To help us as we go, I’ll be updating this post often, adding resources relevant to that week’s text, including links to things mentioned in the sermon, and compiling a list of great resources to study Genesis for yourself. Study away, and enjoy!

Week 1: God Creates (Genesis 1:1-25)

• Genesis: Meditations on Moses’ Mosaic by Mark Driscoll. This is a tremendously helpful and accessible overview of Genesis, including key themes, controversial issues, and commentary on each section. If you look at only one of these resources, make it this one.
• Read the Enuma Elish – the Babylonia creation story I mentioned in my sermon.

Kids Resources

• Herein Is Love: Genesis (A Commentary for Children) by Nancy Ganz. Is there a 400 page commentary on the first book of the Torah that parents can read to their kids, or older kids can work through on their own? Yes, this is it, and it’s awesome.
• Music: Download the album Jesus Came to Save Sinners by The Village Church for free! Then rock out to the song “God Made Everything.” Perfect for our study of Genesis chapter 1. Or just listen to it.

Age of the Earth Resources

• Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? by C. John Collins. The best, most accessible book on the issues raised in reading Genesis 1-4.
• “Science, the Bible, and the Promised Land”. A great summary of Genesis Unbound by John Sailhamer. As Sailhamer writes, “When Genesis 1 and 2 are understood as…Moses intended them to be understood, nearly all the difficulties that perplex modern readers instantly vanish.”
• “Why Does the Universe Look So Old?” by Al Mohler

It was only 18 months ago that the Rooted started meeting together weekly on Sunday mornings. God, in his grace, has seen fit to sustain and provide for our small band of imperfect people who make up an imperfect church to enjoy and bring glory to our perfect King.

Early every Tuesday morning, our pastors meet together and pray for you. While we are sure to pray for those who are sick, suffering, and struggling against sin as well as those celebrating babies, marriages, and God’s goodness, it’s never long before we end up dumbfounded – dumbfounded that God allows our church to exist at all, that men like us have the privilege to serve our church as pastors, and that we get to pray to a Redeemer who promises to build his church. We always end up praying something like Paul did for the Ephesian church:

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

All this to say, I’m amazed it’s only been 18 months. And I’m astounded at how good God is. I hope you join me in simply reflecting on and bathing in his grace to our church!

The Fall is only days away, and I’m excited to share with you a few of the things to look forward to:

1) Church Planting. This year alone, you helped plant 3 gospel-centered churches: The City Church and The Paradox Church in downtown Fort Worth and Christ Community Church in Denton. Through prayer, networking, resourcing, and giving over $20,000 thus far, we are committed to helping plant solid churches in our city.

2) Pastors. In case you don’t know, we now have a pastoral team of 3. In the last year David Parrish and Chris Taylor were trained up and installed as pastors/elders of the Rooted. Among other things, we spent these summer months studying and defining our pastoral roles. While we collectively oversee and lead The Rooted Church, in order to lead from our strengths and function best as a team, we now each lead different areas:

• • Pastor Nick: vision & leadership; preaching & teaching; prayer
  • Pastor Chris: preaching; shepherding men, administration of day to day operations; prayer
  • Pastor David: city groups and city group leader development; pastoral care; prayer

All 3 of us are also now on Twitter. You can stay up to date on all things Rooted by following our feeds: @rootednick, @rootedchris, @rooteddavid.

3) Genesis begins September 5th. I am pumped to preach through this book! Not only will it train us in number of important issues (manhood and womanhood, marriage, abortion, evolution, evil…) but you simply can not understand the story of the Bible if you don’t have a solid grasp on it’s opening chapters. I hope you join us. As always, sermons are available free on our website and on iTunes.

4) City Groups are central to our life as a church. It’s how we live in community and on mission in light of the gospel. We’ll be pouring loads of effort into making our City Groups even better this Fall. If you’re not a part of one, you’re missing out. I encourage you to FIND A GROUP and get after it.

This starts with our September 17th meeting for all men who currently lead or want to learn to lead a City Group. If this is you, please join us for this very important night. Men, you must RSVP HERE.

5) The Rooted School of Theology starts this Fall with one class offering: Theology 101: Theology of the Rooted. This 8-week course will cover the range of theological beliefs essential to the gospel and the Rooted. Class is on Sundays after our regular gatherings, 11am-12:30pm starting October 3rd. Spots are limited, so ENROLL HERE.

This class is required for those wishing to become partners with The Rooted Church.

6) City Plaza. The City is our online community where virtually all of our communication as a church takes place. If you’re new to the City or still just confused, please read THIS POST. If you ever need more help using the City, just let me know. I’m happy to help.

Well it now has a brand new feature: THE CITY PLAZA. If you’ve ever wanted your post to be seen by those outside our church, the Plaza makes this possible. Whenever posting something, simply click the box that says “Publish to The City Plaza.” A link is created that can be sent to anyone and your post is visible publicly on the Plaza. See it in action HERE.

On behalf of Chris and David, we love you, and we’re excited to continue moving forward with you as together we enjoy the grace of Jesus.

Pastor Nick

“Theology is the study of who God is. While it can be pedantic, mind-numbing, and can start wars, it can also be poetic, and inspire music and cathedrals that are so beautiful they can make your eyes sting. Theology has been the source of lots of bloody fights, angry words, hurt feelings. It has probably done damage to a family you know. As a result, lots of people conclude that it is inherently evil, it is a monumental waste of time, or it is just too toxic to handle and is best left alone under thick, dusty leather covers.

What God intended for blessing has been – but need not continue to be – a curse. Good theology is not optional for the survival of the human race. It is not just for the religious/philosophical Geek Squad. It is essential.” (Tim Stoner)

The Rooted School of Theology offers classes for both its partners and individuals who desire to grow in their knowledge of Scripture and doctrine. The faculty consists of the pastoral team of The Rooted Church. The inaugural semester will offer one class:

Theology 101: Theology of the Rooted

An 8-week course covering the range of theological beliefs essential to the gospel and the Rooted. Topics include: the existence and nature of God, the truth of the Bible, the depravity of humans, the good news of Jesus, the role and function of the church, behavior and the heart, missional living, the biblical family, and more. This class is required for those wishing to become partners with The Rooted Church.

Head here for all the details and to enroll. Class size is limited, so move quickly!

When you buy 29 Coffee, 100% of the net proceeds go directly to the church planting efforts of The Acts 29 Network (of which the Rooted is a part). Drink good coffee and help plant new gospel-centered churches all at the same time!

Sunday’s sermon was titled Delighting in a Book, based on Psalm 119:16. The gist of it was this: “The overwhelming stance of the Bible in talking about itself is that we ought to take this book, curl up with it, and read it like it’s our delight, like it’s precious to us, like we treasure the words of God to us, like we want to feast on the words of God as the food we need to sustain us everyday.” So, do you?

I assure you, being a pastor makes it no less of a fight to be in Scripture regularly. My heart is as wayward as anyone’s. I find it tremendously helpful to use portions of Psalm 119 (and one line from Psalm 90) as my own prayer when I not only start reading my Bible, but when I even think about whether or not I want to. Not surprisingly, something about praying the Bible makes me want more of it. (I gleaned this idea from John Piper and his I.O.U.S. prayer).

• Psalm 119:36-37 “INCLINE MY HEART to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things.”
• Psalm 119:18 “OPEN MY EYES, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”
• Psalm 119:144 “GIVE ME UNDERSTANDING, that I may live.”
• Psalm 119:32 “ENLARGE MY HEART, that I will run in the way of your commandments.”
• Psalm 90:14 “SATISFY ME in the morning with your steadfast love.”

And remember, when you fail at treasuring this book (and you will), the last line of Psalm 119 is our hope: “I have gone astray like a long sheep; seek your servant.” Through Jesus, God chases down those who neglect the words he has given us, dies for our willful ignorance, and replaces our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh that delight in his statues.

Pastor Nick

And remember, we give because Jesus first gave for us. From our giving page:

The way we view money ought to tell our neighbors and community about God’s sufficiency and provision. Giving invigorates our devotion to Christ. Giving frees us from the tyranny of consumerism. Giving provides an outlet for compassion. Giving provides us an opportunity to teach our families that money is a servant rather than our master. So our prayer is that as people of faith we would give faithfully.

Anyway, check out what he’s been up to. And be sure to support him!

Directorial debut on Tim Halperin’s “She Runs”

Download his new 3-song EP “Technicolor” for FREE!

Featured in the Star Telegram

A cool post on the making of his EP’s album cover

Kicking off the Back to School Tour on Sept. 10th @ the Aardvark with music from his new EP

May the thoughts below from Scotty Smith’s blog lead us to repentance.

***

I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. 3 John 9-10

Dear Lord Jesus, to have one’s name recorded in the Bible is one thing. But to be chronicled there as someone who loved to be first isn’t a very attractive proposition at all. I have no clue what was going on in Diotrephes’ life that made him disrespectful of the apostle John and so divisive in the community. But his story certainly invites me to look at mine.

Jesus, please free me from the ways I, too, love to be first.

In my marriage—when being right and winning the argument is more important than listening and understanding my spouse… when I angle for the biggest cookie or control of the TV remote… when my obsession to be on time outweighs my commitment to kindness and patience.

In my friendships—when my delight in being remembered and appreciated is more pronounced than my record of staying in touch and serving my friends.

In my vocation—when the people with whom I work experience me as someone more preoccupied with my reputation and success than knowing and caring for each member of the whole team.

In the general population—when I navigate through life with little eye contact and a short memory for names of neighbors… when I push my shopping-cart around like I’m driving in the Daytona 500—racing up and down the aisles, grabbing items and speeding-up to get to the shortest check-out line first.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. You’ve never loved to be first. In fact, you didn’t consider equality with God something to be held onto selfishly. Rather, you emptied yourself by becoming man and servant extraordinaire. You served me by fulfilling all the demands of God’s law as my substitute and you exhausted God’s judgment against me as you died in my place on the cross. Now, you ever live to serve me, as my advocate, intercessor and bridegroom.

I am convicted and humbled, afresh, by your unselfishness and servanthood. Restore my first love for you, that my love for being first will decrease and die a thousand deaths. So very Amen, I pray, in your merciful and matchless name.

Sure Whitney Houston, I believe that children are the future, but I’d be lying if I said that’s the first thing I think when a minister younger than me takes the stage.  Call it jealousy that the next generation is about to lap me or that the generation behind me has a cooler name, “millennial tweener x-tremes,” but when youth is served at church, sometimes Christians like to tune out and think:

“Oh no, where’s the regular pastor? Is it ‘regular’ or ‘senior’ or ‘teaching pastor of imaginevisioneering’? I can never get those right, but who is this kid up on stage? Is he doing the announcements? Is there a youth group fundraiser I need to know about? Fine, I’ll get my car washed in a Chick-fil-A parking lot. That’s like a win-win right there, holding a Christian event in the parking lot of a Christian restaurant. That’s God squared.

But why isn’t this kid getting off the stage? Is he, no, is he about preach? Is it youth Sunday already? What, he’s the youth minister? That’s great, but this isn’t youth group. He’s way too young to school me in the game of life. Oh, but this is happening.  It’s tool ate for me to walk out and leave. It’s time for the junior hour of power.

Please just don’t use that phrase that all young ministers bust out. Please don’t say, oh no, you just did. You just said, “When I was growing up.” You said it like it was over, like you’ve crossed from young man into wizened old gentleman. But you’re only twenty-four. The toughest decision you’ve faced in life so far was whether to get the full meal plan or the five-day-a-week meal plan at seminary. You went with the five?  That’s good to know, let me scribble that down here in the sermon notes section of my bulletin.

But I’ll forgive you that one. I’ll let that one slide as long as you don’t give me any marital advice. You’ve been married for about fifteen minutes. You’re still tan from your honeymoon. I can still kind of smell suntan lotion on you. If at any point in this sermon you try to give me marriage advice, I am going to think about college baseball. I just want to be up front about that. The toughest marriage decision you’ve faced so far is whether to exchange one of the china sets you got as a wedding gift for a George Foreman grill that is shaped like a massive charcoal grill.  Don’t, I’ve done that, I fought that battle, and it was not worth it. You need more plates than you think and less George Foreman grills than you think. Trust me on that.

See, I should be doing this sermon, I just gave you some free marital advice. You’re welcome.

We are totally pumped for them to join The Acts 29 Network of churches (of which we’re a part) and continue to saturate the center of our great city with healthy, gospel centered churches and solid, Jesus-loving people working to love each other and our city well.

The Paradox needs you. Pray for them, tell your friends, get on their mailing list, give them your money. Together, let’s fight to see the gospel go forward and to celebrate – not our own little church kingdoms – but the one true kingdom and the King who reigns over all.

One was with Robert. Robert, by his own admission, has led a difficult life. Through evil of all sorts, including addiction, surgeries, and life-changing accidents, Robert now lives in a nursing home as a paraplegic (he is no older than 40). A handful of the Rooted faithful befriended him well over a year ago, visiting him and the other residents often, playing board games, and talking about Jesus. By God’s grace, Robert now is among the redeemed, and we had the joy of baptizing him with a warm cup of water in church just a few weeks ago (his medical conditions prevented him from being dunked).

On Sunday, Robert wheeled his way up to me, looked me in the eye, and declared, “I love this church.” That was enough for me, but he proceeded to tell me about how our people have sacrificed for him, how listening to the sermons is changing him, and how everyday Jesus causes him to feel new again.

My second conversation was with Marsha. Marsha is an adoptive mom of 12. She and her family have been with the Rooted only a few weeks. On their way out the door from our gathering, as they said their goodbyes, Marsha said to me with a smile, “How can we not be a part of this church? You actually want us here!”

So why am I encouraged? Not merely because these people love Jesus and love our little portion of his Bride, but because our church is loving people who, quite honestly, many churches do not want. Marsha and I even joked about all the times they’ve entered a church service with their large family, only to be told, “You know, we DO have a children’s ministry…”

As I left, Marsha and her husband were talking with Joe about pursuing community by continuing to be involved in Joe’s City Group. And Robert was wheeling himself down the street towards home, with a Rooted partner walking by his side.

Pastor Nick

Stop by and say hi someday and smell the aromas from our neighbor, Cat City Grill. (*Disclaimer: because we’re missional, we can’t promise there will be someone there).

From the good people at Fortworthology:

After much discussion by the city council…, late last night the council voted unanimously to hire HDR to conduct the full streetcar study that we have been waiting on. Phases 1 and 2 will address many subjects – exact alignments and starter corridor, funding, ridership, economic benefits (including how much development could result along the corridors), etc. After these phases, it will be decided whether HDR will conduct Phase 3, the full engineering plan.

There are still many challenges ahead for streetcar supporters, and there will be plenty more work to do to help make this a reality. It will take time, but a significant roadblock was cleared last night. We now have what is arguably the finest set of transit minds in the country on our side doing the full study, so we are in good hands…For now, we’ll just say “thank you” to the supporters who spent a long night in council chambers and a “thank you” to all those in the public and private sectors who have worked to get us this far.  All your support had a very real impact on how this vote went.

Cam Huxford from our friends at Mars Hill in Seattle created this beautiful video to tell of his idolotry.

Read our Doctrinal Statement

Read our position paper on How & Why We Love the Poor

Bike Fort Worth is a dramatic shift in transportation planning for the city of Fort Worth.  As it is implemented, the plan will dramatically reshape, expand, and enhance the city’s bicycle transportation network.  At present, Fort Worth has just over 100 miles of bike infrastructure…Bike Fort Worth calls for the expansion of the bike transportation network to nearly 1,000 miles, with 224.7 miles of off-street trails, the conversion of the 1.4 miles of bus lanes downtown into bus & bike lanes, 218.3 miles of on-street sharrow bike routes, and an incredible 480.3 miles of dedicated on-street bike lanes, with lanes to the city limits and dense webs in the urban core…

Learning to enjoy your parent’s authority is the first step towards welcoming God’s authority. Don’t tell your children off for being children. Children break things and drop things…but ensure they obey you. Teach them to submit to your authority…Don’t let your child rule the home. If you do, you’ll be teaching them that they are king in their lives. They’re not. It won’t prepare them for wider social interaction. And it won’t prepare the to meet the true King.

For years I went to church. Religiously. I actually went to church for about 25 years. Then I stopped. I’m so glad I did…

There are lots of great systems to help you read through the Bible in a year. I’ll mention 3 below. First remember a few things:

• The Bible has 1,189 chapters. Read just 3.2575342465753424657534246575342 chapters a day and you’ve got it covered in a year.
• Reading 3 chapters should take about 10-15 minutes. If you don’t have 10 minutes a day to intentionally pursue Jesus, you need to re-order your priorities.
• Make a plan and follow it. Do it with other people. Aim at nothing, and you’re pretty sure to hit just that.
• Finally, I need to tell myself this one constantly. Remember grace. If you get off track, miss a few days, or just plan fail and give up, God is not any less pleased with you. Jesus has secured your standing with God. He loves and accepts you even when you fail. So don’t let your failure in reading lead you to guilt and despair. May it lead you to enjoy grace even more and may grace lead you to Jesus all over again!

1) Read daily online.

The ESV Bible Reading Plans are awesome. Daily readings can show up in your email, by RSS feed, on your cell phone…anyway you connect, this provides a way to fit it in.

2) Use the plan in the ESV Study Bible.

Download the plan or buy a Study Bible and use the chart in the back (page 2743). With this plan there are four readings each day, divided into four main sections:

• Psalms and Wisdom Literature
• Pentateuch (first 5 books of the OT) and the History of Israel
• Chronicles and Prophets
• Gospels and Epistles

3) The Discipleship Journal Reading Plan

This is my personal favorite. It puts you in one primary book at a time (rather than trying to follow 3 or 4 story lines from different books) and it gives you days off to catch up or go back to something you’ve already read.

• the first reading alternatives between OT and NT books (about 3-4 chapters a day), with the Gospels spread throughout the year
• the second reading is about a chapter a day of the wisdom literature and Isaiah

One more option is to download and use the Engage plan from our friends at The Journey in St. Louis.

So…what’s your plan?

This fall I’ve been thinking through 3 truths. These 3 truths have been changing my life. If only one or two of these truths were true, the change wouldn’t be dynamic—you need all 3 to be true for the power of fear, anxiety, and insecurity to shrink in your life.

1. God is Sovereign

God is sovereign. Nearly every page of the Bible proclaims God’s absolute sovereignty, his supremacy and power over all things. Every detail of your life, the decisions of kings and presidents, the lifespan of sparrows, swine flu, today’s weather, and each passing second of human history takes place under the umbrella of God’s sovereignty. God is in control of everything. Nothing is outside of God’s control.

If a single circumstance in the universe could occur outside of God’s sovereign control, then God is not God and he cannot be trusted. But the Scriptures reveal that God is completely sovereign and can be completely trusted.

“For I know that  the LORD is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psalm 135:5-6).

2. God is Wise

God is wise. Nearly every page of the Bible speaks of God’s infinite wisdom. God looks down upon the galaxies and upon your problems, plans, and prayers with perfect perspective. God is never confused, worried, or uncertain about the course of this world or the course of your future. God never makes mistakes. Yesterday God governed the universe with infallible wisdom. Today God is doing the same. Tomorrow and forever God will govern the galaxies and the ghettos with absolute wisdom.

If God were sovereign, but not wise, we could not trust him. We’d always be worried about him making a mistake, always thinking we know better than God. But from Genesis to Revelation we encounter the portrait of a completely sovereign and completely wise God who can be completely trusted.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and  do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways  acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes” (Proverbs 3:5-7a).

3. God is Good

God is good. Nearly every page of the Bible testifies that God is good, that God is loving. Not an inch of evil, deceit, or indifference dwells in God. God is love. God abounds in steadfast goodness, love, mercy, and grace. The Bible tells a single story of a good God taking relentless action to love, rescue, and bless people who don’t deserve it. God has always been good and always will be good. God’s goodness is not a mood. God’s goodness is not a mood that changes based upon your performance or circumstances, his loving goodness is an eternally-solid attribute that the fires of hell cannot melt.

If God were sovereign and wise, but not good, you could not trust him. People who are powerful and smart, but not loving, scare me. We’d live endlessly insecure lives if we knew God to be sovereign and wise, but not also good. But the Bible consistently presents a threefold picture of God as totally sovereign, wise, and good, as one who can be totally trusted.

“The LORD is  gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is  good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made” (Psalm 145:8-9).

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love,  not that we have loved God  but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10).

Preach These 3 Truths to Yourself

For the past few months I’ve been preaching these 3 truths to myself over and over again.

I do this because, by default, I don’t navigate life as though God is sovereign, wise, and good. Over the past year I’ve been convicted that my actions and attitudes reveal that I operate as though God is mostly sovereign, somewhat wise, and kind of good. I would never say I believe this, but my living reveals that I’ve built much of my life of a vision of God that is much smaller than the Bible’s gigantic vision of God as completely sovereign, wise, and good.

I feel Satan has been quick to attack me in this season, quick to lodge in my mind doubts about God’s sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness. And I imagine, in these uncertain times, Satan is quick to attack many of you, quick to tempt you to view God through your circumstances rather than view your circumstances through a biblical lens.

So, join me. Fight back. When you wake up in the morning, when you feel anxious or discouraged, when you’re driving home from work, preach to yourself: “God is Sovereign! God is Wise! God is Good!” Say this to yourself over and over again. Choose to live by faith, rather than by sight.

Forget your past. Forget how you used to operate, how you used to be a prisoner to your circumstances and feelings. Build your life on the truth. Preach more gospel to yourself. Tell yourself every hour that God is sovereign, wise, and good. The truth will set you free. Your emotions will begin to come in line with the truth.

Doubt your old doubts and saturate yourself in the Scriptures. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Read and meditate on and pray through your Bible with this threefold lens, always on the hunt for indications of God’s sovereignty, wisdom, and love. Meditate on Romans 8 or Matthew 6 or Psalm 139. Soak in a book like Jerry Bridges’ Trusting God.

Let your imagination begin to be filled with true images of God. See him as sovereign. See him sitting on his throne, wise and good. See Jesus—behold what he did for you at the cross, the place where God’s sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness show in clearest expression. Never again think of yourself or your problems or your plans without Jesus and his blood shed for you in clear view. Let the Spirit sanctify you and your brain chemistry as you rebuild your life on a true vision of God.

God is Sovereign. God is Wise. God is Good. These 3 truths have been changing my life. God is changing my life. May he change yours.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

Also, if you’ve ever asked the big questions about God’s will for your life, check out Kevin’s great little book Just Do Something. This is the first book we refer people to on the subject.

The images bring two things to my mind: 1) the truth of Acts 4:10-12, and 2) have you ever seen Christians worship Jesus with this sort of fervency and sacrifice?

The lyrics:

It’s the greatest story ever told.
A God pursues foes whose hearts turned cold.
The greatest story ever told.
Restoring all that the enemy stole.
The greatest story ever told.
The glory of Christ is the goal, behold.
The greatest story ever told.
It’s the greatest.

Alright check it: let’s go back in time, brethren. Divine lessons always keep your mind guessing. The glory of the Triune God is what I’m stressing. The origin of humankind was fine. Blessings were plenteous. God is amazingly generous. Crazy benefits in a state of innocence. God told the man what he could taste was limited. Not long after came our nemesis in Genesis. He scammed well, man fell, damned to hell. The whole human race—he represented it. Fooled by the serpent, man through his work, woman through birth—even the earth ruled by the curses. But instead of a wake immediately. God said her Seed would be the One to crush the head of the snake. Yo, wait what is this? Whoa, a gracious gift! In Jehovah’s faithfulness He clothed their nakedness. This was so they would know their Savior’s kiss and bliss. But first, many growing pains exist suffering in the worst form, ugly deeds. Eve’s firstborn seed made his brother bleed. Indeed things got progressively worse. Every section of the earth is been affected by the curse. And though God’s judgments against sin were gory, praise the Lord! It’s not the end of the story.

Next scene: man’s sin was extreme. God gets steamed, man gets creamed. The Lord is so Holy that He drowned them in the water. Fire in the valley of slaughter – Sodom and Gomorrah. But at the same time, He’s so gracious and patient that from one man He created a whole nation. Eventually enslaved by the mentally depraved, they cried out to the only One with the strength that He could save. He brought them out with signs and wonders – satisfied their hunger. Then He appeared on Mount Sinai in thunder. Where He laid down the law for God-ruled government. Commonly referred to as the Mosaic covenant. Sin was imputed. So for man to know he’s unrighteous, God instituted animal sacrifices. This was to show our constant need for atonement. And when it came to sin, the Lord would never condone it. And when His people disobeyed and went astray, He raised up prophets and kings to lead them in the way. But they would get foul with their idolatry—wet and wild prophecy—send them into exile. To take their punishment like a grown man. Then with His own hand He placed them back in their homeland. And while in their forefather’s land they dwelt, they awaited the arrival of Emmanuel.

After 400 silent years filled with sighs and tears. In Bethlehem the Messiah appears. God in the flesh—Second Person of the Trinity. At thirty begins His earthly ministry. Baffling cats with accurate, exact facts and back-to-back miraculous acts. A stumbling block to the self righteous. But the humbled—His flock, said “There’s no one else like this.” He came from heaven to awake the numb. Demonstrated His power over nature, son. A foretaste of the Kingdom and the age to come. But the reason He came was to pay the sum for the depths of our wickedness, our wretched sinfulness. Bless His magnificence! He is perfect and innocent. Yet He was wrecked and His death. He predicted it. Next He was stretched, paid a debt that was infinite. He said that He finished it. Resurrected so the elect would be the recipients of its benefits. Through faith and penitence we get to be intimate. His grace is heaven sent, it never diminishes. Now the Holy Spirit indwelling is the evidence for heaven’s future residents who truly represent Jesus, the Author, Producer, Director, and Star of a story that will never, ever end!

Their being discouraged by their sins will cost them many a prayer, many a tear, and many a groan…because their discouragements under sin flow from ignorance and unbelief. It springs from their ignorance of the richness, freeness, fullness, and everlastingness of God’s love; from their ignorance of the power, glory, sufficiency, and efficacy of the death and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ; from their ignorance of the worth, glory, fullness, largeness, and completeness of the righteousness of Jesus Christ; from their ignorance of that real, close, spiritual, glorious, and inseparable union that is between Christ and their precious souls.

Did precious souls know and believe the truth of these things as they should, they would not sit down dejected and overwhelmed under the sense and operation of sin. God never gave a believer a new heart that it should always lie bleeding, and that it should always be torn in pieces with discouragements.”

- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 17th century

The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I have a confession to make. Parenting is the hardest, most humbling task I have to do. If ever I think I have already obtained the goal of the upward call in Christ Jesus, parenting helps me realize how far I have yet to go…

Parenting is so hard and humbling because our family observes us when we respond to the difficulties of life, when we have conflict with our spouse and when we have conflict with one another. It is at home where living in light of the gospel counts the most, but for too many this is where it matters the least.

Here’s the deal. God’s marching orders are clear, “Be watchful. Stand firm. Contend for the faith. Put sin to death. Fight the good fight. Be strong.” If you suspect that Jesus still has serious work to do in your life, if your love affair with comfort and complacency is eating away at your soul, if you know your life looks far too much like everyone else, come and spend 7 months with us as we learn to fight – together. To fight against sin, Satan, and the powers of hell. To fight for truth, for others, and for joy. To make war.

First Friday on the Green is a free outdoor concert series at Magnolia Green Park, located in the Near Southside on Lipscomb between Magnolia and Rosedale. Find more info here.

Also, come to the Near Southside this Saturday, October 3rd, from 3:00 to 10:00 PM for a big indie art & music festival known as the Arts Goggle. There are an impressive 64 venues this time around, all across the Near Southside from Magnolia to Park Place to Fairmount to South Main to Vickery and more. More info here.

Jesus doesn’t give this command in the context of addressing how I can best facilitate transformation in someone else. He is telling me how I should respond to those who are making demands on me, either from explicitly evil motives or just plain out of their difficult situation. He is telling me how I ought to respond even when being taken advantage of.

• Do not resist the evil person, he says. Let him slap you twice. (v. 39)
• Give him more than he is suing you for. (v. 40)
• Do more than he is forcing you to do. (v. 41)
• Give to those who ask. (v. 42)
• Love your enemy. (v. 44)

Jesus is telling me to actively show kindness and radical generosity toward those who hate me or who are seeking to take advantage of me.

Really, Jesus? Isn’t that rewarding sinful, or at least unhealthy, behavior?

Read the whole post here.

The church-is-lame crowd hates Constantine and notions of Christendom, but they want the church to be a patron of the arts, and run after-school programs, and bring the world together in peace and love.

They bemoan the over-programmed church, but then think of a hundred complex, resource-hungry things the church should be doing.

They don’t like the church because it is too hierarchical, but then hate it when it has poor leadership.

They wish the church could be more diverse, but then leave to meet in a coffee shop with other well-educated thirtysomethings who are into film festivals, NPR, and carbon offsets.

They want more of a family spirit, but too much family and they’ll complain that the church is ‘inbred.’

They want the church to know that its reputation with outsiders is terrible, but then are critical when the church is too concerned with appearances.

They chide the church for not doing more to address social problems, but then complain when the church gets too political.

They want church unity and decry all our denominations, but fail to see the irony in the fact that they have left to do their own thing because they can’t find a single church that can satisfy them.

They are critical of the lack of community in the church, but then want services that allow for individualized worship experiences.

They want leaders with vision, but don’t want anyone to tell them what to do or how to think.

They want a church where the people really know each other and care for each other, but then they complain the church today is an isolated country club, only interested in catering to its own members.

They want to be connected to history, but are sick of the same prayers and same style every week.

They call for not judging “the spiritual path of other believers who are dedicated to pleasing God and blessing people,” and then they blast the traditional church in the harshest, most unflattering terms.

Our first round of internships start in October. Download the application to find out how these internships work, what to expect, and how to apply. We’d be honored to have you involved.

Applications are due October 1.

When elites use their privilege to create cultural goods that primarily serve other elites, that is nothing but the way of the world, the standard operating procedure of culture. Furthermore, even when the culturally powerful deign to share their blessings with the powerless, but in ways that leave the powerless dependent and needy, this too is simply another marginally kinder version of the way of the world…

So it is no surprise, for example, to discover that two-thirds of American philanthropy actually goes to institutions (whether museums, orchestras or churches) that primarily serve the rich – essentially, the wealthy underwriting their own cultural experiences with the benefit of a tax deduction…It is also no surprise that most money is made on Wall Street providing financial services to people who already have extraordinary amounts of money, that most advertising targets a thin (literally and figuratively) slice of prosperous young people, and that much of the rich world’s research into new medicines target the disorders that disproportionately affect the rich world…

And yet I think Christians who are seeking their cultural calling need to look for the distinctive template of God’s work in culture, the work announced by Jesus in his own “inaugural address” recorded in Luke 4:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (vv. 18-19)

…So what is God doing in history, according to his own revelation in the pages of Scripture and in Israel’s history, culminating with Jesus Christ? He is at work lowering the high places and raising the low places – so that all flesh, low and high, will see his glory together, the glory of the one who brings the possible out of the impossible, the one who raises the dead.

(Andy Crouch, Culture Making, 209-212)

Over 2000 Christian families live in Christian Town, a fifty-year old colony in Gojra, Pakistan. On Saturday, Aug. 1, an angry Muslim mob shot residents of Christian Town and torched houses there, killing men, women, and children—apparently for no other reason than that these families claim to be followers of Christ. Thousands of Christians, without homes, are now living in hiding in Gojra and nearby villages. Literally everything they owned was either looted or burned by the mob.

Atiq Masih, 22, is a resident of Christian Town. He was shot in the right knee by the masked mob. After the attack he told the Washington Post, “I know one thing. They want to destroy Christians. They were attacking everything.”

How You Can Help

315 Christian families have been displaced. $150 can secure beds, supplies, food, and clothing for one family. If you’d like to help, head to this page set up by fellow Acts29 Church Christ the King Presbyterian Church. Your gift will reach families in need this week.

They’ll also be playing live in concert at Cityview Church on August 15th at 7 pm. Cost is only $5!

The redeemed have all their objective good in God. God himself is the great good which they are brought to the possession and enjoyment of by redemption. He is the highest good, and the sum of all that good which Christ has purchased. God is the inheritance of the saints; he is the portion of their souls. God is their wealth and treasure, their food, their life, their dwelling place…and their everlasting honor and glory.

(Jonathan Edwards, “God Glorified in the Work of Redemption,” in The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards: A Reader, ed. Wilson H. Kimnach, et al (1999): 74-75)

In line with Sunday’s sermon on money from Mark 10, Eric Costa (at the Reformation Theology blog) offers some great thoughts on the why and how of giving for those of us who love and follow Jesus.

Christian Giving Is Worship

God made us, sustains us, and lavishes us with good gifts. He loves us and gave his only Son for us. Our response of praise can and should be expressed through giving. The supreme reason to give away our money and possessions—the motive that permeates all other motives—is to worship God. Like a precious cut gem gleaming in the sunlight, every facet of Christian giving should reflect the glory of God’s grace. The immediate beneficiaries of Christian giving are earthly, but the One who receives honor from each gift is in Heaven. It is nothing to hoard, to indulge, to beautify ourselves. It is divine to lay down all that we are and all that we have as a tribute at the feet of the King of kings.

Christian Giving Is Faith

Christian giving honors God because it is a tangible expression of complete dependence on him. God owns all things, and has pledged his support to those who follow him. His own beloved Son is the guarantee of his goodwill. The one who trusts that God will supply his every need has no fear of becoming generous. In giving away what the world says he needs to survive, he confesses that the source of his security is a good Father in Heaven. In giving away what so easily rules his heart, he renounces the god Mammon, and swears allegiance to the Lord and Giver of life.

Christian Giving Is Love

God gives to some people much more than they need, while he allows others to suffer want. Does he grant wealth solely for the consumption of the rich? No. He means for those who have to give to those who have not. He gives to you so that you can give to others. In doing this, Christians participate in God’s merciful love, which we ourselves have received freely and undeservedly in Christ. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” If you can see yourself in the poor—if you can see Jesus there!—then let your love be genuine. Work hard to meet their needs.

Christian Giving Is Mission

Jesus was on a mission: to expend his life restoring the world to glorious peace with God. One Day, finally, in his Kingdom there will be complete wholeness and happiness for God’s people in his presence forever. Until that Day, Christians are to adopt their King’s mission in this world. This means we don’t just give to missions, but that Christian giving, in and of itself, is the mission to which we are called: to give all that we have for the sake of the Gospel. Jesus Christ gives life to the dead, both spiritually and physically; Christians can imitate him, however humbly, by giving of themselves to the spiritual and physical welfare of others.

Christian Giving Is Sacrifice

Judas sacrificed Jesus for money. Christians sacrifice money and possessions to Christ. A genuine sacrifice is a good, desirable thing being surrendered to God’s glory; giving up what is evil is simply obedience. For such an offering to honor God, it must be costly; it has to hurt to lay it on the altar, otherwise the glory of God is not exalted above the preciousness of the gift. The Lamb of God willingly climbed up on the altar, sacrificing his holy life on the cross for us. What would our love to him be if we did not respond in kind? Christian giving is relinquishing that which is dear to us to him who is dearest.

Christian Giving Is Secret

Secrecy reveals who you really are, whether you live unto God when no one else knows to applaud or despise. The one who draws attention to his giving is a hypocrite, selfishly seeking acclaim for his ostensible selflessness. The one who loves God, who cherishes his approbation alone, gives in secret. He does not sabotage himself by allowing others to confuse his motives with their esteem. Rather, he starves his fleshly appetite for recognition, and feeds his spirit with promises of heavenly reward that are assured to him in Christ. His is a quiet gift from his soul to God, which God does not forget.

Christian Giving Is Joy

Christian giving is like a release valve on a life bursting with unstoppable happiness. If your faith is in God, and in the One he sent to ransom you from your sins, then you are welcome to glorious love and everlasting joy in the communion of the Holy Trinity. Nothing can rob you of this. Not poverty or persecution. Not demons or death. So do not let fear of losing happiness paralyze your generosity. Give in order to share life and joy with the weak. You will only increase your participation with the Redeemer in his jubilant triumph over the effects of sin in this world. Besides, God loves a cheerful giver! ]]> http://www.therootedchurch.com/main/christian-giving/feed/ http://www.therootedchurch.com/main/endure-acts29-bootcamp/ http://www.therootedchurch.com/main/endure-acts29-bootcamp/#comments Sat, 01 Aug 2009 13:18:37 +0000 rootednick http://www.therootedchurch.com/main/?p=1612

Check out the new website for the upcoming Houston Bootcamp. Here is the schedule:

*And by the way, not one of these is an organized “ministry” of The Rooted Church. It’s just faithful Christians being faithful to the mission of Jesus.

Our people are:

• discipling homeless men who live at Union Gospel Mission
• paying for and furnishing an apartment for a gentleman who was a victim of persecution in his home country
• serving the families at De Zavala elementary school in Near Southside
• leading worship services for nursing home residents and transporting them to our Sunday gatherings each week
• meeting with young men involved in unplanned pregnancies at a local pregnancy center
• inviting a survivor of Rwandan genocide to live with them
• teaching English to families in Near Southside
• planning international trips to serve orphaned children

I’m overwhelmed. I‘m humbled. And I’m blessed to be a part of it all. You guys encourage me.

“Learn to do good, seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:17

Along the same lines, John Piper offers these thoughts from his blog:

After Jesus had fed both the 5,000 and the 4,000 with only a few loaves and fish, the disciples got in a boat without enough bread for themselves.

When they began to discuss their plight, Jesus said, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand?” (Mark 8:17). What didn’t they understand?

They did not understand the meaning of the leftovers, namely, that Jesus will take care of them when they take care of others. Jesus said:

“When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

Understand what? The leftovers.

The leftovers were for the servers. In fact the first time there were twelve servers and twelve basketfuls left over (Mark 6:43). The second time there seven basketfuls left over—the number of abundant completeness.

What didn’t they understand? That Jesus would take care of them. You can’t outgive Jesus. When you spend your life for others, your needs will be met.

“The condition of the psalmist’s mind was complex—he feared, but that fear did not fill the whole area of his mind, for he adds, I will trust in thee. It is possible, then, for fear and faith to occupy the mind at the same moment. We are strange beings, and our experience in the divine life is stranger still. We are often in a twilight, where light and darkness are both present, and it is hard to tell which predominates. It is a blessed fear which drives us to trust. Unregenerate fear drives from God, gracious fear drives to him. If I fear man I have only to trust God, and I have the best antidote. To trust when there is no cause for fear, is but the name of faith, but to be reliant upon God when occasions for alarm are abundant and pressing, is the conquering faith of God’s elect.”

- Charles Spurgeon, commenting on Psalm 56:3 in The Treasury of David

Romans 8:28, 31-32 “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose…What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Isaiah 41:10 “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Philippians 4:6 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Psalm 55:22 “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”

Philippians 4:19 “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “’My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Matthew 7:11 “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Romans 5:3-5 “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Isaiah 46:4 “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”

Romans 14:7-8 “For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

Philippians 1:6 “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Psalm 23 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Hebrews 13:6-7 “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

Proverbs 19:23 “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm.”

Proverbs 30:8-9 “…give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”

Hebrews 2:14-15 “…through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

Mt 6:25-34 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Psalm 34:8-9 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!”

Mark 5:36 “Do not fear, only believe.”

- Charles Spurgeon, The Minister’s Fainting Fits

A few suggestions:

The ESV Bible (regularly $40)!

A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards

The Holiness of God

Desiring God

With the same goodness and mercy he has graciously and kindly borne with my multiplied transgressions and sins, for which I deserved to be rejected and cut off by him; and has also exercised towards me such great compassion and clemency, that he has condescended to use my labor in preaching and publishing the truth of his gospel. I also testify and declare that it is my full intention to pass the remainder of my life in the same faith and religion which he has delivered to me by his gospel, having no other defense or refuge of salvation than his gratuitous adoption, on which alone my safety depends.

I also embrace with my whole heart the mercy which he exercises towards me for the sake of Jesus Christ, atoning for my crimes by the merits of his death and passion, that in this way satisfaction may be made for all my transgressions and offenses, and the remembrance of them blotted out. I further testify and declare that, as a suppliant, I humbly implore of him to grant me to be so washed and purified by the blood of that sovereign Redeemer, shed for the sins of the human race, that I may be permitted to stand before his tribunal in the image of the Redeemer himself.”

—John Calvin, “The Will of John Calvin”

1) Recognize that God is in control

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon…” (v.4)

God has decreed the cultural shift that has taken place in the U.S. He has allowed Christendom to die, and he knows what he’s doing. Don’t worry that the Church will ultimately die off in this hostile environment. John 17 shows us that Jesus lives, breathes, and dies for the Church. It is his wife, his bride, and he will not let her die.

Do you pray for this city? Do you trust God and what he’s doing in Fort Worth?

2) Be where you are

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.” (v.5)

Even though we are exiles, God commands us to make our homes here for a time; to settle down, put down roots, build a house, plant a garden, get to know our neighbors, hang out in the community, invest ourselves in the culture.

Where has God put you? Who do you naturally run in to? Do you view those people as if God has put them in front of you, intentionally striving to proclaim and live out a gospel-changed life?

3) Build a Christian family

“Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.” (v.6)

Every time God puts his people in a completely new situation, he commands them to make babies. Theologians recognize 3 institutions ordained by God to order society: the family, the government, and the church. The family is the smallest and most basic unit of any society. So the starting point for living in and influencing a society is building a strong, healthy, biblical, Christian family.

What opportunities for mission are available to you simply because of your marriage, your kids, your family?

4) Seek the good of the city

“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (v.7)

This is how the gospel gains respect and credibility today: by Christians caring about people, by working for the good of Fort Worth, by being a blessing to every sphere of the life of our city. There ought to be Christians everywhere – in economy, business, non-profits, education, restaurants, retail, sports, entertainment – all asking and fighting to answer the question “What is good for the city and how can I/we make it happen? How can I do so in a way the brings glory to God and displays what the gospel can do?” What if we were relentlessly about the good of the city of Ft. Worth and it’s people?

What problems and needs in the city has God equipped you to meet?

5) Be careful who you listen to

“For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.” (vv.8-9)

One of the dangerous things about being in exile is that lots of people start to sound good. Not everybody who claims to speak for God and teach the Bible actually do so. We need to continually be in a community where the gospel is primary, where it is spoken, where it is reflected upon, and where it is brought to bear on our lives.

Are you part of a community like this? Not just attending, but investing your life in the lives of others in the community? Do you have this protection and “check” in your life? If not, why not?

It can be as simple as reading and thinking on the sermon’s text ahead of time. If you need cheesy game ideas, read ahead and see if you can guess that week’s theme! God can certainly change our schedule, but here’s what it looks like for now:

• May 10th - 1:1-15
• May 17th - 1:1-16-2:12; 3:13-19
• May 24th - 2:13-3:6; 8:14-15; 12:38-44
• June 7th - 4:1-34
• June 21st - 4:35-41; 5:21-43
• July 5th - 6:30-52
• July 12th - 7:1-30
• July 19th - 8:27-30; 9:2-13
• July 26th - 8:31-9:1
• Aug 2nd - 10:1-12; 12:18-27
• Aug 9th - 10:17-31; 12:13-17, 41-44; 14:3-9
• Aug 16th - 10:35-45
• Aug 23rd - 13:1-27, 32-37
• Aug 30th - 14:43-15:39
• Sept 6th - 14:43-15:39
• Sept 13th - 15:42-16:8

RC Sproul writes this on the resurrection, also borrowing from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:

“Here is the watershed of human history where the misery of the race is transformed into grandeur…The resurrection of Jesus is radical in the original sense of the word. It touches the radix, the “root” of the Christian faith. Without it Christianity becomes just another religion designed to titillate our moral senses with platitudes of human wisdom. The apostle Paul spelled out the clear and irrefutable consequences of a “resurrectionless” Christianity. If Christ is not raised, he reasoned, we are left with the following list of conclusions:

1. Our preaching is futile.
2. Our faith is in vain.
3. We have misrepresented God.
4. We are still in our sins.
5. Our loved ones who have died have perished.
6. If all we have is hope, we are of all men most to be pitied.

These six consequences sharply reveal the inner connection of the Resurrection to the substance of Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus is the sine qua non of the Christian faith. Take away the Resurrection and you take away Christianity.”

Pastor John Piper penned a great conversation between Death and the Christian, also ending with the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.

CHRISTIAN:

Hello, Death, my old enemy. My old slave-master. Have you come to talk to me again? To frighten me?

I am not the person you think I am. I am not the one you used to talk to. Something has happened. Let me ask you a question, Death.

Where is your sting?

DEATH, sneeringly:

My sting is your sin.

CHRISTIAN:

I know that, Death. But that’s not what I asked you. I asked, where is your sting? I know what it is. But tell me where it is.

Why are you fidgeting, Death? Why are you looking away? Why are you turning to go? Wait, Death, you have not answered my question. Where is your sting?

Where is, my sin?

What? You have no answer? But, Death, why do you have no answer? How will you terrify me, if you have no answer?

O Death, I will tell you the answer. Where is your sting? Where is my sin? It is hanging on that tree. God made Christ to be sin—my sin. When he died, the penalty of my sin was paid. The power of it was broken. I bear it no more.

Farewell, Death. You need not show up here again to frighten me. God will tell you when to come next time. And when you come, you will be his servant. For me, you will have no sting.

O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

• You’re invited to a Seder meal on Friday, April 3rd at 7pm at CABC. Seder is the traditional Passover week meal celebrated by Jews since the Exodus. It’s also the meal Jesus ate with his disciples at the Last Supper. We will all eat this meal together, being walked through the significance of each element by a Messianic Jew (that is, a Jesus-loving Jewish guy), and seeing the incredible way that a meal instituted thousands of years ago points to Jesus.
• You’re also invited to a Good Friday service on Friday, April 10th at 6pm at CABC. You can sing to Jesus with all sorts of believers, hear teachers from all 4 churches, and worship God as the body of Christ. It’ll be awesome.

“The statistics show that two-thirds of churchgoing young adults drop out between the ages of 18 and 22. These numbers serve as an indictment against the methods and training common to most children and youth ministries. The numbers also indicate an abdication of responsibility on the part of parents to raise their children to value the church.

This sad phenomenon is described in detail in Essential Church? Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts by Thom and Sam Rainer. In Essential Church?, the Rainers (father and son) tell us the reasons young people give for leaving church and what the church must do to win them back…

Here is what they’ve discovered: churches that retain young people tend to have simple structures, deep and challenging biblical teaching, an attitude that expects commitment from young people, and an outward focus that leads to evangelism and missions. In other words, churches that function biblically do better at keeping their members (surprise!).”

Good stuff, since I’d say these 4 things describe what we’re striving to be as the Rooted pretty well.

• The audio for week 7 in our study of Ephesians is now available. Listen as Nick discusses how the church ought to relate to the city and its culture. Or get it from iTunes.
• If you’re interested in joining The Rooted Church, head to our new partnership page to learn how.
• Our doctrinal statement is now available to view or download at our theology page.
• While you’re at it, read our distinctives, because we think they’re really good.

At the root of all our disobedience are particular ways in which we continue to seek control of our lives through systems of works-righteousness. The way to progress as a Christian is to continually repent and uproot these systems the same way we become Christians, namely by the vivid depiction (and re-depiction) of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves. We must go back again and again to the gospel of Christ-crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what he did and who we are in him.

- Timothy Keller, Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2003), 61.

Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:

Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.

Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart,

• grace gets bigger;
• Christ gets greater;
• his death gets more wonderful;
• his resurrection gets more astonishing;
• the work of the Spirit gets mightier;
• the power of the gospel gets more pervasive;
• its global extent gets wider;
• your own sin gets uglier;
• the devil gets more evil;
• the gospel’s roots in eternity go deeper;
• its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger;
• and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder.

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.

Read Proverbs 2 online

Get an ESV Study Bible (comes in multiple versions) or, if you don’t want all the study notes, the ESV Literary Study Bible (leather edition coming soon).

Download our short article Some Thoughts on Studying the Bible

Buy 2 great little books as introductions and overviews of the Old and New Testament: A Book You’ll Actually Read on the Old Testament and A Book You’ll Actually Read on the New Testament by Mark Driscoll

Read the most convincing evidence for the historical trustworthiness of the New Testament. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F.F. Bruce

I personally can’t wait for Tillman’s Roadhouse to come to FW…hickory smoked chipotle bbq ribs on a bed of white cheddar macaroni & cheese followed by homemade s’mores. Fantastic.

It’s a great idea to read ahead, do your own study on that week’s text, then come on Sunday to really hear it brought full circle. You’ll also be able to see if you’re studying the Bible well and understanding Paul’s words week in and week out.

Listen to or download the audio of my sermon.

Possibly one of the most devastating things that can happen to us as Christians is that we cease to expect anything to happen…We come to our services and they are orderly, they are nice – we come, we go – and sometimes they are timed almost to the minute, and there it is. But that is not Christianity, my friend. Where is the Lord of glory? Are we expecting him? Do we anticipate this? Are we open to it? Are we aware that we are ever facing this glorious possibility of having the greatest surprise of our life?

Or let me put it like this. You may feel and say ‒ as many do ‒ ‘I was converted and became a Christian. I’ve grown ‒ yes, I’ve grown in knowledge, I’ve been reading books, I’ve been listening to sermons, but I’ve arrived now at a sort of peak and all I do is maintain that. For the rest of my life I will just go on like this.’

Now, my friend, you must get rid of that attitude; you must get rid of it once and for ever. That is ‘religion’, it is not Christianity. This is Christianity: the Lord appears! Suddenly, in the midst of the drudgery and the routine and the sameness and the dullness and the drabness, unexpectedly, surprisingly, he meets with you and he says something to you that changes the whole of your life and your outlook and lifts you to a level that you had never conceived could be possible for you…Do not let the devil persuade you that you have got all you are going to get…

In all of life’s situations we are to be His witnesses. Our job is to make the invisible reign of Jesus visible. The world is shrouded in darkness. Nothing is visible in the dark. No wonder then that we are called to be the light of the world. Every single one of us has a mission. We have all been sent to bear witness to Christ. That means simply that we are all missionaries.”

R.C. Sproul, Lifeviews

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully from a biblical and God-centered perspective.

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What’s the most important decision you need to make this year?

11. Who do you most want to encourage this year?

12. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?

13. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. So let’s evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering that, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage” (Proverbs 21:5). But in all things let’s also remember our dependence on our King who said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

This post is courtesy of Don Whitney at www.biblicalspirituality.org.

• 20,000 refugees live in Fort Worth, made up of 45 different ethnicities. Each is able to bring one suitcase with them and are given a space to live, living expenses, and a caseworker for 6 months. After that they are on their own, very often with little working knowledge of English.
• 8,000 people in Fort Worth have been medically identified as in need of nursing home care but are homebound due to cost, meaning they are prisoners in their homes, unable to care for themselves. 2,000 of these receive some sort of government help. The remaining 6,000 fend for themselves with no assistance.
• 4,000-5,000 people are homeless in Tarrant County. Families are the largest growing sector of the homeless population. 61% of our homeless are women and children. 97% want to escape homelessness.
• The major prison in Fort Worth (FW Federal Correctional Institution) houses 1,815 men. We have 4 major jails with plans to build a fifth, 1 major juvenile center, and numerous half way houses.
• There are at least 17 strip clubs in Fort Worth, employing hundreds of women in the sex industry.
• Over 77,000 abortions were performed in Texas in 2005. Nationwide, close to 50 million in the last 35 years.
• 1 out of every 6 males and 1 in every 4 females in Fort Worth are sexually abused before the age of 18. There are 5,000 registered sexual abusers in Tarrant county.
• There are 200-300 gangs in Fort Worth with 5,000-6,000 members, including Hispanic, Black, White Supremacist, Asian, and biker gangs.

According to 1 Peter 2, the only reason Christians are still on the earth is to proclaim the gospel with their words and with their lives to people like this. After all, every area of brokenness in Fort Worth is the result of sin. The gospel deals with sin. So we want people to come to Jesus, believe the gospel, and have their sin dealt with. We want to see people become Christians. Not as many people as is convenient, as many people as possible. Here are 7 areas of brokenness in our city where you can proclaim the gospel with the words you say and the way you live (click each organization’s name to visit their site):

Refugees

Catholic Charities
Advocating compassion and justice in the structures of society and calling all people of good will to do the same. Serving children, families, elderly, disabled, refugees and immigrants.
817-534-0814

Refugee Services of Texas
A professional agency dedicated to providing quality resettlement to refugees and other displaced peoples from around the world.
817-457-8110

Sex Industry

Jesus Said Love
Caring for the often disregarded women working in strip clubs and creating bridges for those desiring help out of the sex industry into healthy careers and lifestyles.
877-604-7101

Prison

Prison Fellowship
Partners with local churches across the country to minister to a group that society often scorns and neglects: prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families.
972-445-0091

Tarrant County Chaplain
David Barrett (Chaplain and Director of Inmate Services for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office)
817-884-3088

Tarrant County Juvenile Justice Center
Mentor juveniles and help them connect with caring churches.
Chaplain Gary Williams
817-838-4600, ext. 160

Homelessness & Low Income

Beautiful Feet Ministries
Meeting the spiritual and physical needs of the needy in inner-city Fort Worth.
1709 E. Hattie St.
Fort Worth, TX 76104
817-536-0505

Union Gospel Mission of Fort Worth
Transitional housing for homeless families.
1331 E. Lancaster Avenue
Fort Worth, TX 76102
817-332-3019

Cornerstone Assistance Network
Serving the homeless and those in danger of becoming homeless in Fort Worth.
1415 Lancster Ave.
Fort Worth, TX 76102
817-810-9941

United Community Centers of Fort Worth
Empowering individuals, strengthening families, and revitalizing communities by creating opportunities for people to gain the educational and workplace skills needed to break free from welfare dependency.
817-927-5556

Presbyterian Night Shelter of Tarrant County
The only free area emergency shelter without length-of-stay restrictions. Supplies meals, beds, and basic human care to an average of 704 homeless men and women every night and approximately 5,000 annually, as well as counseling and specialized programs.
817-632-7400

Home Bound & Elderly

Arms of Grace
Ministry to the home bound elderly who are in need of nursing home and medical care but can not afford it.
Terry Byrd
817-475-7239
tbyrd@covenantcare.net

Youth & Family

Lena Pope Home
Specializing in family preservation, counseling, alternative education, and foster care to meet the behavioral healthcare needs of children, youth, adults and families.
817-255-2500

Fort Worth Pregnancy Center
Serving and counseling thousands of women and men involved in unplanned pregnancies.
3502 Bluebonnet Circle
Fort Worth, TX 76109
817-924-9110

FWISD Mentoring Program
Be a friend, a role model, and a teacher to a Fort Worth ISD student in need.
817-871-2343

All Church Home for Children
Brings resources and skills to children and families struggling with life’s challenges.
1424 Summit Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas 76102
817-335-HOPE

HIV/AIDS Community

Samaritan House
Housing, nutrition, transportation, medical treatment, psychological services, and life skills for low-income persons living with HIV/AIDS.
817-332-6410, ext. 162

Gangs

FWPD Gang Unit & “Code Blue” Gang Prevention
817-871-8830

Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Fort Worth
817-921-9129

YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth
817-332-3281

Listen to the warning John gave to the earliest Christians about who they listen to and follow:

Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. (2 John 1:7-9)

2 John is all about being on the lookout for teachers, even “Christian” teachers, whose teaching is not really Christian at all. We should use this little book to help us be discerning about who we let teach us and influence us. The test we use is basically the same as the one we use on ourselves in 1 John: does the teacher admit and believe and live as if Jesus is who he says he is: the God-man come to be our one and only Rescuer? In other words, is their teaching rooted in the truth of Jesus and the gospel?

What if the answer is no, if the teacher doesn’t pass the test? John is uncomfortably blunt: they are antichrists (John is the only NT writer who uses that word) and they don’t have God. In the very next New Testament letter, Jude gives us the same warning. Just listen to this language:

Certain people have crept in (to the church) unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ…Woe to them!…(They are) shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

Pretty strong words. Do you view teaching that denies the truth about Jesus that way? Or do you say, “I don’t judge anybody’s beliefs,” “As long as it makes you happy,” “All religions are basically the same.” God, through the Apostle, tells us how to respond, and it might not be what you expect:

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. (vv.10-11)

In the Greco-Roman world, traveling philosophers and religious teachers were common. They relied on local believers for support and hospitality. Today we don’t have philosophers knocking on ours door looking for warm meals, but we certainly have teachers of all sorts who fight to take up residence in our minds.

So what do you listen to that shapes your view of the world even though it isn’t rooted in the gospel? Who are you influenced by that doesn’t love the real Jesus? John isn’t talking here about being swayed by something clearly not Christian (like Buddhism), he’s talking about the stuff that looks and sounds like the real thing but isn’t. Just a few examples, all of which claim to be “Christian”:

• Self-esteem christianity = Jesus came to get you to love yourself more
• The “God helps those who help themselves” and “Jesus is my co-pilot” mentality = Jesus can only act if I ask and allow him to
• Mormonism = God, who used to be a man on another planet, had sexual relations with Mary to make the body of Jesus
• The Word-Faith (a.k.a. Health and Wealth) Movement = Jesus came to make you handsome and rich
• Jehovah’s Witnesses = Jesus was not God but only a perfect man and he began his invisible rule over earth in 1914
• Oprah = Jesus taught us a way to God as an enlightened human - a status we ourselves can attain
• Christian Science = Jesus was not the Son of God but was a perfect representation of the Christ-consciousness that is the true and higher self of every person
• Supposed signs, wonders and miracle movements = Jesus takes a back seat to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
• Hidden gospels and secret Bible codes = Among others, Jesus was married, Jesus rode dragons and sunbeams, and the gospel was nothing but a political invention

Are you as discerning as John is when it comes to who you “let in” to influence your thinking? According to 2 John, if the truth is not part of a teacher’s “baggage,” he should receive no hospitality from those who are loyal to that truth. In fact, if you entertain such teaching you encourage it and play a part in it’s “wicked works.”

To us this may seem rigid and harsh. A great part of the problem, however, lies in the modern inclination to be highly tolerant of all religious differences. We must frankly face the fact that the New Testament writers did not share this spirit of tolerance. Their commitment to the truth and their awareness of the dangers of doctrinal error called forth strict denunciations of false teaching and false teachers. We have simply lost our convictions about the truth.

We must love people, but we don’t need to love what they teach. When we encounter false teaching we must not retreat from it into our bubbles, we must respond in a godly way. If it’s not centered on the truth of Jesus, we recognize it, expose it, and crush it before it influences our view of God and the world and leads others to death.

May we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18) so that God might say of us as John said of his readers, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4).

Why should you read this? Because of 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!” Being sure of where you stand with God, while never an arrogant presumption, can become a settled state of mind and heart that results in joy.

May we be a people that pass the test.

• Is your life truly known by others or does it contain hidden sins, falsehoods, or deception? “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1:6).

• Are you increasingly reflecting God, both in the way you think (truth) and the way you live (holiness)? “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1:7).

• Do you recognize how filthy your heart is? “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1:8).

• Do you follow God’s standards as if he is the King? “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (2:3).

• Do you love other Christians? “Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling” (2:10).

• Do you fight against loving the world - that is, the everyday way of thinking and living that is opposed to God? “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (2:15).

• Do you, in public, admit and believe that Jesus is who he says he is: the Son of God and the only Savior? “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also” (2:23); “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (4:15).

• Is Jesus your greatest hope? “Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (3:3).

• Are you cleaning out junk in your life or do you have habitual sin that you won’t give up? “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil…whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God…” (3:8-10); “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (5:18).

• Does your love for other Christians show? “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death” (3:14); “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (4:20).

• Do you love hearing the preaching and teaching of God’s truth? “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us” (4:6a).

• Do non-Christians ever refuse to listen to you? “…whoever is not from God does not listen to us” (4:6b).

• Do you refuse to let the world compel you to turn your back on Jesus? “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (5:4).

• Do you have Jesus? “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (5:12).

For most of us, committing an hour a week to pray will seem impossible. Maybe we think we have more important things to do. Maybe we don’t think it does anything. But it’s vitally important that we continually and humbly ask God for his sovereign goodness to carry us. Like Paul said to the Colossian church: “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.  At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…” And remember, you don’t necessarily need to pray for an hour straight, but can pray as you read Scripture, journal, go for a walk…and pray over the course of the hour.

I have Tuesday from 9-10am. Which hour can you do?

________________________________________________________

Prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God. We pray because God tells us to and because it increases our joy. It is a staggeringly awesome privilege and it glorifies the Father and his Son. Let me (along with wise words from Pastor John Piper) say a quick word about prayer, since it so often becomes a joyless duty:

1) In his model prayer, the first thing Jesus instructs us to ask the Father is to make his name hallowed. This is first, above all others. The most central, supreme, and overarching concern in prayer is to plead with God that God would make his name supremely valuable in the minds and hearts of people. So pray that first.

2) The Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians, “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” Paul wants to be prayed for so that many others will be able to thank God for the way God blesses him. He wants as many people as possible to have the joy of feeling thankful because their prayers for Paul and Timothy will be answered.

In other words, God has ordained prayer to be a primary means for us to receive his blessings because prayer develops expectations and eagerness in us—and affections for those we pray for—that only increase our gratitude when he answers them. 2 Corinthians 4:15 tells us that thanksgiving that results from grace is “to the glory of God.” Therefore, because God delights in the glory he gets from grateful hearts, he delights to answer the prayers of his saints.

3) Anchor your prayers in the promises of God. Anxiety is squashed when they are. For example, Isaiah 41:10 gives us these promises:

• God is with us
• He is our God
• He is our strength
• He is our help
• He upholds us with his righteous right hand

Our faith rests in God—who he is and all that he has promised to be. And from this mighty promise springs forth an abundance of prayers. We are constantly tempted to worry that God is not there, God is not good, God is not powerful; but when our prayers are informed by good news like Isaiah 41:10, the silly voice of anxiety is silenced.

4) Extravagant requests honor God. Do you recall the line from Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think”? God is able to exceed every dream for good that we could ever dream in the lives of our loved ones, in the health of our churches, in the midst of our trials, and despite our sins. And not only is he able, he delights to do it. Wouldn’t it honor God, therefore, for us to pray as extravagantly for his Kingdom purposes as we can?

5) Finally, don’t just pray for God to “bless so-and-so” or “help The Rooted Church.” Instead, in your prayer, describe what it would be like if God actually did what you are asking him to do. Say “Father, would you enable the Rooted to proclaim the supremacy of God and the transforming power of the gospel. Mold us into a God-centered, gospel-saturated, Spirit-filled city within our city that loves the risen Jesus, loves each other, and loves Fort Worth with a love that shines not just as a lighthouse on a hill, beckoning people to come to it, but as a myriad of street-level lanterns, going out to live in and among the dark places of our world, bringing light and truth and hope to those in need of the gospel - those who need to be reconciled to you and, by the work of your Spirit, to be reoriented towards the goodness and the power and the holiness of the King of all things.” Doesn’t that create more eager anticipation and joy, doesn’t that magnify what God can do more than just saying “God, bless so-and-so”?

The message of most? We need to retool the way we do church. Maybe even retool Christianity. This is what the innovaters have always said. Just consider this editorial I found in The Biblical World entitled “A New Type of Christianity.” Let me sum up the three main characteristics of the New Christianity seen on the horizon by some:

1. Scientific: New Type is open to all truth, wherever it may be found.

2. Ethical: New Type doesn’t care about theology, it cares about ethics. New Type eagerly cooperates with people who are only half right, or even less, in their doctrine. Our job is to follow Jesus, not enforce theological correctness.

3. Social and Altruistic: New Type is all about action, service, and helping people. No blanket condemnations of non-Christian religions. The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man is where it’s at.

Here’s the catch: this issue was published in 1910. Sound familiar? Now we have a new generation wanting to retool Christianity and the church again. You’ve heard it. “If only we can be authentic and get back to community” or “We need to leave behind institutional religion and get down to where people really are” or “If only we can be free from the old baggage…” Maybe the language has changed, but it’s all just more of the same.

Let’s be honest. A lot of us are interested in the Rooted Church because we’ve become disillusioned with church as we know it and we want a new way of doing things. We reason like this: The Old Way is a program-saturated corporation filled with fake people who think they’re Christians. The New Way is an organic community filled with authentic Jesus-followers. “Finally,” we think, “if I can just leave my Old Way Church behind and join up with this New Way Church…”

Listen to me here. The way you do church is not the problem. We are the problem. We are by and large a people that hasn’t been changed all that much by Jesus - and so collectively we comprise churches that aren’t that different from your local social clubs. We simply haven’t fulfilled Romans 12:2 very much: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…” We still think just like everyone else, so we live just like everyone else. We gossip about each other, we end our marriages in divorce, we sue one another, we hoard money, we sleep with our boyfriends or girlfriends, we look at porn, we’re addicted to food, our Bibles are stilll in the shrinkwrap.

The Bible says that as we soak ourselves in the gospel, we see the glory of God in Jesus and it changes us to be more like him (2 Corinthians 3:16). But that’s too deep and difficult for us. That would take humility and repentance. That would take real love for people that aren’t easy to love. We might actually have to give up things we desperately want to hold on to. It’s easier just to blame all our pseudo-Christian mediocrity on the Old Way models. We’re like a wife going through her fifth divorce, still convinced that the problem is with her husbands.

Paul says that life must be centered on “the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). In other words, you’re either alive to Jesus and dead to the world or alive to the world and dead to Jesus. Which are you? Most of us blend in just fine with a worldly sort of life and want to simply add Jesus into the mix. Jesus doesn’t work that way. He needs to kill you before he gives you new life. So here’s the point: if this is the way you live - more alive to the world than to Jesus - your model of church doesn’t matter much. If you say you’re a Christian but don’t care that you live just like everyone else, you’ll help ruin whatever church you’re in. It’d be better for a church to be filled with unbelievers than with world-loving pseudo-Christians.

Innovative church models and catchy buzz words don’t change anybody. The gospel does. Give me the choice between an old, traditional, program-heavy church centered on the glory of God as seen in the gospel and a trendy missional church that talks about post-postmodernism and social justice more than the atonement - I’d rather hang with the old-schoolers any day.

So if you want to get involved with the Rooted Church because it’s new or different or cool, you simply won’t last. You’ll show up to something for a little while and we’ll never see you again. Why? Because if what you care about most is abandoning the Old Way and chasing after the New Way, then you’ve become the very thing you’re trying to escape: a self-seeking consumer who only wants his own desires met. And, to be honest, unless you’re willing to have Jesus actually transform you more and more, you’re really just getting in the way. We want to see regenerated, Spirit-filled, gospel-centered people who are fighting to transform the way they think and the way they live in light of the cross. You don’t need to always be victorious, but you do need to be in the fight.

You can see now why we’re all about Jesus and the gospel; why we toot the horn of the gospel more than the type of church we’re going to be; why we say we want to proclaim Jesus, be transformed by Jesus, and live on the mission of Jesus. This is what we want to beat into our heads and into our hearts alongside one another because this is what can actually change us. Sure, we’re going to do church a certain way. And we need to be 100% faithful to scripture in the way we do it. But our hope is not in the way we structure our church or what our “gatherings” look like or if we use words like “authenticity” or “missional” or “emerging” or “apostolic.” We hope in Jesus. We hope in the cross. We don’t need innovation. We need the gospel. And we need to be a people that “contend(s) for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).

You’ll see many similarities with what we’re striving to do at the Rooted Church. Like the guys say, “People need to encounter the church as a network of relationships rather than a meeting you attend or a place you enter. Mission must involve not only contact between unbelievers and individual Christians, but between unbelievers and the Christian community.” And later, “Most gospel ministry involves ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality.” Tim explains on his blog:

Being both gospel-centred and community-centred might mean:

• holding fewer church meetings and spending more time hanging out together
• seeing church as an identity instead of a responsibility to be juggled alongside other commitments
• celebrating ordinary life as the context in which the word of God is proclaimed
• running fewer evangelistic events, youth clubs and social projects, and spending more time sharing our lives with unbelievers
• moving house, changing jobs and reorganising our leisure time so that mission becomes central to our lives
• starting new congregations instead of growing existing ones
• making ‘God-talk’ a normal feature of every day conversation
• inviting people to the cinema with our Christian friends so they experience the life of the Christian community instead of inviting them to a ‘guest service’
• preparing Bible talks with other people instead of just studying alone at a desk
• adopting a 24-7 approach to mission and pastoral care instead of starting ministry programmes
• dropping the categories of clergy and laity altogether
• discovering the churches we thought were models of ministry are not as successful as they first seem
• switching the emphasis from Bible teaching to Bible learning and action
• spending more time with people on the margins of society
• learning to disciple one another – and be discipled – with the gospel day by day
• having churches that are messy instead of churches that pretend

The marketing model, if followed, empties the truth out of the gospel. First, the need consumers have are needs they identify for themselves. The needs sinners have are needs God identifies for us, and the way we see our needs is rather different from the way he sees them. We suppress the truth about God, holding it down in “unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18)… so how likely is it, outside of the intervention of God through the Holy Spirit, that we will identify our needs as those arising from our rebellion against God? No, the product we will seek naturally will not be the gospel. It will be a therapy of some kind, a technique for life, perhaps a way of connecting more deeply with our own spiritual selves on our own terms, terms that require no repentance and no redemption. It will not be the gospel. The gospel cannot be a product that the church sells because there are no consumers for it. When we find consumers, we will find that what they are interested in buying, on their own terms, is not the gospel.

Furthermore, when we buy a product, we buy it for our use. When we accept Christ, he is not there for our use but we are there for his service. We commit ourselves to him in a way that we do not commit ourselves to any product. There is a world of difference between the Lord of Glory…and a Lexus, a vacation home, or a trip to the Bahamas. The marketing analogy blurs all of this, reducing Christ simply to a product we buy to satisfy our needs. What is destroyed along the way are biblical doctrines of sin, of the incarnation, and of redemption. The marketing analogy is the wrong analogy. It is deeply harmful to Christian faith. This harm is immediately apparent when we see that it has produced a kind of spirituality that is indistinguishable from the spirituality in the culture. That spirituality is predominately non-Christian” (52-53).

Wells is harsh, but, I think, correct. I can’t say that sending out a glossy mailer is marketing and is therefore wrong. After all, putting up a simple sign with the name of the church on it may be considered marketing as well. But to offer Jesus to people within an overarching marketing mentality must be wrong. We live in an economy of exchange; you give me something of value and I’ll give you something of roughly equal value back. We are so inundated with sales pitches that the moment we see Jesus offered in a way that even closely resembles this we are tricked into thinking it is invitation to this sort of equal exchange. “If I give God this or that, he will bless me and give me happiness in return.” This is the opposite of the free grace of God. With Jesus there can be no equal exchange. I have nothing of value to offer. Only my sin.

Like pastor JD Greear says, “A lot of times we have the tendency to present Jesus as the great “need-meeter” or the great “missing piece” without ever addressing the fact that sin is fundamentally being self-centered rather than God-centered. We can’t present Jesus as a new and better way to idolatrous, self-centered ends.”

We have separated the ages, very much to the loss of each age. In the New Testament, the Christian church is an all-age community, and in real life the experience of the family to look no further should convince us that the interaction of the ages is enriching. The principle is that generations should be mixed up in the church for the glory of God. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t disciple groups of people of the same age or the same sex separately from time to time. That’s a good thing to do. But for the most part, the right thing is the mixed community in which everybody is making the effort to understand and empathize with all the other people in the other age groups. Make the effort is the key phrase here. Older people tend not to make the effort to understand younger people, and younger people are actually encouraged not to make the effort to understand older people. That’s a loss of a crucial Christian value in my judgment. If worship styles are so fixed that what’s being offered fits the expectations, the hopes, even the prejudices, of any one of these groups as opposed to the others, I don’t believe the worship style glorifies God, and some change, some reformation, some adjustment, and some enlargement of spiritual vision is really called for.

© 2008 Nick Ostermann

One of things I enjoy most lately is all the coffee and lunch meetings I get to have with people interested in what we’re doing. I’ve talked about our “vision” so often that I have a sort of spiel I can rattle through fairly quickly. I’m okay with this. One of my goals has always been to present what our church is about in around 60 seconds. This isn’t out of a desire to fit into our modern age of information snippets, but simply because this is about how long it takes. I think our vision is very simple. I’ve always wanted to keep The Rooted Church simple. The gospel is simple. Like John Stott says, “God condemned sin in Christ, so that holiness might appear in us.” Fighting to live this out is no cake walk, but the message itself is not complicated. We reject the gospel or walk away from it because our hearts always tend toward self-salvation - not because it’s too complicated to understand.

This is always what I have in mind when people ask for the logistics of our church plant. I completely understand such a request. Logistics are important. When large crowds followed Jesus, he told the people to take seriously the idea of being his disciple, and to plan accordingly. He explained, “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it” (Luke 14:28)? I don’t think it’s best to just gather people together and “let the Spirit move” (though we want that to happen). We want to be intentional. We want to think through how we can best lead others to love and follow Jesus. We must have in place a biblically faithful philosophy of ministry by which we can envision, plan, carry out and evaluate our work. Failing to do so, according to Jesus, means we rightly deserved to be mocked (v.29-30).

But sometimes when people ask for all the details they’re really asking for something else. They want to hear about the expensive, efficient, polished machine. They want a CEO engineer of sorts to bring in the professionals, develop the most efficient program based on the most successful models, boil it down to a 4-week 5-step plan, package it in a glossy brochure, and entice consumers with a not-too-costly price (and offer a children’s version that comes in brighter colors). Like good Westerners, we want the details laid out for us. We want a polished program that we can plug right into without too much mess. After all, this is what we’re used to.

Thomas Gillespie, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, says that we live in a carnival atmosphere where sideshow barkers are continually beckoning us. Step right up. Buy this car and you’ll feel free. Purchase these toys and your kids will stop complaining. Use this perfume and you’ll be lovable, adorable, and worthy of being touched. Gargle with this mouthwash and people will enjoy being in your presence. We don’t buy it. We have been rescued from the futile ways of the lust chasing, neighbor coveting, pride exalting life. We often find ourselves still fighting these old ways – but we do fight them. The Church must not become like the machine that the world has become.

What you’ll get at The Rooted Church is nothing like the systems and sales pitches and shiny junk you’re used to. We’re not a corporation or a marketing team or a dispenser of services. Don’t expect to be catered to and have your every personal preference met. Don’t expect it to be safe and neat and easy. Expect work. Expect change. Expect suffering. Expect joy. We’re the blood-bought bride of the King of All Things and we’re expected to die in service to Jesus. So sure, I’ll lay out the basics of our plan below, but you won’t get the detailed blueprints to a machine from me. If you’re looking for something more polished that will prevent you from getting roughed up, sorry.

The Rooted Mission

Humans benefit from multiple perspectives when it comes to our relationship with God. We need to know the Bible which reveals God, we need to know ourselves as we have experiences with God, and we need to know the world in which we know God. The story of Jesus is expressed in Scripture from all three perspectives. The gospel is:

• News/truth that must be believed = Gospel Proclamation, as in 1 Cor. 15:1-4
• A radical change of identity = Gospel Transformation, as in Rom. 6:6-7
• An alternative kingdom way of living = Gospel Mission, as in Gal. 2:14

For lack of a better term, I call this a “3-sided view of the gospel.” This is why Jesus can talk about the gospel as “justification” (Luke 18:14), “being born again” (John 3:3), and “entering the kingdom” (Matthew 18:3) all at the same time. They’re not different messages; it’s one message from three different perspectives. We’re striving to be gospel-centered by doing our best to maintain this balance, just like the Bible does. (For a more detailed outline of our vision, read parts 1 and 2 of “The 3-Sided Gospel” under “Articles.” And, if you want even more detail on the epistemological framework we’re using, part 3).

So, bottom line: we want to be a community of believers who together as a family are:

• appropriating the truth of the gospel by training ourselves to see every part of life through the story of the cross (Gospel Proclamation)
• having our hearts renovated by the radical identity-transforming power of the gospel (Gospel Transformation)
• living out the mission of Jesus by viewing ourselves as missionaries and ministers in a specific area or to a particular people group (Gospel Mission)

Here’s the question: how do we do this? Well, believe it or not, this simple 3-sided view of the gospel really does sum it all up. What do I mean? I mean it informs everything we do, even as it relates to the structures and strategies we’ll employ as a church. We view our church leadership as 3-sided. We consider our preaching and teaching as 3-sided. We approach discipleship as 3-sided. We develop leaders as 3-sided. We evaluate the growth and maturity of our people as 3-sided. Here’s what I mean (and just see if you can spot Gospel Proclamation, Transformation and Mission in all of these triads):

The Rooted Church is:

• A Culture that is founded upon the truth of the gospel. As a culture our church will take a unified stand on the issues that define us, including doctrine, vision and values. Our elders/pastors will make decisions and lead in these areas. This aspect of the church will be their primary focus.

• A Community that is living out of the new identity given to us by the gospel. As a community our elders/pastors will train up leaders and delegate to the community to handle the bulk of the discipling, counseling and ministering of people. In this way our people will be caring for one another rather than looking primarily to elders/pastors for care. The goal is to push the active life of the church into the community. If the community encounters an issue they can not handle it may be escalated up to the missional community leader and eventually to an elder/pastor.

• A Cause that is carrying forward the mission of Jesus to transform lives within our city. Leaders from within our community (rather than pastors only) will identify and lead others out on missions and causes. In doing so they should simultaneously be creating disciples. Decisions can be made at the fringe of the community as those involved in a cause encounter difficulty. Problems that can not be handled or that impact the entire culture will be escalated to the elders/pastors.

Meetings: We will do this in 3 main contexts:

• Corporate: The people of God need to gather to hear the Word preached, to worship together, to take the bread and wine, and for baptisms. We will eventually do this on Sundays in downtown Fort Worth. We will also occasionally offer classes designed to impart biblical thinking on a host of issues: worldviews, parenting, sex, doctrine, church history, etc

• Communities: A missional community is a small group of committed believers who together as a family focus on: Christ-Centered, Gospel-Focused Bible Study, Sharing or “One Anothering,” and Kingdom-Centered Prayer and Missional Focus. A small group of people may gather geographically or around shared interests (new believers, common missional interest, inter-generational, etc.). We are less concerned with how many people show up on a Sunday and more concerned with how many people are actively being discipled by other believers in community. The MC leaders takes an active role of observing and developing others’ gifts and creating a culture of discipleship.

• Coaching: In addition to gathering corporately and being in a missional community, our people (especially emerging leaders) will be paired with a coach in a 1-on-1 or 1-on-2 relationship with the express purpose of discipleship and either being trained up or training up others to lead.

Leadership: The Bible categorizes the work of Jesus as that of Prophet, Priest and King. These are known as his “offices.” As Prophet, Jesus declared the Word perfectly and with authority. As Priest he ministers God’s presence to us by perfectly redeeming us. As King he exercises his rule over every aspect of our lives. We evaluate leadership through the following lens:

• Prophetic: strong in the areas of proclaiming and teaching truth, the gospel message, and the mission of the Church; often become elders, teachers and church planters
• Priestly: strong in the areas of relationship and care for people; often become deacons and counselors
• Kingly: strong in the areas of strategic thinking, organization and the tangible working out of the mission; often become ministry leaders

Leaders are also evaluated on the following criteria:

• Competency: Can this person rightly handle and teach the truth of the gospel?
• Character: Is this person living proof of the work of the gospel?
• Chemistry: Does this person fit well with this particular gospel community?

There you go. That’s the gist of it. We are a culture, a community and a cause. We gather corporately, in community, and for 1-on-1 or 1-on-2 coaching. We proclaim the gospel to each other, help one another be transformed by the gospel, and live out the mission of the gospel to unbelievers. We identify, train up and reproduce leaders who know which of these 3 areas they are strong in. As we do all of this we’re worshipping God like crazy - for living lives that are being transformed by the gospel - lives that display the worth of God in all things - is the very essence of worship! The goal of all this is to create a simplified, decentralized and highly adaptable church body that provides flexible leadership, decision making at the appropriate level and creates a culture of people on mission for the sake of the gospel.

If you were expecting to see something else, something you think The Rooted Church should offer but doesn’t, here’s my response: join up with us, get equipped and, under the authority of biblical leadership, start it yourself. “Ministry” doesn’t need to be done by paid professionals in a church building. The job of elders/pastors is to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12), not do it for you. Will we need young women to watch babies during the preaching? Help fill that need! Do our teenagers need to be trained up in the gospel? Help train our parents on how to disciple their kids! Does your co-worker need the hope of Jesus? Get trained in the gospel and share it with him! Are strippers in the city being reached with the gospel? Start living missionally among them! (ladies only on that one). So if you think our church needs this or that, my friend, remember, you are the church! Join us, get trained in the gospel, and go fill the need that you see in the city! Get other people who love Jesus from our community to do it with you! This is what it means to live a gospel-transformed, gospel-saturated life! And we’re here to help you do it.

There’s a major difference between having a tribal mindset and a missionary mindset. The highest value of a tribally minded person is self-protection. They ask questions like: Since I feel the safest around those who are just like me, how can I protect myself from those who are different than I am? So they intentionally surround themselves with people who think the way they think, like the things they like, and despise the things they despise. As a result, they live with a sense of superiority, looking down on those who are not like them (for half my life I was convinced that surfers like me were far cooler than anyone on the face of this earth).

In contrast to a tribal minded person, the highest value of a missionary minded person is not self-protection but self-sacrifice. A missionary minded person is a person that exists, not primarily for himself but for others. She is a person that is willing to set aside personal preferences in service to those whose preferences are different than hers. Missionaries are people who are willing to be inconvenienced, discomforted, and spent for the well-being of others. The Gospel of Jesus Christ demands that we be missionary minded, because the gospel is the story of God sacrificing himself for others…

This means that, in contrast to the tribal-mindedness of the world around us, the church is to be the one social structure in our segregated culture that brings people together who, in any other sector of society, would remain separated. As I’ve already mentioned, our society groups people together according to fundamentally worldly notions of class, race, economics, age, and so on. These divisions prove to be painful sources of loneliness, fragmentation, and alienation in the modern world—things which the Church should strive against in establishing a new community. For, the Gospel is not simply the good news that God reconciles us to himself, but also to one another. Therefore, the church should be the one community breaking down barriers—not erecting them. God intends the church to be demonstrating what surrounding communities could look like where God’s reconciling power is at work.

‘Send Me’ - Live at MHC | Ballard from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

Anybody up for their August 2nd tour date in Dallas?

Our next step is some logistics: determining who is committed, identifying and training leaders, forming groups, finding times and locations to meet, and starting up! Details to all that will be coming shortly.

Below is some of what I shared last night, bascially laying out the vision for the type of gospel-centered people and communities we long to be:

A Brief Overview of Our Vision

Most of us are bored. We’ve trusted in Jesus as a ticket to heaven, but the gospel no longer seems to have the radical effect on us that it once did or that we know it should. Or perhaps Jesus and the gospel are central to us but we haven’t found a community, a family of people, that is living the way we want to live, the way we know the gospel calls us to live.

Why? One reason is because we like Jesus. He’s a nice guy. We want him to change and maybe even challenge our lives, but only up to a point; only as far as we’re willing to let him go. And so we compartmentalize our faith in the gospel. Church and Jesus and God and the gospel exist and matter to me when I’m at church, but they haven’t bled over into my life: my marriage, my wallet, my job, my neighborhood, how I treat my children, how I see athletics, how I see shopping, what activities I put my kids in, how I spend my free time. One result of this is that we view church as something we attend rather than something we are. We say, “I go to so-and-so church,” “Church was great this week,” “I’ve taken a break from my church,” as if it’s nothing but an optional add-on to life.

We are unmoved by the gospel because we’ve compartmentalized it into a tiny section of our lives. So we live in a weird, slow, boring, unchanging, non-adventurous place where we’re safe, neat Christian people who go to safe, neat Christian churches. We play the same games that everyone else plays but we put Jesus’ name on the tail end, as if somehow that makes us different from everyone else. We love our trinkets and our toys just like everyone except ours have a Bible verse on them.

Might I suggest to you that the Bible knows nothing of a Christian with this sort of boring life.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Let’s look at what God says happens to an individual when they trust in the gospel. I think you’ll see something quite different.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

As Paul describes, when a person becomes a Christian, a follower of Jesus, one who starts to trust and treasure Jesus above all else - however you choose to say it - the gospel affects him in three main ways.

1. First, he agrees with and begins to appropriate the truth of the gospel. Listen to how Paul describes the gospel as the true story of an historic event that took place: “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself…that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them…” And later in verse 21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” What a fantastic summary of the truth of the gospel! This is Gospel Proclamation.

When a person believes the gospel he begins to align all his thinking with the truth of the cross. Just as Jesus said the whole Bible revolves around him (Luke 24:27), the Christian begins to think about everything as revolving around Jesus. Paul elsewhere calls this being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). This means, first and foremost, that the Christian begins to develop rock-solid theology. He learns his Bible in order to think biblically about who God is, how he works, what he has accomplished at the cross: justification, redemption, reconciliation, atonement, propitiation; he rethinks marriage, family, government, the Church, money, economy, business, art, sex, sports, leisure time. He is training to see all of life through gospel-centered lenses. The way he thinks about everything completely changes! This is a life-long endeavor.

2. Second, he recognizes and begins to live out the identity-transforming power of the gospel. Listen to how Paul describes the gospel as a radical change of identity: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” And earlier in verses 14-15, “For the love of Christ controls us…that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” This is Gospel Transformation.

When a person believes the gospel he begin to realize and live out of the new identity he’s been given at the cross. Formerly he found his identity in everything but Jesus: work, money, power, fame, status. Like John says, “All that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away…” (1 John 2:16-17). Without Jesus all he lives for is “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes.” And when he gets these things he has no choice but to boast about them because they define who he is and who he wants to be. But it’s an identity that is passing away. Jesus gives a new identity as an adopted son of God. The Christian no longer needs to boast about himself and his things. All that matters now is what God thinks of him through Christ. He is training to see himself as God sees him: a humbled, forgiven sinner who has been reconciled to a holy God through the power of the gospel. The way he views himself completely changes! This is a life-long endeavor.

3. Third, he begins to live out the mission of the gospel. Listen to how Paul describes the gospel as a mission that is to be carried out in all places: “All this is from God…who gave us the ministry of reconciliation…Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” This is Gospel Mission.

When a person believes the gospel he begins to live out an intentional, mission-minded lifestyle, continuing to advance the mission of the cross. He views himself as a missionary to the people that God has placed in his everyday surroundings. He doesn’t look only to “professional” ministers or even the local church to do ministry, but instead expects them to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph. 4:12). He looks for opportunities in his neighborhood, his kids’ sport teams, the guys he plays golf with, the coffee shop he stops at, the gym where we works out. He strives to build relationships where he can show grace and live out the gospel in front of unbelievers. Though he has a job, a wife, a family, and hobbies, he is training to see his primary mission as “the ministry of reconciliation;” living out a life that has been reconciled to God and appealing to others to do the same. His mission in life completely changes! This is a life-long endeavor.

The Holistic Christian Life
If you read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 carefully, you’ll notice that all three aspects are interwoven. When the gospel is proclaimed people are transformed. When they are transformed they can’t help but live lives that are on mission. That mission is to live out and proclaim the gospel. As a result people are transformed… It’s a gospel-centered, life-giving cycle that never gets old. This is a snapshot of what the Christian life ought to be. It’s not compartmentalized, it’s gospel-saturated.

These are the kind of Christians we are striving to be. Put another way, this is the kind of church we want to be. As we live this way together we bring glory to the God “who through Christ reconciled us to himself”  and is “reconciling the world to himself.” And it’s anything but boring.

Do these things characterize your life?

1. Are you burdened with your sin, recognizing it as an exceedingly bitter thing?

2. Do you run from your sin as you would a deadly serpent?

3. Do you recognize and flee from the insufficiency of your own righteousness in the sight of God.

4. Do you cry to the Lord Jesus to save you?

5. Do you see more worth and merit in one drop of Christ’s blood to save you than in all the sins of the world to condemn you?

6. Are you tender of sinning against Jesus?

7. Is Jesus’ name, person, and undertakings more precious to you than the glory of the world?

8. Is faith in Christ precious to you (as a means to connect you to Christ)?

9. Do you savor Christ in his Word, and do you leave all the world for his sake?

10. Are you willing (with God’s help) to run in harm’s way for his name?

11. Are his saints precious to you?

(*Thanks to Justin Childers for this post)

Also check out the Fort’s upcoming plans for improved transit here and here.

-Lesslie Newbigin The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

If you’re asking “what will the preaching be like at The Rooted Church?” (and yes, there will be preaching), here is a taste of how we will view this important and central task:

There is a tendency to regard man’s essential trouble as being a sickness. I do not mean physical sickness only. That comes in; but I mean a kind of mental and moral and spiritual sickness. It is not that; that is not man’s real need, not his real trouble. I would say the same about his misery and his unhappiness, and also about his being a victim of circumstances.

These are the things that are given prominence today. There are so many people trying to diagnose the human situation; and they come to the conclusion that man is sick, man is unhappy, man is the victim of circumstances. They believe therefore that his primary need is to have these things dealt with, that he must be delivered from them. But I suggest that that is too superficial a diagnosis of the condition of man, and that man’s real trouble is that he is a rebel against God and consequently under the wrath of God…

The primary task of the Church is not to educate man, is not to heal him physically or psychologically, it is not to make him happy. I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information, she does bring them happiness, she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these; it is rather to put man into right relationship with God, to reconcile man to God. (pp.27,30)

And later, perhaps the best summary of preaching I’ve seen:

What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this. It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence…I can forgive a man for a bad sermon, I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me the sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and the glory of God, the love of Christ my Saviour, and the magnificence of the Gospel. If he does that I am his debtor, and I am profoundly grateful to him. (pp.97-98)

Being Bible-based is a good thing. So is holding to inerrancy. The Cambridge Declaration, formulated by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, states it well:

We reaffirm the inerrant Scripture to be the sole source of written divine revelation, which alone can bind the conscience. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.

A church that does not hold to an inerrant Bible is likely to look much different from one that does. Just imagine, if the Bible commands something we don’t like or forbids something we do like, it’s a short leap to simply mark that down as an “error” in the text and pay it no more attention! Inerrancy is vitally important. But a church that is to function as the Bible prescribes must go one step further. As the great preacher James Montgomery Boice states, “Inerrancy is not the most critical issue facing the church today. The most serious issue, I believe, is the Bible’s sufficiency.”

The sufficieny of the Bible is taught in the Bible. According to Peter, God “has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3). Peter goes on to say that such knowledge comes through God’s granting ”to us His precious and magnificient promises” (2 Peter 1:4) - promises recorded for us on the pages of Scripture.

The early church believed this, as did believers during the time of the Reformation. The Reformers called it in Latin sola Scriptura, or Scripture alone. It means that the words of the Bible are able to draw me to Christ, to grow me in godliness, to provide direction for my life, and to show me how to live out the gospel in a fallen world. It also means the Bible is sufficient for the church’s life and work. In other words, what the Bible says is enough to define what the church is and what the church does.

Tim Challies explains our situation today: “While all Christians are eager to embrace the Bible and to treat it as a precious possession, few are willing to give to it the preeminence it demands for itself…People read and obey the Bible on their terms, expecting it to govern only what they allow it to. And yet the Bible demands that we allow it to be sufficient to address all areas of life and practice…” He continues, “When we have rejected the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, we allow Christians to depend on things other than the Bible as their guide to matters of life and faith. In particular, people begin to depend upon mysticism, upon ways of supposedly knowing God apart from the Bible. They look inward for intrinsic wisdom rather than outward to the Bible for its extrinsic wisdom. They forsake biblical reason in favor of feelings, voices, visions, or other subjective means of supposedly knowing God. This is a deadly error, for spiritual discernment must be founded upon God’s objective revelation of himself in Scripture. We can only judge between what is wrong and what is right when we know what God says to be true.”

I agree whole-heartedly with his conclusion “I believe it is only through a firm conviction of the sufficiency of Scripture that a church can truly consider itself built on a foundation of sola Scriptura. Scripture’s inerrancy, authority and inspiration mean little if we do not also believe in its sufficiency. When we do not believe in Scripture’s sufficiency we must substitute it with something. What we put in its place can never have the power and authority of the Bible. It can never be sufficient.”

“At some point in most lives, we are confronted with the fact that we are not the persons we know we should be. Almost always our response is to “turn over a new leaf” and try harder to live according to our principles. That ultimately will only lead us into a spiritual dead end.

In C.S. Lewis’s essay “Is Christianity Hard or Easy?” he depicts normal human striving:

The ordinary idea which we all have is that…we have a natural self with various desires and interests…and we know something called “morality” or “decent behavior” has a claim on the self…We are all hoping that when all the demands of morality and society have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes. In fact, we are very like an honest man paying his taxes. He pays them, but he does hope that there will be enough left over for him to live on.

The Christian way is different - both harder and easier. Christ says, “Give me ALL. I don’t want just this much of your time and this much of your money and this much of your work - so that your natural self can have the rest. I want you. Not your things. I have come not to torture your natural self…I will give you a new self instead. Hand over the whole natural self - ALL the desires, not just the ones you think wicked but the ones you think innocent - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead.”

…Sin is not simply doing bad things, it is putting good things in the place of God. So the only solution is not simply to change our behavior, but to reorient and center the entire heart and life on God.

The almost impossibly hard thing is to hand over your whole self to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is remain what we call “ourselves” - our personal happiness centered on money or pleasure or ambition - and hoping, despite this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you cannot do. If I am a grass field, all the cutting will keep the grass less but won’t produce wheat. If I want wheat…I must be plowed up and re-sown.

Does that scare you? Does it sound stifling? Remember this: if you don’t live for Jesus you will live for something else. If you live for career and you don’t do well it may punish you all of your life, and you will feel like a failure. If you live for your children and they don’t turn out all right you could be absolutely in torment because you feel worthless as a person.

If Jesus is your center and Lord and you fail him, he will forgive you. Your career can’t die for your sins. You might say, “If I were a Christian I’d be going around pursued by guilt all the time!” But we all are being pursued by guilt because we must have an identity and there must be some standard to live up to by which we get that identity. Whatever you base your life on - you have to up to that. Jesus is the one Lord you can live for who died for you - who breathed his last breath for you. Does that sound oppressive?

You may say, “I see that Christianity might be just the thing for people who have had collapses in their lives. But what if I don’t fail in my career and what if I have a great family?” As Augustine said, if there is a God who created you, then the deepest chambers of your soul simply cannot be filled up by anything less. That is how great the human soul is. If Jesus is the Creator-Lord, then by definition nothing could satisfy you like he can, even if you are successful. Even the most successful careers and families cannot give the significance, security, and affirmation that the author of glory and love can.

Everybody has to live for something. Whatever that something is becomes “Lord of your life,” whether you think of it that way or not. Jesus is the only Lord who, if you receive him, will fulfill you completely, and, if you fail him, will forgive you eternally.”