The Thrill of Ministry

I think, again, that it is essential to the preacher's success that he thoroughly enjoy his work. I mean that in the actual doing of it, not only in it's idea. No man to whom the details of his task are repulsive can constantly do his task well, however full he may be of it's spirit. He may make one bold dash at it and carry it out over all his disgusts, but he can not work on at it year after year, day after day. Therefore, count it not merely a perfectly legitimate pleasure, count it an essential element of your power if you can feel a simple delight in what you have to do as a minister, in the fervour of writing, the glow of speaking, in standing before men and moving them, in contact with the young. The more thoroughly you enjoy it, the better you will do it all.

This is all true of preaching. It's highest joy is in the great ambition that is set before it, the glorifying of the Lord, and the saving of the souls of men. No other joy on earth compares with that. The ministry that does not feel joy is dead. But in behind that highest joy, beating in humble union with it, as the healthy body thrills in sympathy with the deep thoughts and pure desires of mind and soul, the best ministers have always been aware of another pleasure which belonged to the very doing of the work itself. As we read the lives of the most effective preachers of the past, or as we meet the men who are powerful preachers of the Word today, we feel how certainly and how deeply the very exercise of their ministry delights them.

Phillip Brooks, Lectures on Preaching, Pp 53-54, 82-83

Quoted in John Piper, Desiring God, Pp 109-110

Isn't that a freeing thought? The thrill i get as i pick my sermon notes off the printer, walk to teen church and preach, or sit down and open the Bible with a student, or pull a commentary off the shelf, or see a kid baptised isn't the icing on the cake! It's the meal itself. It's not a nice extra, but a necessary part of ministry. 

So a minsters aim is to be as happy as he can, as his pursuit of joy in God issues in love and service of his church. 

Don't Waste Your Summer

Summer's here. I'm writing this on the Saturday morning after TCS graduation ceremony, which means, if you go to Trinity at least, summer is officially here.

I can't tell you that i'm not excited. I love summers in North Carolina. Growing up in a country that often skipped that season makes you all the more glad for a summer that starts in mid-May and runs through mid-September. Marrying a teacher makes you even more glad. I'll be a while before i set my alarm for 5.15 am again. So of course i'm excited about that.

I love summer because i get quantity time with my wife, because i get to travel, this year to Chicago and Provo. I love summer because it's an opportunity to breathe, and relax, and enjoy.

But summer has it's dangers too. Summer can shrivel your soul. Don't let it.

The routine of the school year, though tiring, is a great help. You're used to getting up five days a week, so getting up on Sunday is less of a chore. You're used to working and reading, so time in the Bible seems less of an issue. But what can happen in the summer? Nights get later, and temptations get greater.

Summer will shrivel your soul if you let it. And i'm not talking about gross sin, or even consistent bad decisions about how to spend your time, or with whom to spend your time, i'm talking about the passion of your heart in the summer.

How hard to be stirred by the Word of God on a Sunday morning if you went to be at 3am. How hard to make it back to church on a Sunday night when it's sunny, in the mid 80s and the grill is firing. These aren't things we need to deal with in December.

Summer exists to give us a taste of Heaven. Summer is a Facebook message from your long distance girlfriend. When i visited the States before i moved here, i didn't Facebook Rachel anymore, we held hands and went to Bojangles. I didn't let the message distract me from the messenger.

Don't let summer distract you from Jesus. Use the time summer gives you to pray, to read, to think and to share. use the beauty of a slow summer sunset to think on the beauty of the Gospel. use the freedom to serve. Go on a mission trip, be faithful to church, call your youth pastor and take him out to lunch. Make sure your affections are higher for your Saviour than for the beach. Make sure you priorities are knowing God better, rather than working on your jump shot. Love the messenger, not the message.

Make sure summer sustains your soul, don't let it shrivel your soul.

Genesis Chapters 1-11 (video)

Thinking Out Loud

Sanctification is the fancy word for Christian growth.

Growing as a Christian is simply loving Jesus more, quite apart from effort.

Loving Jesus more and more necessarily issues in serving Him, because our desires are changing.

Of course, this looks like 'justification by effort', and 'law keeping', but from the inside, we know it's not.

Serving Jesus looks like serving people, His people and other people, because we are loved, not to earn that love.

Loving Jesus looks like wanting to spend tome with Him, reading the Bible and praying.

Loving Jesus looks like wanting to be like Him, because we want to be near the Ones we love.

These desires are given by the Holy Spirit, not human effort, we can't work our way up to Heaven.

The Holy Spirit, whose influence grows as we love Jesus more, and who shows us more of Jesus to love, therefore gives us the power, and the inclination to obey and love the Word of God.

'In the beginning was the Word...and the Word was God.'

So sanctification, obedience, is all of God, from beginning to end.

God's Revealing Word

As a whole the Scriptures are God's revealing Word. Only in the infiniteness of inner relationships, in the connection of Old and New Testaments, of promise and fulfillment, sacrifice and law, law and Gospel, cross and resurrection, faith and obedience, having and hoping, will the full witness to Jesus Christ the Lord be perceived. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, P51

The Dangers and Delights of Leadership and Life (1 Timothy 4)

Ordinary life has dangers and delights, and the Christian life is no different. Remember, 1st Timothy, a letter written to a young church leader by his mentor, shows us what a Christian life looks like. It shows us what church life, church leadership and the church order look like. Last week we were reminded of the churches message that it’s all about Jesus. Today, Paul gives timothy some more specific instructions, and we see what a Gospel shaped life looks like. We see what a difference trusting in God and believing the Gospel makes.

First of all Paul warns Timothy about some of the dangers of a Gospel shaped life. We might now think that being a Christian and danger should go hand in hand. If we read our Bibles, go to church and keep out of trouble we’ll be OK right? Wrong! Almost the first thing that happened to Jesus, even before he started His ministry was being tempted by a tireless, arrogant Satan. If it can happen to Jesus, it can happen to you as well. Verse one tells us what the danger is, ‘the Spirit expressly says that in the later times, some will depart from the faith.’ Wow! God the Holy Spirit has made it clear that some people who came to church, read their Bibles and sung in the choir will depart the faith, in the later times, which is now. When we see or hear of a family member or friend leaving the faith, we should say, ‘there but for the grace of God go i.’ The way is narrow that leads to salvation, and some people will depart from it. This is not something to be relaxed or causal about. Some people will leave the faith.

Paul shows us how these people depart from the faith in the next couple of verses. Look at the second half of verse 1 through verse 2. The teaching that leads people away from the faith comes straight from hell. It’s not interesting or fun, or progressive, it’s deadly. It’s the deception, and deceit and doctrine of demons. It comes through human mouths, through seared consciences. The devil isn’t literally preaching the prosperity Gospel, or the self esteem Gospel, or teaching what’s contrary to the Bible, but it’s his doctrine. Be careful that you don’t depart from the faith, because this is the only place you’ll go.

People also depart from the faith by rejecting revelation that comes from God. We see that in verses 3 and 4. People in Ephesus at the time were forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence from certain foods. These two false teachings were a problem thought the first couple of centuries of the church. How does Paul deal with these objections to food and sex? He tells Timothy that everything created by God is good, just like Genesis tells us, and that it is made holy if it’s received with thanksgiving and prayer.

The Gospel shaped life is dangerous, because many things will try and lead you astray, luckily Paul doesn’t leave it there, but goes onto tell Timothy how to protect himself from these dangers. These are some specific instructions for Timothy, but they set a great example for us as well. Let’s read all of verses 5-16 together, and see the delights of the Gospel shaped life.  What do we see? As Gospel shaped life must live, as well as believe. Our lives must match our lips.
First Paul focuses on what Timothy needs to say. He says ‘put these things before the brothers and sisters.’ Keep reminding the people in your church about Jesus. Keep preaching the Gospel. Don’t get distracted by social issues, or by what’s popular, or by what draws a crowd. Preach the Gospel Timothy! It’s only the Gospel that produces a Gospel shaped life. So, Timothy, everything I’ve just shared, put before people. This is a pastor’s job, to make sure people have opportunity to respond to the Gospel.

He says command and teach these things in verse 11. This is the essence of a pulpit ministry, commanding people where the scripture commands, and teaching where the Scripture teaches. In the Christian life there are things to do, and things to learn. Timothy is to keep on pointing those things out to his church. And his church is to do and to listen.

These two commands are simply summed up, preach the Gospel! Keep people on the narrow way, don’t let them be deceived.

Paul gives Timothy two things he must do as well. We needs to be an example. In verse 12 Paul calls Timothy young, he was probably in his mid thirties, and we often use this verse to stop older people looking down on us. But the responsibility is in the opposite direction. Paul tells Timothy, just because you’re young is no excuse. Set an example in speech, in conduct, in love and in faith. Verse 7 tells Timothy to train for godliness. In this culture physical training was a part of everyone’s daily life. Paul says this is fine. There’s nothing wrong with going to the gym and working out, as long as you’re training harder for godliness.

Verse 15 and 16 is the root of all this sort of life. Quite simply as a fish is in water and a bird is in the air, Timothy and you and I must be in these things. We must be in the Bible, we must be in the delights and aware of the dangers of a Gospel life. we must be making progress in this life, so that it will be obvious the Gospel is true. In verse 16 Paul tells Timothy doing these things will save himself, and his hearers. The preaching ministry is no joke. His faith will save himself, and his words and example will save his hearers.

Grace Filled Community

The following is from 'No Other Gospel; 31 reasons from Galatians that salvation is by faith alone', by Josh Moody, p259.

Here are five comparisons of a legalistic community and a grace-filled one.

1) A grace filled community seeks to restore those who make a misstep, whereas a legalistic community  condemns them.

2) In a grace filled community, the mature are those who, like Jesus, reach out to restore and save, whereas in a legalistic community, those held up for honour are, like the Pharisees, seemingly able to achieve more personal, if superficial, moral attainment than others.

3) A grace filled community encourages those who are secure and have an appropriate self-confidence, which is really a confidence in what God is doing in their lives through faith in Christ, whereas a legalistic community encourages insecure individuals to try and prove their worth by being better than others.

4) A grace filled community is full of individuals who think very little of themselves, not because they do not have self worth but because they are thinking of others, and how they can help them, whereas a legalistic community is full of individuals who think highly of themselves and are thus self-decieved. Anything good comes from God, for naturally none of us is good.

5) A grace filled community is filled with energy service and outreach. Each one carries his load of restoration, other peoples burdens, whereas a legalistic community is full of individuals who do very little, because they are always wondering about whether they've done enough to be saved. Rather than focussing on what God has done, they are focussed on what they need to do.

Church Life is Shaped by the Gospel (1 Timothy 3:14-17)

In 1 Timothy 3:14-17, we see that the churches life is shaped by the Gospel.  

Church life is shaped by obeying God’s Word.  Verse 14 tells us why Paul was writing, so that Timothy, and the church, might know how to have things in order. Paul isn’t wiring advice from one friend to another, he’s writing Scripture as an Apostle. And we must listen and obey. A Gospel shaped church is a church that knows the Bible, and preaches, prays and sings the Bible, a church that obeys the Bible and is shaped by the Bible. A church that will compare what the world says and what the Word says and follow the Word no matter what the personal, corporate or cultural cost. A church shaped by the Gospel is a church shaped by the Bible.

A Gospel shaped church remembers their standing before God. Paul describes the church as the household of God, the church of the living God. What a mess we get into when we forget that the church is about God and not about us! When our preferences and our desires take precedence over the designs and desires of God. There are all sorts of good things that the Church can be doing, all sorts of things that people within the church think it probably should be doing, but since it’s God’s household, He needs to be the One who has the final say. The church is the pillar and buttress, or support, of truth. God’s truth, not our truth. A Gospel shaped church remembers it’s place before God.

And finally a church shaped by the Gospel will be filled with people who know Jesus. It seems as though Paul changes subjects or gets confused here doesn’t it? He says ‘great indeed is the mystery of godliness,’ and then starts talking about a person. But godliness is simply knowing and growing in your relationship with Jesus, and this only really happens in the midst of a local church. So Paul doesn’t change the subject from church, to godliness to Jesus. Those three are one! We need to know the Jesus who walked on the Earth, the greatest and most real man there ever was. We need to know the Jesus who was vindicated at His baptism and in every miracle by the Spirit of God. We must believe in the glorious Jesus who was seen by angles, and who has been believed upon in the world as the Gospel spreads, the Jesus who will return from Heaven just as He arrived there. The Gospel shaped church doesn’t believe in a safe Jesus, a plastic Jesus, a Jesus who above all just wants us to be happy, a Jesus with perfect hair. The church that has it’s life shaped by the Gospel believes in the Jesus of the Bible.

Church Leaders are Shaped by the Gospel (1 Tim 3:1-13)

First Timothy is Paul’s instruction manual for church life, and Christian life. First Timothy shows us what lives ruined and rebuilt by the Gospel look like.1 Timothy 3:15 tells us that Paul wants to remind Timothy, and us, how to behave in the household of God. He had hoped to come and see Timothy sooner, but hadn’t been able to. What a blessing we’d have missed if Paul’s travel plans had remained intact! He’s already taught us about how to deal with false teachers, he’s taught us about the different roles that men and women have in the church, and now he’s going to teach us about what leading and living in the church itself looks like. Verses 1-13 tell us that the churches leaders must be shaped by the Gospel, and verses 14-17 tell us that church life is shaped by the Gospel.

The first two sections of chapter three deal with overseers, or pastors, and deacons. It’s pretty clear that the early church had a structure much the same as the one we use. Of course our deacons don’t do exactly the same thing as Timothy’s did, but the principles are the same. In verse one Paul says that this saying is ‘trustworthy,’ that’s his way of saying ‘pay attention, listen up at the back, this is important.’ Then he lists the standards for Pastors, and the standards for Deacons. The lists for the two are much the same apart from one difference, verse 2 says Pastors must be able to teach. They have to, morally and intellectually, be able to handle the Bible and explain what it says. Deacons don’t have to do that, although at Trinity we’re blessed with Deacons who are able to teach as well as their normal responsibility.

The men who lead the church must live lives shaped by the Gospel. In verses 2-5 and verse 8, we see they must meet a high moral standard. It’s a noble task, and we can’t just slouch our way into it. They must be ‘above reproach,’ they must be a one woman man. They must be dignified and disciplined, not violent, or argumentative, or greedy for money. Essentially, he must stand out from the world. When the world is angry, he must be calm, when the world is basking in immorality, he must be loyal to his wife, when the world is obsessed with the dollar, he must be obsessed with purity.

Overseers and deacons must also prove that they believe the faith. This sounds obvious, but if Paul included it in both lists, in verses 6 and 9 then it must have been an issue for Timothy. It’s certainly been an issue for the global church in the past. Overseers obviously must believe what they are to teach, but deacons too, even though they are not required to teach must hold fast to the truth.

These men who lead the church must also be a good example to those around them. Verses 4 and 12 teach us that church leaders need to lead their own households well. Their wives and children should be in church and growing in the faith, as far as it depends on them. Paul’s logic is obvious, if a man can’t lead his own house, what chance has he got of leading God’s house well? These men should be well thought of by outsiders. A church can’t grow if it’s leadership is setting a bad example. A church can’t grow if the man leading it isn’t well thought of. Why would be come to that man’s church? When we do these things well, we’re given great assurance of our faith. When we don’t fall into disgrace, when they serve well, they have a great reason for believing that their faith is growing, and that their lives are shaped by the Gospel.

Why I'm Thankful for Sunday Nights

I know a Sunday night service doesn't fit into the model of every church. Some churches use Sunday nights for prayer meetings or small groups, some churches don't have a sunday night service for a variety of good reasons. I don't want to debate the rights and wrongs of Sunday night services, i just want to say this:

I'm so thankful for our Sunday night service at Trinity.

I'm thankful for an opportunity to just go to church

On Sunday morning i teach sunday school and children's church. I want to meet visitors and make sure i touch base with all our teens. I love the sung worship, but i'm focussed on teaching for most of the morning. Teaching and containing the forty kids we had in children's' church this morning! But Sunday night, i just get to come to church, sit next to my wife, and be fed from the Word. And i'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful for an opportunity to sabbath

Sunday's are for God's glory and our improvement. Rest for the Christian doesn't mean to cease from activity, but to be with Jesus. There's a wonderful rest in being with God's people, in singing, giving and just seeing each other. There's rest in praying together, there's rest in gathering to sit under the Word, because there's rest in Jesus.

I'm thankful for family

In these Christ-haunted south eastern states, we might might be the last people in the world who are expected to be at church in Sunday morning. It's just part of the cultural make-up. Sunday nights though, are made up of the people that really want to be there. They really want to grow, they really want to sing, they really want to commune. They want to get up, get dressed and come to church again. I love the praise time we have sometimes on Sunday nights at Trinity. The battles and victories of the last week are shared and rejoiced in. Details are shared, because we're family. We love eachother and we love our church.

I'm thankful for the chance to be upside-down

The early believers were described as 'men who turned the world upside down.' And the Bible has that effect on it's readers. As i read through Matthew's Gospel recently i was struck by how Jesus constantly upends our categories and thought processes. Reading Genesis at the moment is teaching me that there is no middle ground, you're either following the God of Abraham, or you're not. And Sunday night church gives us another opportunity to do that. It'd be so much easier not to go back to church, so much easier to spend Sunday afternoon chasing our own entertainments. But what a waste! I'm thankful that Sunday night gives us a chance to say that there is something more important than our own comforts or interests, and that thing is churxh.

Read The Story

Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the circumcision. For we are the circumcision, which follow God in the flesh and rejoice in Jesus Christ and have no confidence in the flesh.

Philippians 3:2-3.

This is not the apostle saying, 'there are dogs out there, i know who they are, but i'm not saying,' this is Paul saying beware of the dogs. But in order to be aware of them, you have to be able to identify them. How do you do that? It's not by putting on hyper-spiritual glasses which allow you to see the essential dogginess at the core of their heart. You see it on the basis of their evil works, their demand for circumcision and so on. You read the story.

Can such judgement ever be wrong? Well of course they can. That does not mean we are warned away from making them. The straight line we use to keep ourselves from wronging others in such things is to be steeped in the narrative of Scripture. We test drive our responses with novels and movies. Practice reading stories, because that's what your life is. So the end of the whole endeavor is to live our lives to the fullest, reading our own story rightly. And there is no way to do this without making conclusions about the internal, spiritual conditions of others.

Douglas Wilson, Against The Church. P128