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Congratulations to the entitled, for they grab what they want.
Congratulations to the carefree, for they shall be comfortable.
Congratulations to the pushy, for they shall win.
Congratulations to the greedy, for they shall climb the food chain.
Congratulations to the vengeful, for they shall be feared.
Congratulations to those who don’t get caught, for they shall look good.
Congratulations to the argumentative, for they shall get in the last word.
Congratulations to the popular, for this world lies at their feet.
The gospel of Jesus is more than a few handy tips for improving our lives this week. It is a new outlook on everything, with a glorious future renewing the creation through his death and resurrection. But he is not the only one making us promises. The world has its own version of events, its own eschatology, its own promises of reward. We must choose. And either way, we will be living by faith.
But have you ever met one person who believed this world’s unBeatitudes and came to the end a satisfied, radiant, wise person? Even one?
Ray Ortland
- We must preach because of the power of the Word of God to change human lives and to transform the experience of the church.
- We must preach because preaching is God’s ordained means for making himself known to us.
- We must preach because preaching not only communicates truth about God, it also mediates the very person and power of God.
- We must preach because preaching (aside from reading) is the most effective means for transmitting the truths of Holy Scripture.
- We must preach because preaching is the fuel for worship. Preaching fans the flames of passion for Jesus.
- We must preach because preaching is not simply the fuel for worship, preaching is worship.
- We must preach because preaching is the catalyst for church growth, renewal, and revival.
- We must preach because preaching is the means by which the glory of God is revealed and imparted to those who listen with faith.
Nick Laparra – Desiring God Blog
As God opens your eyes to see how you have sinned against others, he simultaneously offers you a way to find freedom from your past wrongs. It is called confession. Many people have never experienced this freedom because they have never learned how to confess their wrongs honestly and unconditionally. Instead, they use words like these: “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” “Let’s just forget the past.” “I suppose I could have done a better job.” “I guess it’s not all your fault.” These token statements rarely trigger genuine forgiveness and reconciliation. If you really want to make peace, ask God to help you breathe grace by humbly and thoroughly admitting your wrongs. One way to do this is to use the Seven A’s.
1. Address everyone involved (All those whom you affected)
2. Avoid if, but, and maybe (Do not try to excuse your wrongs)
3. Admit specifically (Both attitudes and actions)
4. Acknowledge the hurt (Express sorrow for hurting someone)
5. Accept the consequences (Such as making restitution)
6. Alter your behavior (Change your attitudes and actions)
7. Ask for forgiveness
Privilege or maybe something to do with Paternity! – “Our Father in heaven”
Priorities – “hallowed be your name, your kingdom come”
Provision please – “give us today our daily bread”
Pardon & pardoning – “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”
Protection – “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil”
Praise / Perpetual Power – “for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Mission is not one thing we do among others. Mission is central to the Bible story and central to our identity. We are missionary people. We are communities on mission.
Creation: God made humanity with a mission: (1) to fill and govern the earth, and (2) to be his image in the world, reflecting his glory. We create, we explore, we investigate, we cook, we clean, we repair, we do science and culture and art – all to the glory of God.
Fall: After our rebellion our mission distorts and turns inwards. At Babel humanity (1) comes together instead of being scattered (2) to a name for themselves instead of glorifying God (Genesis 11:4).
Abraham: ‘All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ (Genesis 12:3) God chooses Abraham for the nations. The Saviour will come from Abraham’s descendants. See Genesis 18:18-19. The nations will be blessed as God’s people walk in his ways and ‘do’ justice. People will look on and see it is good to know God.
Exodus: ‘Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ (Exodus 19:5-6) Priests made God known and brought people to God through sacrifice. In the same way, the nation is to make God known. They are to be holy (distinctive) as God is holy – the place on earth where people could see what God is like. See also Deuteronomy 4:5-8. So the law has a missional goal: to shape the life of Israel so the nations are drawn to God.
Israel: ‘Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom’ (1 Kings 4:34). But ultimately Israel follows the ways of the nations and is drawn away from God instead of following the ways of God and drawing the nations to God.
Prophecy: See Isaiah 2:2-5 (60:1-3). One day the nations will stream to Mount Zion in Jerusalem to learn God’s ways as God’s people walk in his light. The ‘servant of the Lord’ will be light to the nations that Israel had failed to be (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6).
Jesus: ‘I am the light of the world’ (John 8:12).
The church: Because Jesus has been given authority over the nations, he sends his disciples out to call on the nations to submit to that authority (Matthew 28:18-20). See Matthew 5:13-16. The rag-bag community of Jesus is to be the light to the world that Israel failed to be, the city on a hill promised by Isaiah. so ‘let your light shine before men’ and bring praise to God. See 1 Peter 2:9. The church is now the kingdom of priests and holy nation which makes God known to the nations. So ‘live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us’ (12).
New creation: People from all nations worship the Lamb together and find healing in the new creation (Revelation 7:9-10; 22:2).
Jesus began his ministry by proclaiming the good news of God’s coming kingdom (Mark 1:14-15). But people don’t believe God’s rule is good news. They think they’re better off without God. We believe the Serpent’s lie that God’s rule is oppressive and restrictive (Genesis 3:5). We are to so live together under God’s reign that people see that God’s reign is good news, a reign of life, love, freedom, justice and joy.
Tim Chester
Do you love the church? Romans 12:10 tells Christians to “Love one another with brotherly affection.”
The affection and love we’re to have for fellow-Christians is to be based on the work of Jesus Christ for us. It’s not about elitism, it’s not because Christians are better than anyone else, it certainly isn’t because Christians are necessarily more lovable. We love the church because we love the Savior who redeemed the church.
Acts 20:28 tells us that Jesus obtained the church with his own blood. Is this what your love for the church is based on? If it’s anything less, it won’t last long.
- Don’t love the church because of what it does for you. Because sooner or later it won’t do enough.
- Don’t love the church because of a leader. Because human leaders are fallible and will let you down.
- Don’t love the church because of a program or a building or activities because all those things get old.
- Don’t love the church because of a certain group of friends because friendships change and people move.
Love the church because of who shed his blood to obtain the church. Love the church because of who the church belongs to. Love the church because of who the church worships. Love the church because you love Jesus Christ and his glory. Love the church because Jesus is worthy and faithful and true. Love the church because Jesus loves the church.
Josh Harris – We are Here to Love the Church
“The Christian call to evangelism is not simply a call to persuade people to make decisions, but rather to proclaim to them the good news of salvation in Christ, to call them to repentance, and to give God the glory for regeneration and conversion.
We do not fail in our evangelism if we faithfully tell the gospel to someone who is not subsequently converted; we fail only if we do not faithfully tell the gospel at all.”
(Mark Dever, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism)
Change 5-second rule to 30-second rule?
By Amber Smith May 17, 2007, 2:35PM
From a news release from Connecticut College…. NEW LONDON, Conn. — Two Connecticut College student researchers have found that the ‘five-second rule’ – which stipulates that dropped food will be safe to eat if it stays on the floor for fewer than five seconds – might better be known as the ’30-second rule.’ Connecticut College seniors and cell and molecular biology majors Molly Goettsche and Nicole Moin took two food samples – apple slices and Skittles candies – to the Connecticut College dining hall and snack bar. They dropped the foods onto the floors in both locations for five, 10, 30 and 60 second intervals, and also tested them after allowing five minutes to elapse. They then looked for any rogue bacteria that might have attached to the foods. The researchers found no bacteria were present on the foods that had remained on the floor for five, 10 or 30 seconds. The apple slices did pick up bacteria after one minute, however, and the Skittles showed a bacterial presence after remaining on the floor for five minutes. The results prove, according Goettsche and Moin, that you can wait at least 30 seconds to pick up wet foods and more than a minute to pick up dry foods before they become contaminated with bacteria. “The five-second rule should probably be renamed,” Goettsche said. “You actually have a little more time.” The research was conducted under the supervision of Anne Bernhard, assistant professor of biology at Connecticut College.
Wrong Reasons to Love the Church
Josh Harris
Do you love the church? Romans 12:10 tells Christians to “Love one another with brotherly affection.”
The affection and love we’re to have for fellow-Christians is to be based on the work of Jesus Christ for us. It’s not about elitism, it’s not because Christians are better than anyone else, it certainly isn’t because Christians are necessarily more lovable. We love the church because we love the Savior who redeemed the church.
Acts 20:28 tells us that Jesus obtained the church with his own blood. Is this what your love for the church is based on? If it’s anything less, it won’t last long.
- Don’t love the church because of what it does for you. Because sooner or later it won’t do enough.
- Don’t love the church because of a leader. Because human leaders are fallible and will let you down.
- Don’t love the church because of a program or a building or activities because all those things get old.
- Don’t love the church because of a certain group of friends because friendships change and people move.
Love the church because of who shed his blood to obtain the church. Love the church because of who the church belongs to. Love the church because of who the church worships. Love the church because you love Jesus Christ and his glory. Love the church because Jesus is worthy and faithful and true. Love the church because Jesus loves the church.
From the one and only John Piper
1. Jesus Christ, as he is presented to us in the New Testament, and as he stands forth from all its writings, is too single and too great to have been invented so uniformly by all these writers.
The force of Jesus Christ unleashed these writings; the writings did not create the force. Jesus is far bigger and more compelling than any of his witnesses. His reality stands behind these writings as a great, global event stands behind a thousand newscasters. Something stupendous unleashed these diverse witnesses to tell these stunning and varied, yet unified, stories of Jesus Christ.
2. Nobody has ever explained the empty tomb of Jesus in the hostile environment of Jerusalem where the enemies of Jesus would have given anything to produce the corpse, but could not.
The earliest attempts to cover the scandal of resurrection were manifestly contradictory to all human experience—disciples do not steal a body (Matthew 28:13) and then sacrifice their lives to preach a glorious gospel of grace on the basis of the deception. Modern theories that Jesus didn’t die but swooned, and then awoke in the tomb and moved the stone and tricked his skeptical disciples into believing he was risen as the Lord of the universe don’t persuade.
3. Cynical opponents of Christianity abounded where claims were made that many eyewitnesses were available to consult concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
“After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:6). Such claims would be exposed as immediate falsehood if they could. But we know of no exposure. Eyewitnesses of the risen Lord abounded when the crucial claims were being made.
4. The early church was an indomitable force of faith and love and sacrifice on the basis of the reality of Jesus Christ.
The character of this church, and the nature of the gospel of grace and forgiveness, and the undaunted courage of men and women—even unto death—do not fit the hypothesis of mass hysteria. They simply were not like that. Something utterly real and magnificent had happened in the world and they were close enough to know it, and be assured of it, and be gripped by its power. That something was Jesus Christ, as all of them testified, even as they died singing.
5. The prophesies of the Old Testament find stunning fulfillment in the history of Jesus Christ.
The witness to these fulfillments are too many, too diverse, too subtle and too interwoven into the history of the New Testament church and its many writings to be fabricated by some great conspiracy. Down to the details, Jesus Christ fulfilled dozens of Old Testament prophecies that vindicate his truth.
6. The witnesses to Jesus Christ who wrote the New Testament gospels and letters are not gullible or deceitful or demented.
This is manifest from the writings themselves. The books bear the marks of intelligence and clear-headedness and maturity and a moral vision that is compelling. They win our trust as witnesses, especially when all taken together with one great unifying, but distinctively told, message about Jesus Christ.
7. The worldview that emerges from the writings of the New Testament makes more sense out of more reality than any other worldview.
It not only fits the human heart, but also the cosmos and history and God as he reveals himself in nature and conscience. Some may come to this conclusion after much reflection, others may arrive at this conviction by a pre-reflective, intuitive sense of the deep suitability of Christ and his message to the world that they know.
8. When one sees Christ as he is portrayed truly in the gospel, there shines forth a spiritual light that is a self-authenticating.
This is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:6), and it is as immediately perceived by the Spirit-awakened heart as light is perceived by the open eye. The eye does not argue that there is light. It sees light.
9. When we see and believe the glory of God in the gospel, the Holy Spirit is given to us so that the love of God might be “poured out in our hearts” (Romans 5:5).
This experience of the love of God known in the heart through the gospel of Him who died for us while we were yet ungodly assures us that the hope awakened by all the evidences we have seen will not disappoint us
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