Dr. Mohler is preaching a powerful, insightful series of sermons on the Lord's Prayer in Southern's Chapel this spring. In his inimitable style, he addresses the issue of prayer that the church needs to hear today. After all, we have turned prayer into our own personal litany of repetitive, meaningless phrases of little thought and consequence.
The introductory sermon begins on February 10. The sermons are all well worth downloading, hearing, and contemplating. Once this is done....get on your knees and start praying!
My friend Chris and I used to joke about our desire to not be “that guy”. You don’t want to be “that guy”. 
There is one “that guy” that I definitely do not want to be. It’s “that guy” that struts up to Jesus confident of his acceptance; like the confident batter that begins walking to first in the certainty that the umpire will call “ball four”. I do not want to be “that guy” because it doesn’t end well for “that guy”:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
I have to be honest; Matthew 7 has always left me a little uncomfortable. I always get a little afraid that maybe I will be “that guy”: you know, the guy that stands before Jesus full of confidence, only to get thrown into the fires of hell. Please do not misunderstand me. I do have confidence that I will be with Christ for eternity. But I think the poor saps in Matthew 7 had that same confidence. And if I am being honest, that scares me a little bit.
Audio is now available from the Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors Conference.
This was really helpful for me. In the past couple of months the Lord has changed the way I think about blogging. Tony Reinke helps to confirm that by his message at the Band of Bloggers gathering: How can bloggers steward the teaching of the young, old, and dead?
Dan Phillips makes an excellent point with this one: Porn and paper pastors. This article is not about pornography or pastors that struggle with pornography. This article is about those that follow “paper pastors” instead of the one’s that God has given them.
Last week I linked to Kevin DeYoung’s series on high places. A couple days ago he put up his final one, Part 5: Prayerlessness.
Scot Sterner gives great counsel on “What to do with criticism”. (HT: Z)
The video for LeCrae’s Don’t Waste Your Life is now available:
(HT: JT)
NFL Draft is this weekend. I am going to be really sad when the Browns trade Brady Quinn, Braylon Edwards, and who knows who else to get a host of rookies that will be traded in two more years for another host of rookies. Still wondering why I was happy when the Browns signed Mangini as their coach.
I thought this was a pretty good summary by John Samson on the 5 Big Myths About Calvinism. I’m sure an Arminian could easily write 5 Myths about Arminians as well. But articles like these are beneficial to keep us from discussing around the issues and burning straw men in the process.
What we’ve seen in our churches is now proven in statistics: The SBC is continuing to decline says Ed Stetzer.
Thoughtful article by C. Michael Patton on The Forgotten Pulpit. (And he means pulpit literally).
Alongside The Gospel Coalition, D.A. Carson and John Piper had an evening session about The pastor as Scholar and The Scholar as Pastor. Thankfully Andy Naselli live-blogged it here.
If you get a chance watch Piper’s message from The Gospel Coalition:
“You might be the only Jesus that some people ever see”. Undoubtedly, you have heard that phrase. It is supposed to motivate us to holiness—especially around unbelievers. And it’s a decent statement. But, have you ever totally blown it around an unbeliever? If you are the only Jesus they will ever see then their view of Him is going to be pretty shallow. Perhaps, you said something stupid. Maybe it was something that you did that Jesus would probably not have done. Is your witness totally blown at this point?
It is my opinion that evangelicals have bought into the myth that a follower of Jesus has to be perfectly like Jesus in order to be an effective witness. This is not to say that holiness is not important. 
One of the consequences of this myth is that discouraged believers struggle with personal evangelism. Because they are very aware of their sinfulness and because they assume they will “blow it” by their lives they are timid in sharing the gospel. I understand that often this is an excuse for not engaging unbelievers, but nonetheless, such a fear is present. Alongside this are believers that shamefully stop engaging an unbeliever with the gospel once you’ve “blown it”.
Perhaps the biggest consequence is that in order to be perfect examples of Jesus we fake it. We are often surface and inauthentic as we engage unbelievers. We do this because to really be authentic would be to show our brokenness. And because the gospel that is often shared is “Jesus will fix your life” we make a really poor example of an “abundant life”. So we fake it; and that is perhaps the most ineffective witness that we can have.
Here is the point: the most effective witness might be to believe the gospel enough to ask for forgiveness. If you blow it then perhaps the best way you can proclaim Jesus is by modeling repentance and believing in the power of Jesus enough to be authentic. So, if you blow your witness (and you will) then show Jesus by being humble enough to admit that you are wrong, don’t stop modeling the gospel.
Steve McCoy has done the church a service by making available in one location everything Tim Keller. One such article he links to is this one: All of Life is Repentance. In this article Keller compares religious repentance to gospel repentance.
Religious repentance, says Keller, is "selfish, self-righteous, and bitter all the way to the bottom”. It is selfish because we only do it to avoid punishment. It is self-righteous because we can be duped into doing it as a means of atonement. And it is bitter because, “in religion our only hope is to live a good enough life for God to bless us. Therefore every instance of sin and repentance is traumatic, unnatural, and horribly threatening. Only under great duress does a religious person admit they have sinned because their only hope is their moral goodness.”
Contrast this with gospel repentance that hates sin because of love for God. Gospel repentance receives grace rather than trying to earn it through self punishment. And finally a firm understanding of the gospel does not produce bitterness but rather joy in repentance. As Keller nicely sums up, “The more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you. But on the other hand, the more aware you are of God’s grace and acceptance in Christ, the more you [are] able to drop your denials and self-defenses and admit the true dimensions of your sin.”
When you understand the difference between religious repentance and gospel repentance then, and only then, can you begin “to profit from a regular and exacting discipline of self-examination and repentance”. Keller then uses a statement by George Whitefield to put together a few questions to foster gospel-centered repentance:
- Deep Humility v. Pride
- Burning love v. indifference
- Wise courage v. anxiety
- Godly motivations (a single eye)
You’ll have to read the whole article to see how Keller expounds upon these…it’s only two pages and well worth your time.
Leprosy on the other hand—you don’t feel a thing. Of course this means that you are also deadened to beauty. You cannot really feel kisses. You cannot really feel a warm embrace. Sunsets are ignored. Food tastes bland. Life feels dull. But leprosy doesn’t hurt; or at least it doesn’t appear to at the moment.
So do I believe Jesus enough to let the gospel hurt? Or will I try to put on a leprous heart?
I am sure that you already know this but you can watch a live feed of this year’s conference here: 2009 National Conference
This year’s theme is Entrusted with the Gospel: Living the Vision of 2 Timothy. Pretty solid keynote speakers this year. Here is the schedule (CST) of the speakers:
April 21st
Tim Keller 2:00
John Piper 4:00
Phil Ryken 7:00
Mark Driscoll 8:00
April 22nd
K. Edward Copeland 9:30 AM
Bryan Chapell 11:00 AM
Ajith Fernando 7:00 PM
April 23rd
Ligon Duncan 9:30 AM
D.A. Carson 11:00 AM
The full schedule is available here. I am not sure how the live feed will work during the Workshops.
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