Tag: Gospel

A Divine Perspective on the Church — C.J. Mahaney

~ fundyreformed ~ 2 Comments

Last Sunday, we had the privilege of hearing C.J. Mahaney preach in our church. His text was 1 Cor. 1:1-9 where Paul surprisingly commends the Corinthian church. He’s about to provide some strong correction for their many errors, but he goes out of his way to thank God for them, and ensure they know how blessed they are of God.

The message encourages us to find the evidences of God’s grace in the lives of those around us. It’s so easy to find fault; but when we study the fruits and gifts of the Spirit as revealed in God’s Word, we will see God at work in many ways in the lives of the people in our churches. This point is underscored by 1 Cor. 4:5. There Paul expects that God will give each minister a “commendation”. Not “condemnation” but “commendation”. This is stunning. At the judgment, and because of Christ’s transforming work in us and his substitutionary work for us, God will find things to praise us for. What wonder!

Now, don’t just enjoy my meager summary of the message. It’s available for free download from our church’s website. Click here. To learn more about C.J. Mahaney, click here. You can find other free sermons by Mahaney at this page, or by searching Sovereign Grace Ministries’ resource library. Also a C.J. Mahaney sermon archive is being created here.

May God grant us eyes to see how He is working in our lives today.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Pet. 5:10-11)

One last note: I recommend several of Mahaney’s books (a few are listed here). I’ve also reviewed The Cross Centered Life, and Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God.

America — A Pagan Nation?

~ fundyreformed ~ 24 Comments

In the conclusion to my series on understanding the land promise made to Israel, I made the claim that America is just another secular, pagan nation. I’m not too surprised that someone objected to my claim. The idea that America is a Christian nation is a very common idea, but it is still misguided.

Yes, some godly people were involved in the founding of America. Most of our founders at least acknowledged God. But when they founded the nation, they founded a run-of-the-mill, secular nation. God made no promise in His Word about the founding of our nation. Our nation granted freedom of religion to non-Christian religions. The laws of our nation are secular laws, they do not come out of the pages of Deuteronomy.

But wait, some would say, didn’t our laws derive from Biblical principles? That may be, but they were still secular laws for a secular people. Excommunication from the church is never dished out by the secular state, here.

We may truly be thankful for the Christian, godly influence in the founding of our society. That may have given us advantages and blessings. But it does not constitute our country as uniquely created by God. We have no claims for God’s special favor. Like every other nation of men, we are accountable to obey God’s laws. And God ultimately is responsible for the authority our leaders have (Rom. 13).

Since America is just another secular nation, it should not surprise us when our country follows the whims and desires of fallen man. Christians in the era of pre-Christian Rome had a far worse society to deal with than we have. Roman senators openly kept mistresses and/or homosexual boys, Christianity was directly persecuted, and Bibles were illegal. Yet one will not find the Christians of that era complaining about how bad things were and how hard it was to be a Christian.

Today, however, Christians complain about how bad things are, and they long for the good old days, when America was truly a Christian place. However, America never was a Christian place. Morality apart from Christ is as heinous to God as immorality apart from Christ. A day where everyone saves face and looks good, while still being rebellious to God in their hearts, is not an age I want to return to. And I am at a loss to see how preventing homosexual marriage, and laws of this nature, do anything to “reclaim America for Christ”. The law is powerless to save.

We as Christians need to realize that we will always be in a world that hates us and in an environment that makes it hard for us to live for Christ. Always, until Jesus comes, that is.

And while I’m all for efforts to impact our culture for Christ, focusing on politics and political reforms often diverts us from the cause of the Gospel. It also blurs the distinction of Christianity in the eyes of the world. Rather than being known as those who prize the Gospel and love Christ, we are viewed as those who aim to foist our morality on the general public through whatever means possible.

Christianity is not a political party, nor a social club. American Christians, can’t ignore their global brothers and sisters. God is for America just as much as He is for Pakistan, North Korea, and every other nation where members of Christ’s body live. I’m not against being patriotic, but we must not pretend God is. We are citizens of a heavenly country, and just “passing through” this world, whatever earthly country we may dwell in.

Together Again… for the Gospel

~ fundyreformed ~ 6 Comments

It’s hard to believe that it has been 2 years since the first Together For the Gospel conference. I remember the excitement I had as I blogged about the event (which I couldn’t attend). Then and now, I consider the conference a wonderful display of, and needed encouragement towards, Christian unity. And not just unity, but unity coupled with doctrinal commitment to the true Gospel. We don’t have to sacrifice doctrine to gain unity. Both are important, and T4G demonstrates this well.

This year, I also could not attend, but I suspected the messages would be available online for free, as they were in 2006. I’m not sure if the speaker panel sessions will be available, like last year, but the seven messages are available for free online.

And while you are there, you should check out Together For the Gospel’s updated website. The messages from last year are available as well as their doctrinal statement.

To encourage you to listen to the messages (I plan on eating them up on an upcoming road trip), let me direct you to Tim Challies’ liveblogging of the entire conference. Thanks to Tim, you can get a taste of the event and each message.

Let me conclude by quoting from T4G’s “about us” page.

Together for the Gospel (T4G) began as a friendship between four pastors. These friends differed on a number of theological issues, like baptism and the charismatic gifts. But they were committed to standing together for the main thing””the gospel of Jesus Christ..

So they began a conference which occurs every two years and aims principally at encouraging other pastors to do the same””to stand together for the gospel. And now this conference is evolving, as God pleases, into an informal network of church leaders who all share this ambition and who intend to encourage one another to do the same…..

Update: Josh Gelatt has collected some quotes and personal reflections on the conference which you may enjoy: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.

Reminding Ourselves of the Cross

~ fundyreformed ~ 1 Comment

Sunday Mediations — posts encouraging us all to meditate on the things of our Savior, on His day.

The Gospel isn’t just for those who are outside of Christianity. Christians must remind themselves and others of the beauty of the Gospel, day in and day out. This is how we live. We need the Gospel.

Listen to C.J. Mahaney (of Sovereign Grace Ministries) in a recent post on the importance of preaching the gospel to ourselves:

We awaken each day with a tendency to forget that which is most important: the gospel. All of us should assume this tendency and be aware of this tendency. Because of the Fall and due to the effects of remaining sin, we have a daily tendency and temptation to forget stuff in general and to forget that which is most important in particular.

Assuming this tendency, we must create practices that will enable us to remember what we must not forget””the cross. So each day I seek to spend time in a location where I am not distracted, unhurriedly reading and meditating on Scripture and finding my way in Scripture to a hill called Calvary to meditate each day on Christ and him crucified. Each day I need to remind myself of the gospel. I cannot live on yesterday’s recollection of the gospel. I need to review and rehearse the gospel each day or I will assume the gospel, forget the gospel, and prove vulnerable to all manner of temptation and sin.

Take these words to heart. And for some great book recommendations, read the rest of C.J. Mahaney’s post.

Minimizing the Gospel through Excessive Separation

~ fundyreformed ~ 43 Comments

In extreme fundamentalism, every doctrine is a hill to die on. Music (worship), dress, Bible versions (KJVO), personal separation (i.e. no movie attendance, alcohol, tobacco, gambling), believer’s baptism, pre-tribulational rapture — all of these are lined up right next to the Trinity, justification by grace through faith alone, inspiration, inerrancy, the virgin birth, etc. In short, every doctrine is essential, no doctrines are merely secondary. If God says it, I believe it, and that settles it!

Such a die hard commitment to truth is commendable. We certainly shouldn’t pick and choose between what parts of the Bible we should believe and those we shouldn’t! And in today’s relativistic age, when so many prize ecumenism and unity far above truth, this attitude is noble.

But let me ask an important question: “Doesn’t elevating every doctrinal position to the status of essential make the Gospel just another doctrine?”

The Gospel is just another position we stake out: one more hill to die on. When our time is spent defending the King James Bible or high dress standards, and when we start putting “KJB 1611” and “old-fashioned” on our church signs, we are acting as if these positions matter to us as much as, if not more so than the Gospel.

What we choose to separate over, defines us — whether we admit it or not. And for many well-intentioned fundamentalists, what distinguishes them are not matters “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3).

The Gospel should be big enough to unite over. It is a towering peak, far more important than one’s eschatological or ecclesiastic positions, and certainly bigger than one’s view of Bible translations and dress standards.

Since the Gospel is so important, we should be thrilled to find someone who believes as we do on the Gospel. If the Gospel matters so much, then it should matter much to us if someone agrees with us on the Gospel, other differences notwithstanding. I explained this point in these words in an earlier post:

Rather than prizing the actual unity we have as fellow believer-partakers in our Divine Lord Jesus Christ’s glorious provision for our sins as an altogether adequate basis for a mutual fellowship and unity which welcomes each other in spite of our differing positions on comparatively minor points, the minor points [upon which we disagree] define us as we esteem them of greater importance than our commonality in the Gospel. Our own applications of separation, views on baptism, and beliefs about the finer points of eschatology and ecclesiology and other doctrines become stumblingblocks to the real unity of the faith the One True Gospel calls us to, and the world is robbed of a clear witness to the Oneness of Christ and the Father, and of Christ and His Church, and ultimately God is denied a unified voice that glorifies His name (Eph. 4:3,13, Jn. 17:20-21, Rom. 15:5-7).

I’m not claiming we shouldn’t stand for secondary doctrines. They are important. But they are not what the kingdom of God is all about (Rom. 14:17-20). In all our defense of truth, let us make sure we are not belittling the place of the Gospel in our system of thought. Make sure the Gospel towers above your horizon as your defining reality and the focus of your faith and of your life.