the apostles had passed, it was their preserved writings that have carried my voice as the church’s final authority these two thousand years, not the accumulated traditions of the church.   Continue at David Mathis

Oh, Behave! Conduct Worthy of the Gospel in Corporate Worship

Other Christians. Can't do corporate worship without them, and yet sometimes it feels like we can't really do corporate worship with them either.

How nice would it be if everyone would just mind their manners in weekend worship? So thinks our old self.

Let's admit it. We're tough on others, easy on ourselves. We assume others should give us the benefit of the doubt---which is the very thing we don't give to others.

She's the reason I'm distracted, the old self tells us.

If he weren't singing so loud---and so off key . . . 

If they would just get off their iPads and smart phones. I'm sure they're all doing emails, or social media, rather than looking at the Bible text or taking notes.

We love to blame our neighbor, or the worship leader, for our inability to engage in corporate worship. But the deeper problem usually belongs to the one who is distracted. Few things are more hypocritical than showing up to a worship gathering of the Friend of Sinners and bellyaching that other sinners showed up too.

Checking Our Own Souls

 

If there is gospel etiquette for the gathered church, it starts with evaluating my heart, not their actions. Frustration with others' distracting behavior---whether in the pew in front of me, or on the stage---is deeper and more dangerous than the nonchalance or negligence that sidetracks others.

Of course, there are rare exceptions when someone really is totally out of line. Such as the guy who brought his own tambourine one week. But even in the occasional instance where someone's worship conduct is seriously out of bounds, what if we started by asking ourselves some hard questions?

• If love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), might God be calling me to look past this distraction I perceive?
• Am I really applying John 13:34-35 ("love one another") to fellow Christians in weekly corporate worship? If we can't apply John 13:34-35 when the church is gathered, are we really going to apply this elsewhere?   Continue at David Mathis

The Mocking of Muhammad and Condemning of Christ

Jesus’s uniqueness and beauty is on display if his followers respond with grace when he is reviled.

When adherents of Islam counter the mocking of their central figure with outrage and violence, they provide “another vivid depiction of the difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means to follow each,” says John Piper. 

Piper concedes that not all Muslims approve the violence, but notes that a profound lesson still stands: “The work of Muhammad is based on being honored and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. This produces two very different reactions to mockery.”

A Deep Difference Between Jesus and Muhammad

Jesus is unique. And Christians believe there is a divine beauty in the mocking that he willingly subjects himself to by becoming man — because it’s a mocking and reviling and bruising and dying that is for us and for our salvation. Piper continues in his 2006 article, “Being Mocked: The Essence of Christ’s Work, Not Muhammad’s”:

If Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was his saving work: to be insulted and die to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Already in the Psalms the path of mockery was promised: “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads” (Psalm 22:7). “He was despised and rejected by men . . . as one from whom men hide their faces . . . and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3).

When it actually happened it was worse than expected. “They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. . . . And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on him” (Matthew 27:28–30). His response to all this was patient endurance. This was the work he came to do. “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).  Continue at David Mathis

Changing a Church Culture

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In the sixth and final session of the Trellis and Vine workshop, Col Marshall presented 13 ideas for changing a complicated and programmatic church culture into a culture of disciple-making:

1. Set the agenda on Sunday. The public ministry of the gospel and the Scriptures is essential.
2. Teach “the ministry of the pew”—that everyone can minister to everyone, and they can come to the weekly gatherings on the lookout for others to engage with, welcome, and minister to. Read it all HERE