Free to Serve

Welch on Fighting Sin

Perhaps the only thing worse than someone wronging you is when you can't seem to stop wronging God. Fighting sin is really, really hard and really, really important. The difficulty to fight and the need to fight both explain the self-mutilation imagery of Mark 9:42-50.

For a little help with the fight, read Ed Welch's post, "Fighting Sin is Tiring." It's a good word.

Prayers for the New Year

One of my prayers for this New Year is that more and more believers at Mount Vernon would devote some time each month to meet up with someone to talk about the Bible. In our day and age, people (especially the unchurched) are less interested in coming to the church for a special event but would be interested in spending some time with a believer talking about the Bible. 

Also, I'd love to see more and more believers meeting with other believers to talk about the Bible and go deeper in their faith. Services and classes are wonderful. We are commanded by God to meet as a church regularly. But there is also something to be said for sitting down with a brother or sister in Christ and figuring out together what the Word of God is saying and how it applies to your life.

Would you consider doing this? For a little help, read through David Helm's great book, One to One Bible Reading. A lot of the principles he brings up in this book would apply to sitting down and reading a solid Christian book with someone. 

May it become increasingly natural for us to devote an hour one morning, a lunch break, or coffee in the evening figuring out with someone else how the Bible should change our lives.

The Link Between Doctrine and Demeanor

In the late 1960s, Martin Lloyd-Jones,a former medical doctor, preached a series of sermons on the topic of spiritual depression. As I read through this book, I'm reminded how many Christians today, sadly, suffer under a spiritual malaise that can be crippling. There is little joy, weak faith, and Satan is having a field day with them. For anyone who lacks the joy that he or she knows should exist, this book is a wonderful medidation and a great help. 

There are many strategies to fighting spiritual depression, but the chief one is Truth. We fight with the Word of God. Here is Lloyd-Jones:

The great antidote to spiritual depression is the knowledge of Biblical doctrine, Christian doctrine. Not having the feelings worked up in meetings, but knowing the principles of the faith, knowing and understanding the doctrines. That is the Biblical way, that is Christ's own way as it is also the way of the apostles. The antidoge of depression is to have a knowledge of Him, and you get that in His Word. You must take the trouble to learn it. It is difficult work, but you have to study it and give yourself to it.

 

Bible Intake

Last Wednesday, as part of Equipping Matters at MVBC, Andrew Armstrong spoke to the importance of hearing, reading, studying, and meditating upon God's Word. What an encouragement!

Some simple pieces of application worth our consideration:

1) When it comes to hearing God's Word preached: get a good night sleep on Saturday; try taking notes during the sermon; read the text in advance; pray for focus.

2) When it comes to reading God's Word: talk to others about what you read in your personal devotional time; try reading less and give yourself time to dig deeper; keep track of the passages you've read so you can be reminded what Scripture you have digested.

3) When it comes to studying God's Word: ask basic questions about every passage (What is the context? What do I observe? what does this mean? How should I apply this?); use different versions; invest in a commentary set like the Bible Speaks Today series.

4) When it comes to meditating on God's Word: take an appropriate passage and rephrase it in your own words; ask how it applies to some situation you are enduring; pray through the passage; fight so that you do more than understand the passage, delight in it!

Christians and Addiction

Starting Sunday afternoons in January, I'm going to take a few people through a ten-week course on addiction. It will include some were are personally struggling and others wanting to learn how to help those who are struggling. We will be going through a study called Crossroads: A step-by-step guide away from addiction. By "addiction," the author, Ed Welch means, "temptation, desires run amok, or voluntary slavery." So, those sins that appear to be controlling us are our addiction. Whatever you call it, we all know what it is like to feel out of control.

To get a sense of the wisdom Welch offers, here is a bit of encouragement with which he starts the course:

Your struggle is a common one. Don't begin with the idea that your experience is out of the ordinary. It is, of course, unique--no one completely understands your struggle (not even you). Still, we are all cut from the same cloth. All of us, if we are truly honest, would have to acknowledge a familiarity with that tug of addictions. A lot of wanting is in the human heart. The desire for drugs, alcohol, sex, and food are the more dramatic ones, but they aren't fundamentally different from our cravings for comfort, significance, relationship, money, love, and so on. Try to find one person who has successfully and consistently said no to any of those wants. You won't succeed.

I hope that Mount Vernon will be a place where people who have lots of problems can come and find a home--so long as they are willing to take those problems to the Cross and submit their lives to Christ. This is what this study will be about. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Lord ministers to others and to me.

Saturating Your Children with God's Word

Andy Davis is the Pastor of First Baptist Church Durham. He has communicated a passion for children and adults to saturate their minds with Scripture. See a booklet he wrote on the subject here. In another little booklet, "Saturating your Children with God's Word" he concludes with the following application:

(1) Commit yourself to discipline your children.

(2) Establish a regular pattern of family devotions, led by the Father where possible.

(3) Develop a specific plan for discipleship for each of your children.

(4) Weave Scripture into every aspect of your life.

(5) Submit to an accountability relationship to be sure this gets done.

Parents, have you done this?

 

 

Naked Truth

Matthias Media puts out a periodical called The Briefing. Matthias is an evangelical ministry based out of Australia. It is nice to read articles with an international flavor. A couple of years ago they put out an entire issue devoted to the topic of purity. Here is an excerpt from an article written by James Warren called, "The Naked Truth About Porn." Warren points out what we know but can too easily forget: pornography is destructive at every level!

Long-term, not only does pornography deaden attraction for one's partner, it deadens the ability to have healthy relationships in general. All people are increasingly objectified for what they can do sexually for the voyeur. Porn distorts all relationships, and prevents the growth of loving other-person-centered relationships.

Here are some resources on the topic that may be of help:

Especially for the married:

Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God by C. J. Mahaney

Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor

God on Sex: The Creator's Ideas about Love, Intimacy, and Marriage

For everyone:

Pure Sex by Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen

Not Even a Hint: Guarding Your Heart Against Lust by Joshua Harris

The Purity Principle by Randy Alcorn

First Gathered, Then Scattered

If you haven't already, I hope that you will read the article that I wrote in this month's Perspective, "Starting the Christian Life: Don't Go It Alone." This is part of a series that I'm writing that is intended to be of special help to young Christians. In "Don't Go It Alone," I drive home the importance of active involvement in a local church. Here is a selection:

Sometimes someone will ask me at Mount Vernon, "How often do I need to be there?" I understand the question, I just don't think it is the right one. A better question is, "Why should I be there?" You should attend regularly for the sake of others. Here is what I tell new members coming into the fellowship of Mount Vernon: You should make it a point to come regularly on Sunday Morning--and if you are going to come to the main service, then why not come to the Shepherding Group [adult Sunday school] hour that precedes it? Sunday morning is that time of the week that we uniquely devote to God and to one another. Your presence will, Lord willing, be good for your own soul, but it will be good for the souls of those around you as well. In addition, I encourage every member to come to one evening service. This provides an opportunity to be encouraged in a small, more familial setting. My prayer is that whenever you attend, you won't come fundamentally asking what you can get out of a service, but who you can serve and encourage. This is love.

The last thing I want to be is the pastor of a church that comes, sits on its hands, and then goes home to watch television. I want to be a part of a church that is committed to giving, serving, and engaging this world in powerful ways. However, will we truly give ourselves over to reaching the lost if we are unable to give ourselves over to loving one another? One of the ways we show our love for one another is by gathering together regularly, faithfully, and actively on the Lord's Day. Only if we are committed to being the church gathered will be equipped to be the church scattered.

Starting the Christian Life

I recently found a great book to serve as an introduction to the Christian life. It is entitled Rock Solid, and I wrote a review of it here. It is largely a theological introduction to the Christian life but it does not neglect how these doctrines affect us on a daily basis. Recently, I've struggled to know what book to give to a new believer who has, perhaps, not been exposed to the basics of Christian living and is wondering what to do and how to live. Rock Solid is the best thing I've found, thus far. But if you have other suggestions, I would certainly welcome them.

Over the course of the next few months, I'd like to write a series of articles that cover how one should begin the Christian life. The following order makes sense to me, and I plan to flesh each one out in the monthly newsletter of Mount Vernon known as The Perspective. The basic approach is, "You've been converted! Now what?"

Here is a rough outline: 

(1) "Feeding Yourself." I've written this already and you can find it here in PDF. 

(2) "Don't Go It Alone." This will be on the necessity of community for Christian living.

(3) "Remember, It's All Sacred Now." This is to teach that as a Christian, all of your life is now under the umbrella of Christ's authority. 

(4) "Start Smashing Idols." This is on the necessity of identifying and turning from those things/thoughts/ideas that woo us away from worshiping the One, True God.

(5) "Say Something." We are to be a verbal witness. This article will try to condense how to begin thinking of yourself as an evangelist.

(6) "Don't Forget How You Got Here." This article will insist that you got to the Christian faith by embracing Christ's substitutionary atonement and you will persevere through all sorts of trials by remembering and applying the Cross to your daily life.

(7) "Keep Digging." It is not enough to read the Bible, we need to study with the goal of understanding God and his plan for our redemption. 

My prayer is that as we keep these seven ideas in the forefront of our minds, and practice them in our daily lives, we will understand better what it means to draw near to God. 

Preparing for Sunday

One of the best things we can do as God's church, as God's people, is prepare ourselves to hear God's Word preached. To think of Sunday morning not as a disruption in our schedule but as the climax of our week. What a joy it is to gather with God's people, to share in the glories of the Cross, to be transformed together by the Word of God. God has spoken. 

So how can we prepare? Let's start by crucifying sin. By examining our own hearts for signs of rebellion against God and putting it to death. Pastor Sinclair Ferguson in The Christian Life, put it this way: 

We must affirm in this context that crucifying sin is a central practical issue in Christian experience. This neglected area of truth must be recovered, and in our present culture must be taught to younger and older Christians alike. Undoubtedly one of the reasons some younger Christians make shipwreck of their faith is because they have never learned how to deal with indwelling sin, or, what is worse, have been encouraged to see it as an irrelevance. It is one of the signs of our morally-confused church life today that there is so much hesitation here. We have lost confidence in the clear commands of Scripture (158-59).

So, join me as we prepare for Sunday by taking time to examine our hearts and confess our sin before God. Pride, lust, envy, anger--it is all there. As we humble ourselves before God he will lift us up!