This past Sunday at Omaha Bible Church we looked forward to the launching of a new campus in Sarpy County. As the preaching pastor of this new work the elders commissioned me at the conclusion of the service. This was done tangibly through prayer and laying on of hands by the elders.
The reality of doing ministry with these guys day in and day out, working through issues, hammering out doctrine, praying for the glory of Christ in his church and the world, and having our hearts knit together really served to make this time special. I have been close to these guys for three years as an intern here at OBC and now three years as a pastor, and they are truly brothers in Christ. To have them lock arms with me and petition our glorious King for help and blessing in this ministry was truly awesome.
In addition our Senior Pastor Pat Abendroth preached like it was his last sermon. His text was 2 Timothy 1.6-18. And it was like one of our many conversations or pastoral meetings; he just exhorted unto pastoral faithfulness unto the glory of Christ. It was awesome. Pat has been every bit of a Paul in my life; a fact I am very thankful for.
A couple of highlights were the connection of the giving of the Spirit of God to the man of God and how the presence of timidity is contrary. God has supernaturally given his Spirit to forge power, love and discipline rather than being a spiritual “wuss” as Pat said. Furthermore, he exhorted us from Timothy to ‘guard the sacred trust’. He drew a great picture with the corallary to the NFL offenseive lineman who is huge in his arms and legs for the purpose of protecting the treasure. Pastors need to be bent on protecting the treasure, perhaps even intimidating to foes. Great stuff. Here is the audio if you are interested. Pastors should listen.
Also here are some pics. Notice the emergent style lighting…oh, its dim.
(from right to left, Pat, Todd Swift, Rob Clay, Eric Ball, -can’t see the rest, Chris Peterson, Frank Barber & Dave Guthrie)
Eric Ball, Chris Peterson and me. Chris has put up with many hours of questions from me as I siphon from his M.Div at Master’s. We don’t usually hug, this is just a baptist moment.
Me and Eric Ball. This guy is a stud Bible guy and very cool. He is coming with us to South Campus.
And of course, a pic with Christie, my awesome joint heir of grace. (we usually hug).
What would Issac Watts’ music sound like if he was alive today and lived in North Philadelphia? I think it would sound a lot like what we hear on Shai Linne’s latest album, The Atonement. Shai is a hip-hop artist who writes lyrics that are weighty, cross-centered, theologically rich and edifying.
Personally I have never been able to get into ‘Christian’ rap. The lyrics are often trivial, soft, and lacking the weight that both the message of the gospel and the medium of hip-hop demand. So when I heard Shai Linne’s album I was not anticipating much, however, I was both impressed and refreshed by what I heard.
As the title indicates The Atonement is about the cross. In an interview I heard Shai say that the motivation for the album came from his reading of the classic The Cross of Christby John Stott along with sermons he was hearing from CJ Maheney. He then wrote the lyrics and got the album together.
If you are familiar with hip-hop the sound is a traditional tough east coast sound, it is gritty and rough-neck; which goes well with the theme. There are brief interviews or interludes between songs where more is said about the subject at hand (the cross, sin, the resurrection, etc). In addition, there are samples in the songs by Maheney as well as John Piper. These samples come from sermons that these men have preached and really serve to punctuate Shai’s message in the respective songs.
Theologically Shai is a Calvinist who packs more theology into a 3 minute song than many evangelical preachers do into a 45 minute sermon. I have included a link over to his myspace page where you can listen to several of his songs for free. Listen to “Were you there?” first.
The Atonement is available for download at both at Amazon and iTunes. I just noticed this week that Amazon’s mp3’s are cheaper than iTunes, so check ‘em out.
If you are interested I thought this video was pretty cool. Shai is about to do a concert and comes out and rhymes acapella; not sure if this is freestyle (off the top of his head) or something he has already done. At any rate, it is good stuff. He starts off a bit slow, but he ends well. Very encouraging.
If you cite Scripture often in email or office documents you probably know the awkwardness of most spell-checkers with ancient geography, Old Testament units of measure, and Greek names.
Travis has some free spell-check dictionaries based on the Bible text according to various English translations (ESV, NASB, KJV). I find this extremely helpful; the less squiggly red lines the better.
The 4th of July is a great American celebration. It is always enjoyable to watch fireworks, eat a lot of barbecue, spend time with family and enjoy a mid-summer relaxation. Our country is truly a great place to live and it is active and merciful grace that we are enabled to enjoy such freedom as we do.
However, when I hear the word Independence Day and its celebration I think of my daily celebration of just the opposite, namely my dependence. For instead of my pride and value coming from a nation and our independence from another nation, it is good to use this holiday to recall, reflect, and marvel at the reality of Christian dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
As a believer I realize that I am depending on Christ for:
his perfect obedience to the Father…for I did not obey
his sinless perfection…for I am sinful
his wrath satisfying death…for I am unable to satisfy eternal wrath
his perfect righteousness before the judgment bar…for I have deficient righteousness
his ability to keep me saved…for I cannot keep myself from wandering away
his sovereign ability to rule this world…for I struggle with organizing my days
his unfading love….for I trip on myself daily
his ultimate motivation for life and ministry…for I have nothing in myself that trumps this
his priceless blood that will never depreciate…for I have no means to pay
It is good therefore to declare dependence upon the Savior; knowing that there is a day coming when those who are gathered together in his kingdom will unite in numbers that will dwarf the fireworks crowds, to declare dependence upon King Jesus, the Lamb who was slain.
The reward for reading biographies is the otherwise unavailable portal into the lives of people with whom you are not familiar. In particular Christian biographies serve to help me evaluate my own life and pursuits by examining the course of others who similarly walked this narrow road. The one weakness in my personal biography reading has to be my personal preference to read folks that I am already somewhat familiar with. Thankfully in his book The Faithful Preacher, Thabiti Anyabwile introduces me to three men whom I have not previously heard.
Anyabwile’s goal is to introduce his readers to three ‘pioneering African-American pastors’. When I first heard of the book I wondered why this specific book was written. Then I pondered further and wondered who he might have written about and what their impact was. My question as to why the book should be written was answered by my own ignorance of who these men might be.
The author introduces us to three men from different generations in American history. All of the men are African-American pastors who cared deeply about the biblical mission of the church. Anyabwile provides a brief biographical sketch of each man followed by some of their more impactful public addresses. The biographical overview is similar to what John Piper has done in his ‘Swans’ series on church history.
The three individuals that we are introduced to are Lemuel Hayes, Daniel Payne, and Francis Grimke. They hail from different eras; Hayes in the early 1800’s, Payne in the mid-late 1800’s, and Grimke the early 1900’s.
My personal favorite section dealt with Lemuel Hayes. This man was an African-American Calvinist, who was a pastor of a predominantly white church in Vermont, married to a white woman, and the father of over 10 children. I only point out the ethnicity here because it was so surprising to me in considering early American history. Furthermore, in reading Hayes’ sermons I am struck with his seriousness ascribed to the ministry of the gospel. As someone who surely felt social pressure he stands as an example to fear the living God and his examination preeminently.
The Faithful Pastor not only opened my eyes historically to some faithful ministers of Christ but also stirred my own heart unto greater faithfulness through their enduring witness in their sermons.
I am not sure how many of you have been following the ‘revival’ reports in Florida. Todd Bentley has been jamming in the people and many are reporting a great outpouring of God. However, when you consider the activities and ‘ministry’ of this man you don’t have to sniff around long to realize that this is anything but blessed by God.
When people are saying that God is telling them to kick people in the face and the stomach you know something is seriously arie and they are seeking their own glory. In fact I have it on good authority that when people speak on their own authority (at the expense of God’s) they are actually seeking their own glory (John 7.18).
Here are a couple of videos of Todd Bentley and his antics. Prepare to be disgusted.
There are many days in which I rub my forehead in disgust of the effects of sin and Satan in this world, today is a day in which I grow in disgust over the devestatingly demonic effect upon those within the ‘church’. No wonder people laugh at Christians when these guys are running around under the banner of Christianity and kicking cancer patients in the gut. There is a day coming when the King will harken to such marauders to give an account, and on that day there will be no mistaking his voice.
Last week I wrote briefly about the Father’s sky shredding declaration that he is and always will be well pleased with the Lord Jesus. As a follow up I am thinking of this passage in terms of contentment and delight for my own soul.
So many of my issues as a Christian stem from a declaration of discontentment, dissatisfaction and devaluation of the Savior and his glory. At the end of the day my sin (fill in the blank of arrogant idolatry) is rooted in my appraisal of stuff or people (mainly myself) as more glorious than Jesus. Sometimes this is a conscious choice of rebellion. But more often it is a result of idolatrous weeds growing out of the neglected soil of my heart.
Recently when preparing to have our house put on the market we did extensive work on the inside and outside of our house; among other things we worked on was the landscaping. Days after we had completed everything the yard was pristine; it was lacking weeds, very green, and colorful with the flowers. However, as time goes on the mulch gets bumped around, neglected flowers dry up, and weeds force their way through the previously finely manicured yard. I look at the yard and see my heart’s reflection.
The question is do I believe that my heart needs to be tended to? Or am I sadly deceived (by my heart) that I am good, as if I can have a good spiritual ‘work day’ and the weeds are gone and my heart is somehow glorified?
I need to regularly remind myself that my heart is, as Calvin rightly said, an idol factory. There are no strikes or work shortages; it just cranks out idols. I need to daily, even hourly, attend to my heart, applying the truth of Scripture, particularly the person, work and worth of Jesus Christ to it. I sin because I forget about the supremacy and sufficiency of the Savior. This is the bottom-line. So what do I do? I need to remind myself of who he is and what he has done. This is prescriptively laid out in Romans 12:
Romans 12:1-2 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The target is my mind, the artillery is the gospel, the means is my life, and the goal is the glory of God. I need to be regularly canvassing the soil of my heart, inspecting it with the floodlight of the word of God, that I might teach, reprove, correct and train it in righteousness (2 Tim. 3.16).
To this end it is pivotal that we regularly survey who Jesus is and what he has done, that we might fight our idolatrous tendencies to devalue him and instead find him glorious. I encourage you to reread through this list and make your own list as to the work and worth of Jesus, that you might daily say to your own heart, those around you and even back to the Father, “This is my beloved Savior, with whom I am well-pleased.”
This past weekend I preached on Revelation 5. This is a passage that is just overflowing with Christ-centered praise. I spent the entire week marinating in the text. I was learning and enjoying the richness of the victorious Lamb. On Saturday night and even Sunday morning, I felt ready to go. I had a big bucket and I was laboring hard to get as much living water as I could from the ocean of God’s greatness.
However, as I stood and sang with the congregation I was overcome by the extra room in my bucket. I wondered to myself and to the Lord in prayer how it is that I was only able to get ‘this much’ out of such a glorious text. Quickly I prayed for God to spread this supply over his people, that he might drench them with the refreshment of knowing Christ. I felt like one of the early disciples wondering how the contents of a lunchbox could feed 5,000.
I suppose this is the mindset that preachers should take with them as they stroll up the stairs to the pulpit. We should be overcome with joy and passion from our study in the Word. We should be amazed with the infinite depths of the character and work of God. We should be humbled with our feeble homilitical canteen that we are bringing back from such an ocean of Revelation. And we should pray that God would multiply such bread and feed his people, demonstrating his soul-satisfying sovereign power.
I’m guessing there are some preachers/teachers out there who have had similar experiences. Feel free to pile on and encourage.
Over the last year or so the subscriptions to this site have really increased. I realize that it is a part of a larger trend in the blogosphere to have multiple subscriptions to sites and not have to ‘manually’ visit the individual sites. Knowing this I thought that I would give a concise post that helps you to quickly and easily subscribe to this blog’s feed. I use Feedburner and have options available for you to choose your RSS reader or simply receive and email each time the site is updated.
In addition, Tim Challies has written a helpful post explaining subscriptions and the RSS world if you are unfamiliar with this concept.
If you currently subscribe to or read this site I just want to say thanks for reading and for your interaction. I have been blessed by the many new friends that I have made from all over the world through this little piece of technological real estate.
The scene is familiar, perhaps too familiar. The Son of God pays a visit to John the Baptist. This is same John the Baptist who has just said that he was not worthy to even attend to Jesus’ feet as a slave (Mk. 1.7). John begrudgingly obliges the Lord Jesus and does in fact baptize him.
It is from here that the heavens open, or more literally, tear apart (this same word is used to explain what happened to the veil in the temple as well as the rocks –Mt. 27.51). And it is here that the Father allows all of those present, and us by way of the Scripture, to hear the type of intertrinitarian affection that has inhabited eternity.
Mark 1.11:And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
The Father is speaking and he is talking to the Son.What does he declare?Among other things he declares his own unique, special, glorious, prevailing, intimate, divine delight in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is both instructive and refreshing to your soul to just sit back and meditate upon this scene: “You Jesus, and You alone are my special and unique Son…it is with and in you that I am right now, and forevermore will be well pleased, delighted and utterly blessed!”
This verbal affection of the Lord Jesus is of course not news to the Savior, he is well aware of this intimacy with his Father; instead the special revelation is for us to consider and marvel at his glory.
So why is the Father’s posture one of ongoing, uninterrupted delight in Jesus? Let me give you some fodder here, and this is by now means exhaustive, for no finite man could ever plumb the depths of this infinite reservoir of divine beauty and glory.
The Father delights in Jesus because of:
His Incarnation—that is his becoming a man (Phil. 2.5-11)
His perfect obedience (Jn. 6.37; 8.29)
His fulfillment of the Law (Matt. 5.17)
His patience with sinners (the gospels)
His firm grip on Scripture (again, the gospels)
His humility (Phil 2.5-11)
His sinlessness (Heb. 4.17)
His love for the broken (Mk. 1.40-45)
His defeat of the devil (1 Jn. 3.8)
His defeat of death (1 Cor. 15.54-58)
His willingness to die for the sheep (Jn. 10.17)
His wrath absorbing, sin atoning, glory vindicating death (Is. 53.10)
His God-centered resolve for the glory of God (Jn. 12.27-28)
His powerful resurrection (Acts 17.30-31; Rom. 1.4)
His ability to keep his sheep (Jn. 6.37)
His second coming (Rev. 19)
His powerful rule over all things (1 Cor. 15.24-27)
His restoration of all things (1 Cor. 15)
His successful rescue and redemption of a sinner like me (Gal. 2.20)
Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Feel free to pile on with glory soaked adoration for this awesome (in the true sense of the word) Savior.
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My name is Erik Raymond & my aim here is to boast in Christ while interacting with life. I am a husband, a dad, and a pastor...(more info...)
July 8, 2008 
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