I'm Holding a Miracle

Hey Everybody...I just found this video. I preached on abortion this past Sunday. Tough sermon. You can listen here. Click on the sermon "Speaking Up for the Unborn."

This is a fantastic video called "I'm Holding a Miracle." Human life truly is a miracle. We carry the image of God and we are created for God's glory. Abortion is an all-out assault against the person-forming work of God.

The video is a little long (~8 min) but it's worth it.

Preachin' on Politics

For any who might be interested...I preached on politics this past Sunday morning (11/9). If you'd be interested in listening to or downloading the sermon, you can click here to go to our church's sermon audio page.

Look for the sermon "Politics and the Kingdom of God"

Happy listening...

Mark

The Gospel According to "America's Preacher"

In celebration of last night's 60 Minutes interview with Joel Osteen, I thought I'd post a couple of videos where Joel tells us exactly what he thinks about the gospel.





One of Joel's fan actually calls him on the show and asks him why he won't take a stand where the Scripture takes a stand...




Joel, despite his hold your Bible in the air thingy, has a low view of Scripture. He is unwilling to take his stand on the Word of God. When preachers are unwilling to speak on the authority of God's Word (and say things contrary to it) then guess who's authority they are speaking on??? Their own. As a pastor, that is somewhere that I never want to be. If I can't speak on the authority of God's Word then I have nothing to say.

Here's the big problem. In America WE ARE LOSING THE GOSPEL. When the gospel is gone from our churches, God is gone from our churches. In Isaiah 48:11 God says, "My glory I will not give to another."

Try these on for size...

Acts 4:12, "And these is salvation in no one else, for these is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

John 14:6, "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

God is glorified through the death of his Son Jesus Christ as the payment for sin. Do not deny God his glory by denying the work of Christ on the cross as the only way God has given for salvation from sin.

Help Daddy

This morning as Luke and I were going down our steps in the house, he stopped about 3 steps down and said "Help, Daddy" as he reached his hand up towards me. I took his little hand and we walked down the steps together. That was one of the best moments for me. I looked back at Emily and we just smiled.

Something happened inside of me when my son called out to me for help. I had a longing to answer his cry for help. I wanted to help him as he was calling out to me.

You know the Bible tells us to have faith like a child. As I now have children, that description of about how our faith should be has really come to life in a way I didn't understand before.

We need to cry out to our Heavenly Father, "Help Daddy." Dependence on God is a critical aspect of living the Christian life. Here's a few verses about crying out to God, "Help, Daddy."

Hebrews 4:16, "Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Romans 8:15, "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"

Psalm 46:1, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

Psalm 79:9, "Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name's sake!"

Have you called out to God for help today???

Stand: A Call for the Endurance of the Saints

That's the theme of the Desiring God 2007 National Conference. I really want to go to this conference. It's going to be incredible. But considering that I'll have a 2 week old baby at the time, I feel that the best choice is definitely to stay home and listen to the podcasts as they come out. :)

The theme, as you can tell by the post title, is endurance in the Christian life. The goal is a life devoted to testifying to the greatness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the reward is Christ himself as he says to the faithful, "Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master."

The speaker lineup includes:

• Randy Alcorn of Eternal Perspectives Ministries
• John McArthur of Grace to You. He's also the pastor of Grace Community Church and president of Master's College and Seminary. He also squeaked in a little time to write over 100 books.
• Jerry Bridges
• Helen Roseveare
• and of course...John Piper

Here's a video about the need for endurance in the Christian life...





Here's a video of John Piper answering the question, "Why did you choose these speakers for the conference on endurance?".

It's All about You...

Emily and I had a great Monday and Tuesday at the TBC new pastor orientation conference. The conference was at the Linden Valley conference center. Nice place owned by the TBC.

On to the point of this post...

One of the devotionals that I heard there hit on a theme that is so dominant in American Evangelicalism that we don't even know it exists. It is the very air we breathe. No one thinks about breathing. It's just a part of life. So what is it I'm talking about???

Individualism.

The devotion was from Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

If you notice I highlighted the words "for you." The speaker at the devotional time really keyed in on these words. He talked about the importance of those two words in the verse. He talked about how God has all of these specific, individualized plans for each one of us.

I hate listening to this type of stuff. God does not have a billion personalized wills for each and every Christian out there. God's will is not all about you. God has one will and each one of us is to find our complete fulfillment by aligning ourselves with God's will.

Folks, be careful about ripping verses out of context. Jeremiah 29:11 read in context would never produce an individualistic interpretation. If you read Jeremiah chapter 29 you would find that verse 11 is part of a letter written to the whole Jewish community in the Babylonian exile. So in verse 11 the words "for you" are referring to the entire community that is in exile.

Bringing that up to today would mean that God knows the plans he has for us as the community of God. It's all about God, his will, and we are fulfilled when we find ourselves in his will.

What Is the Deal with This?

So I read this article on the Baptist Press News (Southern Baptist news agency). It's a rant about some newer churches (some SBC) in the Acts29 church starting network that don't preach total abstinence from alcohol.

But here's the curious part. I found the following paragraph near the beginning of the article, and I feel compelled to comment on it.

"The emerging church movement is diverse and difficult to generalize. However, the mix of influences includes: postmodernism (a focus on sense-making through the various mediums of culture); Calvinism ala John Piper; and for some, Christian liberty, as granted by their scriptural interpretation, to drink alcohol and engage in other cultural activities that many Southern Baptists eschew based on opposing scriptural interpretation."

So the author is trying to give a loose definition for a Southern Baptist audience about what an emergent church is (that's a really big task to undertake, as the author notes). The 3 major influences he claims that make up emergent churches are: 1.) postmodernism 2.) Calvinism 3.) Christian liberty.

What?????

1.) a church cannot adhere to postmodernism b/c Christianity is directly opposed to postmodernism. Christianity and Christ claim absolute truth while postmodernism denies all absolute truth claims. Postmodernism and Christianity do not mix. If a group of people hold a postmodern ideology then they cannot call themselves a church.

But to clarify and comment on what the article seems to say in it's parenthetical statement about postmodernism...Engaging the culture does not equal being postmodern.

2.) Why is the author equaling Calvinism with emergent, like Calvinism is a bad thing? Did he know that many of the SBC founding fathers held to a Calvinistic theology and that we currently have traditional SBC churches that are Calvinist?

Calvinism is a solid theological position grounded in the absolute truth of the Scriptures. I am not a Calvinist, but I recognize it's conservative nature and I appreciate the lives of many of the great men in church history who held this theological view.

Here's the big deal...First the author says emergent churches are postmodern (denying absolute truth) and then says they are Calvinistic (claiming absolute truth of Scripture). Somebody help me figure this out.

3.) So the author would deny that we have Christian liberty to drink alcohol? I don't drink alcohol, but this drives me crazy. Why in the world is this always a recurring battle in Southern Baptist circles? I want people to stop fighting over this issue. We're not getting anywhere and nobody is ever winning the battle. We just fight and fight and fight, slaughtering our own while the world is going to hell.

Okay...so there's my rant. What do you think?