“I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you always in my prayers.” (Eph. 1:16)
“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Rom. 12:12)
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” (Col. 4:2)

Of all the spiritual exercises God has given his people, it seems that nothing is quite so challenging as the discipline of prayer. Prayer is at once a wonderful gift given by God and a huge responsibility commanded by God. Through prayer we have an intimate communion with our Lord. Through prayer we lift one another up to heaven’s throne.

One big challenge we face in prayer is the challenge of time. There never seems to be enough time, which is a universal issue we all face in spite of our widely varying circumstances. Whether it’s a mother with small children at home, a businessman on the road, the family going 15 different directions in a normal day, or the quiet, empty nest there is never enough time. How many people do you and I know who say they have plenty of time to pray?

Part of the reason for this is the simple fact that prayer is work.....hard work. For years I kept thinking that sooner or later the Holy Spirit would somehow transform my personality in such a way that prayer would be easy and my calendar would magically open up time to pray everyday. (Good grief, I’m a preacher. Surely God would do that for me, right? WRONG!) My thought process in this was more than little bit faulty. After all there is no evidence of this magical transformation occurring with anyone, anytime, anywhere. It does not happen in the Bible. I have yet to read the biography of any great prayer warrior in whom this occurred. I have certainly never heard of this from anyone I personally know.

Bottom line. Prayer is work. Hard work. Always has been. Always will be. If I would pray as God commands, I will have to fight for the time, fight to keep the time, and work hard to learn how to pray and pray well.

One of the great moments in a parent’s life is when his/her child shows signs of maturity. You know what I mean. It is when your children start to grow up. He sees what needs to be done and rolls up his sleeves and gets to work. She stops expecting someone else to do it for her. He stops complaining about how hard it is to get a job and work everyday. It's wonderful when our children begin to take responsibility for the every day stuff that has to be done and works to make it what it should be.

Can you imagine how pleased our Heavenly Father is when his children face the reality of life, roll up our sleeves, acknowledge that prayer is work, and gets after it. After all, time with God is worth it. Time spent laboring in prayer for our loved ones, our friends, and his kingdom growth is time well spent. Let’s get to work and see what God can do through his people when they do the hard work of prayer.

Yeah, I know it’s Tuesday.  I am super busy with camp and trying to prepare the “perfect” sermons to proclaim that Jesus is Enough. 

I have four sermons to preach (as well as write short devotions, team-time devotions, and put a little together for the morning worship services).  I have spent a good deal of time on sermon number one.  It keeps going through revision.  I get it all together and then decide to cut something.  Then I add something else.  Then I cut something else.  The process keeps continuing.  I have even considered scrapping the whole thing and starting over. 

My problem is that I am trying to come up with the perfect  sermon.  I want to be biblically faithful, doctrinally pure, and Christ-exalting.  All of those are noble.  The problem is you cannot preach a good sermon about the sufficiency of Christ while denying it in your sermon prep.  I can put together a sermon that is biblically faithful, doctrinally pure, and Christ-exalting but if it is not accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit then my “perfect sermon” is a “perfect” speech and not a sermon. 

I must remember what Spurgeon said:

“The gospel is preached in the ears of all; it only comes with power to some.  The power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher; otherwise men would be converters of souls.  Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning; otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men.  We might preach till our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless there were mysterious power going with it—the Holy Ghost changing the will of man.  O Sirs!  we might well preach to stone walls as to preach to humanity unless the Holy Ghost be with the word, to give it power to convert the soul.”  (Quoted from Arturo Azurdia, Spirit Empowered Preaching, p128)

The power of the Spirit and the work of Christ is sufficient to take this jar of clay and house glory therein.  Jesus preached the perfect sermon with every breath he took.  What can I learn from the life of Christ in my preaching.

1. He was radically God-centered
2. He poured into others
3. He spilled his blood for others
4. He was disturbingly real
5. He touched broken people in their brokenness
6. He comforted the broken and broke the comfortable
7. He passionately preached against “religion”
8. He relied upon the Spirit
9. He was Christ-centered
10. He was biblically-saturated
11. He was engaging
12. He was never afraid to stoop
13. He preached among the people
14. He live with those he taught
15. He preached with authority
16. He was Jesus and I’m not

Author: D.A. Carson

Pages: 160 pages

Publisher: Crossway

Price: $11.19

Genre: Christian Biography

Quick Summary:

You have probably heard of Don (D.A.) Carson. Most Americans have probably never heard of Tom Carson (Don’s dad). Tom was an “ordinary” pastor to French speaking Canada. His son has taken his letters, journals, and other manuscripts and has turned them into a mighty gift to the church.

Throughout this book we learn of Tom’s life and struggles as a common pastor. We are allowed to enter into the world of a pastor struggling with discouragement, depression, and feelings of worthlessness. We see the joys of laboring for Christ mixed with the brokenness of a fallen perfectionist. We see a loving father and husband that are always striving to be better. We witness the pain of Alzheimer’s and death of a cherished spouse and life-long partner in the gospel. From the highs through the lows this book is shockingly real.

What I Liked:

I had to hold back tears when D.A. Carson’s “mum” died. Perhaps, it through me back to witnessing my own grandfather by the bedside of my grandmother. Nevertheless, such emotion for someone that I had never met or even heard of is a testimony to Carson’s vivid writing style and compilation of his father’s journals. It is easy for a rural youth pastor like me (even though only 27) to identify with some of the feelings of Tom Carson. It is also wonderful that Carson interjects biblical wisdom throughout these journals.

Carson also, wisely, provides us American readers with some Canadian church history to help tell the story. That is helpful otherwise I would have been totally lost.

What I Disliked:

There is really nothing that I can honestly say I disliked. There are two things that make it somewhat difficult to read, but those are common in a book of this sort. One, it is sometimes difficult to place yourself in a situation when you have little knowledge of the environment. Carson makes a wonderful attempt at making us Americans at least moderately adept at understanding the French Canadian environment. Two, many biographies do this and it’s a good thing, but it makes it difficult to read letters when people are referred to by initials. It just gets confusing. Almost all memoirs are this way, I just wish they weren’t. I’d prefer a “names were changed to protect the innocent” type of thing.

Should You Buy It?

If you absolutely have to have a hard copy then yes. You need to read this book. You can read it online for free by going here. Or you can buy it for 11.19. There are some things in the book that are worthy of underlining or keeping on file for further reflection. You may want to go ahead and purchase it, but if money is tight you need to at least read the free copy (I read it in about 6 hours).

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

And any affiliation we shall have with any group of New Testament churches, in very many cases, will be after due consideration if such affiliation is going to affect adversely the local church. Not that it is our idea that we should join on condition we get something out of it; but the progress and development of local churches—not their splitting and destruction—is of paramount consideration.

Any idea who said that?

I was happy to be able to watch the SBC Annual Convention online.  Occasionally my feed went out got a little rough but it was great to be able to watch most of it.  Of course it would be nothing like actually being there; so I cannot share my experience as one that was actually there.  However, I thought I would share something that the Lord showed me through this. 

First, let me say that I am a young pastor (youth pastor even, which I’m told is not a real pastor).  I am coming to understand that I only know about 1/5 of what I think I know and that in a few years that will end up being about 1/20.  So I am very happy to soak up wisdom from older men (or even younger ones that have more wisdom than I).  Of course, my pride sometimes makes it seem like I already know all of the answers.

Second, because of my youthful vigor combined with ignorance I want to move faster than wisdom will allow.  I also am not wise enough yet to know when I should “fight” and when I should shut my mouth.

At the Annual Convention (I still think that sounds cultish) there were quite a few motions that were, in my opinion, a tad silly.  They detracted from the gospel and were brought in a form which appeared to me to be ill-spirited.  I have seen this in the Missouri Baptist Convention for awhile now.  My heart breaks that the applause for missions and the gospel pales in comparison to the woot-woots for motions against alcohol consumption.  (Even if you are a teetotaler you have to admit something is wrong with that). 

As these motions were brought to the floor, especially the one about taking Driscoll books out of Lifeway, I could not help but want people to stand up and expose the ridiculousness of these motions.  But my spirit was tempered by a dear pastor friend that explained how these things work, and then by the twitter updates by Dr. Mohler.  Dr. Mohler encouraged us not to be frustrated, to love them, to see their heart, etc.  What amazing wisdom. 

Then it hit me; Proverbs 24:6.  “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will also be like him.”  All of these godly men (like Dr. Mohler and Dr. Akin) were sitting by and let these men make these motions without combating it.  Then I thought about the patient and biblically faithful testimony of folks like the Founders and 9Marks.  They have jam-packed breakout sessions full of hungry young people soaking up the truth.  It is best to just let these motions continue coming, present truth when you can, but ultimately just shut up and let it play out. 

I guess I really learned through experience what I read months ago in The Deliberate Church: “The best way to lose your place of influence as a pastor is to be in a hurry, forcing radical (even if biblical) change before people are ready to follow you and own it.  It would be wise for many of us to lower our expectations and extend our time horizons”.

So what did I learn?  I learned that I have a lot left to learn. 

John Piper models for us how to make a biblical apology as well as inform us about why he does not own a television.

The SBC Annual Convention was held earlier this week.  Here are a few of the reflections:  iMonk, Tom Ascol (from Founders), Owen Strachan, Peter Lumpkins, James Galyon, Timmy Brister, Micah Fries, and Wade Burleson

It is also worth mentioning this article by the iMonk: Why Mark Driscoll Shouldn’t Bug Ya

Kevin DeYoung reminds us that its not enough to believe in the authority and inerrancy of Scripture; we also need to like it.

David Powlison on Literature; Tony’s link is more extensive—check it out.

Check this out from Paul Washer:

That’s it for this week…all those SBC articles will keep you busy—that and reading everything about Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

After a brief hiatus we will return to our discussion on The Deliberate Church. As always If you are just joining the discussion (that as of yet has not been much of a discussion) then please check out the foreword, intro, and chapter one. You can catch up pretty easily. If you have yet to buy the book I would suggest buying it for a paltry 9 bucks, here.

Quick Summary

This chapter is one that holds a very passionate place in my heart. I have had to counsel a decent amount of teenagers that are confused because of irresponsible evangelism. I have been to conferences, children’s ministry events, motorcycle evangelism shows, etc. where a good number of students “accepted Christ” but had absolutely no clue what that meant nor had a passion to follow the biblical Christ. I have seen from experience the importance of heeding what Dever is saying in this chapter.

On the positive side of things, Dever encourages two over-arching principles: Be God-centered and be certain to include the essentials. What are the essentials? Dever makes it easy for us God—man—Christ—response. For a very great extended discussion on this check out Dever’s book, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism.

In this chapter Dever also talks a couple examples of irresponsible evangelism: extending invitations (at least in an irresponsible way), entertainment-centered evangelism, manipulation. This first one is probably the most controversial in Southern Baptist circles. It is important to understand that Dever is not saying that it is irresponsible to, “invite people to repent and believe the Gospel” (52).

What Dever is cautioning against is the “no evidence required” assurance. Allow me to give you an example of this from my own personal ministry. A few years back our church had previously committed to be a part of this motorcycle (X-games type) evangelism event. They had drama, music, and a cool motorcycle guy that did tricks that shared his testimony. At the very end of the event the speaker did one of those bow your head and close your eyes moments. He had people come forward, he prayed for them, assured them, and invited them to speak to a counselor.

After the event I found out that our youth group had somewhere around 20 “decisions for Christ”. I began the process of counseling these youngsters that were, keep in mind, assured of their salvation by this speaker and probably a fair amount of counselors that had prayed with them. As I began talking to these teens it was apparent that the only thing that really had happened was emotional manipulation and shoddy evangelism. Only one of these students actually had a helpful experience with Jesus. The others were assured of salvation and yet wanted little to nothing to do with Jesus or other believers.

This is what Dever is talking about: Draw a crowd with entertainment--sneak the gospel in the back door, have some heart tugging music, the preacher using his voice in a mellow way, etc. to manipulate people into decisions and then assuring them after those decisions are made that they are absolutely saved. That is not responsible evangelism, and our 16 million with only around 40% in attendance SBC is sadly a testimony to the effects of such evangelism.

The evangelism that we are to be engaged in is the whole church presenting the whole gospel to the whole person. Another great resource for this is Will Metzger’s excellent book Tell the Truth.

Quotables:

“If we’re not getting the evangel (gospel) right according to the Word, then whatever we are doing, it can’t be called evangelism.” (51)

“The only external evidence that the Bible tells us to use in discerning whether or not a person is converted is the fruit of obedience.” (53)

“The Gospel is inherently and irreducibly confrontational. It cuts against our perceived righteousness and self-sufficiency, demanding that we forsake cherished sin and trust in someone else to justify us.” (55)

“Churches are most healthy when the gospel is most clear; and the gospel is most clear when our evangelistic methods are most plain.” (55)

Questions:

• Dever mentions things that we confuse as saving responses with the only thing that is a saving response (repentance and faith). What are some of these things that we confuse with a saving response?
• When speaking of a “public profession of faith” Dever seems to be saying that baptism and not altar calls are to serve as that. What do you think?
• Have you been guilty of or had any experiences with irresponsible evangelism?
• These are Dever’s questions: Are there elements in your churches evangelism that are more entertainment than informative? Are there ways in which your churches evangelism strategy is more like a marketing strategy? Could your churches evangelism method be perceived as emotionally manipulative? If yes to any of these, how might you pursue change?