Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken from Resolved on Vimeo.
Resolved Conference
As the 2010 Resolved Conference gets under way tonight I thought I would pass a highlight video from last year.
Loving the Church, Faults and all
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One theme in today's "Christian" relevance plays over and over again. It is either something culturally accepted and boastfully alluded to by modern day social gospel preachers or it is something that is totally avoided and neglected due to disagreements by a younger rebellious youth. It is not new and seems to follow all age groups from the creation of man. The subject is the church and its main preeminence within the believers life. Today it seems the more convenient the church is to cater to the worldly desires of today's youth, the least amount of demands it places on any individual, and its ability to submit to the desires of the congregations, well the more attractive she is. The unregenerate person has no desire to be inconvenienced by church involvement. Unless of course it is center stage and one day a week with no prior requirements.
We seem to be living in an era where devotion to the centrality of the church upon a believer is almost completely neglected. Cultivating within our youth a strong desire to love the church and be devoted to it as the central focus of ones life takes a back seat to more important things like sports, education, leisure, and an array of other topics. Youth are not loving the church, loving the education of a proper worldview, sports within the context of the local church and leisure with the people they go to church with. It all seems like "work."
This attitude is usually bred by parents who seem to be rather non-submissive and uninformed on the need to love the church. They seem overly critical and have complaining hearts. The church is great as long as it does everything they agree with. Once a sacrifice of trust is required of them they are the first to shoot and complain or even leave. In face the battle cry of today's relevant church is to look and act as little like church as possible and as much like the world as they can afford (which comes far short).
Beware, for one you are working yourself out of a job. How? Every generation has this youthful pride that says the best way is different. Its not 2000 years of biblical theology. Its now, its hip, its cool, its not old. Young man, you are getting older. Many of you in less then 15 years will be the older uncool man. The next generation will come and repeat your method of ecclesiology. And you my friend, will loose your job because you will just be to old. You will not be respected but discarded and the "new" perspectives of prideful know it all spirituality will become even more liberal then your "new" ways which will all to soon become "old" ways. But what do you expect? This was your modeled ministry.
What I want to do over the next few weeks as the Lord allows is go through the 9 Marks of a healthy church. If you have not ran by these then do a google search for 9 Marks Ministry and go through each of the 9 Marks to see how your church stacks up. These are not necessary controversial marks but they are marks that all to often are assumed but never explained. This results in a distorted view of meaning on each mark. The reason I am doing this is two fold. One reason to serve you in your search for a healthy church. The second reason is all to often I have seen people who have neglected to lead there family to a healthy church either due to a lack of biblical leadership, concern of self, or simply because they do not know what to look for. My prayer is that in each case this will serve you in order to stir up again a desire to lead you and/or your family to a church with a high view of God and His Word or to aid you in what to look for as you discern the difference of a God centered church from a man centered church. Maybe you are in a situation where your parents are going to an unbiblical church. My prayer is that as you go through each mark you will become more aware of your need to pray. Maybe you are a submissive wife who is following a husband who seems to prefer position and or convenience more then family leadership. Well let these things revive a desire to pray for your church and further your commitment to God. Know that He is in control and your gentle loving spirit has an impact. But do not neglect the need for prayer and become desperate in your desire to see your family grow in grace. God will honor those prayers.
So after this introduction our first Mark will be "Expositional Preaching" in which I will be posting later this week. Commit to prayer for your family and your Pastors. Commit to being a part of the solution within your local church. It is easy to sit back and judge and never do the heavy lifting. Start to show a pattern of self denial to your local church and service. Begin to love the church and teach your children to do the same.
1 Corinthians 12:18-21
God has arranged the parts in the body,
every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
If they were all one part, where would the body be?
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!"
And the head cannot say to the feet, "I dont need
you!"
The Character of Genuine Saving Faith
The Character of Genuine Saving Faith
2 Corinthians 13:5
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
I. Evidences that neither prove nor disprove one’s faith
a. Visible morality: Matt 19:16-21
b. Intellectual knowledge: Romans 2:17ff
c. Religious involvement: Matt. 25:1-10
d. Active Ministry : Mark 7:21-24
e. Conviction of sin: Acts 24:25
f. Assurance: Matt 23
g. Time of decision: Luke 8:13-14
II. The fruit /proofs of authentic / true Christianity
a. Love for God: Luke 10:27, Romans 8:7
b. Repentance from sin: Psalm 32:5, II Cor 7:10, I John 1:8-10
c. Genuine Humility: Psalm 51:17, Matt 5:1-12, James 4:6-9
d. Devotion to God’s Glory: Psalm 105:3, Isaiah 43:7, I Cor 10:31
e. Continual Prayer: Luke 18:1, Eph. 6:18, James 5:16-18
f. Selfless love: I John 2:9ff, 3:14, 4:7ff
g. Separation from the world: I Cor. 2:12, James 4:4ff, I John 2:15-17
h. Spiritual Growth: Luke 8:15, John 15:1-6, Eph 4:12-16
i. Obedient Living: Matt 7:21, I Peter 1:2,22….I John 2:3-5
If list I is true of a person and list II is false or non-evident, then there could be cause to question the validity of one’s profession of faith. If list II is true of a person, then list I will be true as well.
From: Dr John MacArthur Study Bible Index Notes, 1997.
Silent Idol
Often when having conversations with family members, friends or even strangers I often find a common thread or sin among them all. It is not shocking and not surprising when I hear it because I was guilty of this same sin and totally oblivious to it. In fact this sin is the most deceptive sin I am aware of. It is deceptive because its cloaked in some form of "spirituality". It eases the conscience of daily struggles, hardship, conviction and judgment. I am convinced that this sin takes more people to hell then any other. This sin is even prevalent among many church attendees. Whole churches have been built on this sin. The sin as laid out in
Exodus 20:3-4,
"You shall not make for yourself a carved image".
Making a graven or "carved" image. In the Old Testament the foreign nations at that time were acustom to making false God's out of gold or wood. Bowing down to those false images and worshiping them. Here God is commanding His chosen people, the Jew's, not to commit the same sin of idolatry. They are commanded to worship the one true God. Just a basic observation would reveal that even God's people (after miracle upon miracle) have a human tendency to create a false God and worship it. To place there trust in it and to have faith in it. We even see later in the same book chapter 32 that when Moses "delayed" coming down to them they gathered to make a false god. They made a golden calf and worshiped it. When Moses became aware of this and ground there idol to powder Aaron responded by saying to Moses, "You know the people, that they are set on evil" (Exodus 32:23).So it is that we are all "set" to evil. We are apt to go the natural way of things. We want to go the easy way. We want to go the way that can quickly ease our own conscience. That is what we see in these passages and what we see continuing several thousand year's later. Therefor we commit this same sin.
So the question is how do we commit this sin? After all I am sure you do not have many family members making little idol's to place on there mantle and bow down to. So how do we see this in today's context. It's simple, when we create a god in our own making that is defined by self. A god who is ok with sin's committed by self but not ok with really bad people's sin's. A god who will overlook lying, stealing (but I was just a kid excuse), lust, etc. But who must hate rape and murder. It's always a god who will have justice on the sin's the individual did not commit but they turn around in a self righteous manner and point the finger to others to say God must punish them. They have made a god in there own mind. It's not made out of brick's, wood or gold but one out of the mind. It can even have a name like jesus but it's not the Jesus as revealed in the Bible. It's one they made up. As one begins to define the God of the Bible the more they will see that there god is not like that. And that is true because there god does not even exist. It is a figment of one's imagination. It cannot save them on judgment day. They often will have a emotional connection with this god and say they pray every day. This is true also but the person they are praying to is self. It is self worship. Often those in this sin will consider themselves "spiritual" not religious. They have an over attraction with angel's. The more they are aware that there god is not the same God of the Bible they will seek to destroy the true God. They will set out to look for evidence to disprove the Bible, to run to every conspiracy theory under the sun. They will never have a urge to study the Bible for the sake of truth but to disprove it. They will never pick up a book to prove it's accuracy but quick to purchase the next "top seller" proving the "truth" of the Bible. Why? Because much like the Jew's of Moses' day "they are set on evil". I was once that very person. I was a self professing "Christian" but I had no love for the Bible, Worshiping God with other believers, serving a local church, obeying any of God's command's, or trusting Jesus alone. My god had a name, it was jesus but in reality it was Gary.
We must be aware that the devil transform's himself as an angel of light(2 Corinthians 11:14). This road of self worship will be wide and easy (Matthew 6:13-14)and even say, "This way to heaven" but it is a lie. It boil's down to this, we do not define God starting with self. I dont define God starting with me, we must go to an authoritative book, The Bible. In that Book God has defined Himself in many ways. He has revealed Himself to us. He show's us He is a God of justice, holiness and forgiveness. But it's not some passive kind of forgiveness. It was purchased with blood. The blood of God's own Son, Jesus Christ.
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