Fat Face and the Voice of God

I heard a guy I know say this evening that he'd felt God speak to him through the label attached to a t-shirt he bought in Fat Face. It said:

"It's never too late to be the person you could have been"

Feel like saying: "Discuss. 2000 words"!

Gutsy Guilt

The dominant pastoral issue in my ministry over the last ten years has been sexual sin. I've spent more time giving spiritual direction in this area than any other. I know that some who read this will be shocked. I know some will want to bury their head in the sand. I know that some will not be able to relate to it at all. I understand that but the reality still stands.

In many ways none of us should be surprised because we live in a sex-saturated culture where sex is used to sell anything and everything and where our children are sexualised from their earliest years. We live in a world where young girls who can barely walk are first cajoled into wearing high heels and T-shirts with Playboy motifs, before progressing into a grim future dominated by an internet-based youth culture that pressurises them into dress and behaviour which defines them overwhelmingly as sexual objects. What's more we can access any image we like from the privacy of our own home and it's only a mouse click away.

What are we expecting? That God's people would be immune?

We've got to fight back!

Not with the banning of porn or ever more sophisticated internet accountability software (which I heartily endorse and if you've not got some get it (see covenanteyes.com)) but with the historic, orthodox gospel which brings us a far greater vision to capture our affections and the power to find our joy in God (do the Kingdom a favour and read something by Tim Chester that will help you unleash the power of the gospel - You Can Change and Captured by a Better Vision to name but two books).

But we also need to fight satan himself who wields the lie that sexual sin disqualifies us from God's favour and service. This lie has been devastating to so many (you want to know why the church is struggling to engage men......?)

Today I was reminded of an article that John Piper wrote some years ago called "Gutsy Guilt". How we need to hear its message today. Please read it and be bold enough to share it with others. By God's grace sexual temptation might not be a challenge for you but if you're part of the LBC community it's a challenge to a good number and, at the risk of repeating myself, we're in 21st century so it shouldn't be a great surprise.

He was speaking at a conference with George Verwer, the founder of the mission organisation Operation Mobilisation. He writes:

Verwer's burden at that conference was the tragic number of young people who at one point in their lives dreamed of radical obedience to Jesus, but then faded away into useless American prosperity. A gnawing sense of guilt and unworthiness over sexual failure gradually gave way to spiritual powerlessness and the dead-end dream of middle-class security and comfort.

In other words, what seemed so tragic to George Verwer—as it does to me—is that so many young people are being lost to the cause of Christ's mission because they are not taught how to deal with the guilt of sexual failure. The problem is not just how not to fail. The problem is how to deal with failure so that it doesn't sweep away your whole life into wasted mediocrity with no impact for Christ.

The great tragedy is not masturbation or fornication or pornography. The tragedy is that Satan uses guilt from these failures to strip you of every radical dream you ever had or might have. In their place, he gives you a happy, safe, secure, American life of superficial pleasures, until you die in your lakeside rocking chair.

I have a passion that you do not waste your life. My aim is not mainly to cure you of sexual misconduct. I would like that to happen. But mostly I want to take out of the Devil's hand the weapon that exploits your sin and makes your life a wasted, worldly success. Satan wants that for you. But you don't!

To read the rest of this article click here.....http://bit.ly/947Mw1

Redeeming Singleness

It's hard for a pastor who's been married since he was just turned 22 to teach about singleness . But I've always had a passion to see people, particularly married people (I figure single folk know most of the stuff), well taught in this area. So consequently when I want to lean in to this area I've sought to draft in others to help. I'm doing the same now by advertising Barry Danylak's recent book, Redeeming Singleness, published by Crossway. John Piper wrote the forward - here's the whole thing. I commend it to you whether you're married or single (that is of course, after you've read everything you can by Tim Chester!)

The greatest, wisest, most fully human person who has ever lived, never married. Jesus Christ. His greatest apostle never married, and was thankful for his singleness. Jesus himself said, that in the age to come we do not marry. And he added that the age to come had already broken into this world.

Therefore, the presence of single people in the church not only “attests the sufficiency of Christ for the reception of God’s covenantal blessings in the new covenant,” but also reminds us “that the spiritual age has already been inaugurated in Christ and awaits imminent consummation.”

When I met Barry Danylak at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England, in the summer of 2006, I was amazed at the research he was doing on a biblical theology of singleness. Not only was the scope of it unprecedented, but the theological and practical insights struck me as biblically compelling and practically urgent. I don’t know of anyone else who has ever provided the extent of biblical reflection on singleness that Barry has provided for us here.

Both marriage and singleness demand the most serious and solid biblical insight. These are realities that affect every area of our life and thought. We cannot settle for superficial pep talks. Our lives cry out for significance. And significance comes from seeing ourselves the way God sees us. Including our singleness. My guess is that virtually every single who reads this book will finish with a sense of wonder at who they are, and how little they knew about this gift and calling.

Barry is keenly aware of the progress of redemptive history and its stunning implications for the single life. Early in that history, marriage and physical children were fundamental to the blessings of the Mosaic Covenant. But they are not fundamental to the New Covenant the way they were then. And what is beautiful about the way Barry develops this historical flow is that the glory of Jesus Christ is exalted above all things.

Barry elevates but does not absolutize the calling of the single life. It’s greatness lies in this: “It is a visible reminder that the kingdom of God points to a reality which stands beyond worldly preoccupations of marriage, family and career.” Indeed. And that greater reality is the all-satisfying, everlasting friendship of Jesus himself in the new heavens and the new earth. Marriage and singleness will be transcended, and Christ himself will make those categories obsolete in the joy of his presence. A life of joyful singleness witnesses to this.

Just DO Something

Here's a snippet from Kevin DeYoung's book from last year, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will. Sounds like my kind of book on guidance to be honest. I really don't know where this obsession with "finding God's will for my life" has come from. Western, individualistic narcissism at it's worst...OK maybe that's overstating the case a bit. Anyway let DeYoung rattle your cage a bit!

Simply put, God's will is your growth in Christ likeness. God promises to work all things together for our good that we might be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:28-29). . . . God never assures us of health, success, or ease. But He promises us something even better: He promises to make us loving, pure, and humble like Christ. In short, God's will is that you and I get happy and holy in Jesus.

So go marry someone, provided you're equally yoked and you actually like being with each other. Go get a job, provided it's not wicked. Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody. But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God's sake start making some decisions in your life. Don't wait for the liver-shiver. If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God's will, so just go out and do something.

Sign Me Up!!

Check this out from Carl Beech and the guys at CVM..... really, you need to see it. Ok so it's written specifically for bloke's but who's going to say it's not right on the money.

Love the bit about the need to stop sulking, take it on the chin and get over it.....would like to say that to a few people I can tell you! (perhaps I just did.....).

Am talking about some of this stuff at E4 on Sunday....think I'm on a roll from last w/e! We so need to get in the game.... 7 marriages, 8 leaders.....

http://youtu.be/yHZIPAVY1DE

No Sacrifice

Andy Doel is a top bloke and I'm so chuffed he's part of our church. I dropped into the youth club tonight and took the opportunity to thank him for co-leading the youth camp the previous weekend, he'd done a brilliant job. The guy's got a full-on job, two kids, he does youth work on Friday nights and Sunday mornings as well as stuff in the gaps and he said.....he said, "I enjoy it, it's no sacrifice." And he meant it. He loves serving. I told him he reminded me of the thing David Livingston (the pioneering missionary and explorer) had said whilst addressing Cambridge University students on 4 December 1857.....

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.

How to Glorify God at Work

It's a great Q. How can you glorify, that is to say, how can you shine a great spotlight on Jesus whilst at work? Surely it's got to involve a little more than not cheating on expenses and showing up on time. John Piper describes well what it means:

Do your work in such a way that Christ looks more important than your work. Seek to make and use money in such a way that Christ looks more important than money. Seek to have relationships with people in the work place such that Christ is more important than those relationships.

Now, that doesn't imply that relationships go down in effectiveness and importance. It means, in fact, that they go up! Because if Christ is infinitely precious to you, you will now have resources for the relationships and for the work that you wouldn't have had otherwise, if those relationships were god.

If they are god, you are drawing strength from them and eventually people are going to feel that. "You are using me. You may be really really interested in me, and you may want to spend time with me. But I'm starting to feel drained by you."

Whereas, if Christ is all, and he sends you into that relationship with resources, then the feel should be, "I like being around you because you are ministering to me. You are not taking from me."

So whether it is people, whether it is money, whether it is activities, we do them all. We are very good at them. We should be creative and industrious and excellent in all of our work in order to adorn the gospel and do it in a way that Christ is shown to be more valuable than any of those things.