What Seth Godin, John Piper, and Jesus Teach Us About the Mission of the Church

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Seth Godin:

Fitzgerald nailed it when he described Jay Gatsby’s attitude: “What would be the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?” It’s easy to fall so in love with the idea of starting that we never actually start. (Poke the Box, 75)

One of Godin’s goals in this little book is to expose the truth about failure — it’s not as bad as we all think.

And yet, the fear of failure is paralyzing. It’s the great deterrent to our starting things, to our taking risks. It is, as Godin explains, the dirt that buries us in the status quo program of the world around us.

Now, in my opinion, the biggest and simplest takeaway from reading Godin is how much more what he says applies to the Christian than to the secular professional.

Godin is brilliant in trying to convince his readers to step forward, to fly in the face of fear, to “start.”

And Jesus says this:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20)

Whatever it is caught in the brain storm of your starting, let it have this verb in its sights: make disciples.

Be about sharing the gospel and your very own self with people in order to present them mature in Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:8; Colossians 1:28).

Jesus has given us the commission, with all authority in heaven and earth. And he is always with us, always, with all authority in heaven and earth.

Pastor John writes,

When the threat of death becomes a door to paradise the final barrier to temporal risk is broken. When a Christian says from the heart, “To live is Christ and to die is gain,” he is free to love no matter what. . . . To every timid saint, wavering on the edge of some dangerous gospel venture, Jesus says, “Fear not, you can only be killed” (Luke 12:4). (A Call for Christian Risk)

How can we be afraid?

Go.

[Original post at Desiring God]

John Piper on Chesterton and Calvinism

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Piper starts,

Ever since my days at Wheaton College, when I followed Clyde Kilby’s advice to read G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, it has been one of my favorite books. I think it’s the only book I have read more than twice (except for the Bible).

This is strange. Not only was Chesterton a Roman Catholic, he also hated Calvinism. So what’s up with me and Orthodoxy? I still think at least half a dozen Roman Catholic distinctives are harmful to true Christian faith (e.g., papal authority, baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, justification as impartation, purgatory, the veneration of Mary). And I think “the doctrines of grace” (“Reformed theology,” “Calvinism”) are a precious and healthy expression of biblical doctrine.

Here’s an important article on the glad, biblical flavor of Calvinism.

The Sovereign God of “Elfland” (Why Chesterton’s Anti-Calvinism Doesn’t Put Me Off).

The Gospel Will Not Fail

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Isaiah 40:8,

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

The passage is not about grass.

We need to take a step back to capture the real comparison in these verses. Isaiah tells us in verse 6, “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.”

Flesh is a metonymy for humans. All people, creatures, you and me — we’re like grass. That’s the point. More specifically, we’re like grass in how fragile we are compared to the Lord. The very breath of God against us makes us to wither and fade. Isaiah doesn’t want us to miss this: “surely the people are grass.”

With his point established, Isaiah gives us verse 8:

the grass [that's you and me] withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

So the contrast is not between grass and the word of our God. It’s between us and the word of our God. We wither and fade. We are but little sprigs of turf compared to the word of our God.

The Whole Gospel Here

But this passage is for our comfort, not our rebuke. Isaiah has said a lot about putting down the haughty and prideful. Judgment has been issued. But here, the word is “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” (Isaiah 40:1). We should be comforted that we’re like grass but the word of God is forever.

Calvin writes, “This passage comprehends the whole Gospel in a few words.”

These two things: our nature and the Lord‘s word. And there is good news to be heard.

We know we’re like grass. Mankind can only flex in front of the mirror for so long. We live in a world of Grand Canyons and deep oceans. There are high mountains and tsunamis. It’s hard to stay haughty when you look around.

But moreoever, we’re fallen. We’re sinners. This means that for all the grasslikeness we are, we’re too blind to really understand it. We are unreliable. We are a needy race, entirely dependent.

But the word of our God.

This word is a resolve. It is his promise to save, to end our warfare and pardon our iniquity. It is his whole action of revealing his glory, of making himself known in salvation. It is the great antithesis to our grassyness. He will do what he says. He will save.

We are grass but Jesus has come. He suffered in our place, bearing the wrath we deserved. He was buried and then raised on the third day. He ascended to heaven and is now reiging over his coming kingdom. We can trust him. The word of our God will stand forever.

[Read the original post at FighterVerses.com.]

What Do You Have That You Have Not Received?

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Humility and gratitude are not virtues that we have to clinch our fists to create. Just stop a minute and look around. What do you have that you have not received?

I love this question. I love the Apostle Paul for asking it in 1 Corinthians 4:7. And I love how it levels me, puts me down, shuts my mouth. It’s one of those power tweets in the Bible that doesn’t let you walk away the same person.

What do you have that you have not received?

Stop, ask, think.

Be bewildered by the grace of Jesus.

What My Four-Year Old Taught Me About Prayer

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Elizabeth taught me something about prayer.

She had cut her lip. I’m not sure exactly how it happened. It was just a collateral injury related her full-throttle enthusiasm in all things. I guess you could call her dramatic: Her lip was hurt, therefore she couldn’t eat. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t go without a bandaid on her face.

And then she got all profound on me.

Tucking her in later that night, I knelt down by her bed to pray aloud for her and Hannah and Micah. I usually ask the Father for their rest in Jesus, both for the night and for forever. I want my children to rest in Jesus. So I began the usual…

“Father, please give Elizabeth and Han—” “Pray for my lip!” she interrupted just like this typeface looks, quick and bold.

Without missing a step I turned the prayer towards her little injury. “Father, please help Elizabeth to trust you in—” “My lip! My lip!“ now with more urgency she jumped in. She said it as if she was feared she was too vague the time before.

I chuckled inside and started again. “Please make Elizabeth’s lip to feel bett…”— “Ask him to heal it!“

This time she said it with a childlike impatience we often chastise. I didn’t say anything now. I just stopped. The only thing rebuked in this moment was how I pray.

It was a simple prayer request from my four-year old. Her lip hurt and she wanted God to heal it. And there I was appointing as many theological governors as I could. It seemed a good time to teach her about what really mattered — you know, not the healing, but faith and Jesus and loving him.

But the kid just wanted her lip to feel better.

She knew God could do it.

My reluctance to get to the point exposed my unbelief: Theological governors are great, but not when they’re used to disguise a lack of faith in God doing what you really ask.

I’m a footnote kind of guy with footnote kind of friends. We like clarity — what we’re saying and what we’re not and so forth. And then there are times when we just need to say it. Or in this case, ask it. Jesus didn’t make it that complicated. Why would we?

Elizabeth taught me something about prayer.

 

Jesus in the Songs of Ascents

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A Song of Ascents
Woe to me, that I sojourn in Meshech, that I dwell among the tents of Kedar! (Psalms 120:5)

The first “Song of Ascents” tells us Israel is in exile.

Glance through the surrounding pages to see this same superscript is repeated. In fact, Psalms 120–134 are all introduced “A Song of Ascents.” Understood in its context, this refers to Israel’s “coming up” out of Babylonian captivity. As each psalm shows us a little more we begin to see the journey from exile to Jerusalem.

Psalm 121 reminds us that the Lord is our keeper, he’ll keep our going out and coming in (verse 8). Psalm 122 directs us to a restored Jerusalem as our hope and prayer (verse 5). And a “restored Jerusalem” is a Jerusalem under the kingship of Messiah (verse 6). Then Psalm 123 defines our hope — “our eyes look to the Lord our God.” (verse 2). The Lord
alone is our salvation. And Psalm 124 assures us of this by recounting Israel’s deliverance from Egypt (verses 1–5). Psalm 125 interjects a vision of Jerusalem once more. Mount Zion (Jerusalem) is the picture of one who trusts in the Lord. This person, like Jerusalem, will not be moved but abides forever. Psalm 126 longs for this reality, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord!” (verse 4).

But wait. Right now we’re in Meschech. Reading Psalm 120 puts us surrounded by the tents of Kedar. Where they hate peace.

And as it was with the psalmist so it is with us, the readers. “We mourn in lonely exile here.” But it’s not lonely because the Son of God has come. He came and lived and suffered and died and was buried, then raised and ascended and enthroned. That’s when he sent the Spirit, the Helper, who indwells us now as a guarantee and validates our sonship by his witness (John 14:15–17; Ephesians 1:14; Romans 8:16).

So we’re not lonely, but we are waiting.

Jesus said he’d come back (John 14:3) — we’ve not yet seen his face. Paul said our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) — do you read the paper here?

Then Peter gives us (yes, all Christians) a helpful phrase: “elect exiles” (1 Peter 1:1, 17). That’s what we are. We’re exiles. We’re waiting.

And waiting is hard to do. We get the sorrowful part in 2 Corinthians 6:10. It is an age of groaning (Romans 8:23). It feels a lot like Meschech.

________

A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord . . . (Psalm 127:3)

So Israel is in exile, but there is hope. Our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us (Psalm 123:2). These are the “Songs of Ascents” after all. Israel is coming up out of her captivity. We are headed to a restored Jerusalem.

From exile to a restored Jerusalem. We’ve seen this idea by the time we come to Psalm 127 and now it get’s a little clearer. Exactly how is this movement going to happen? How will we go from here to there?

Let’s talk about children.

This moving from here to there is only going to happen if the Lord himself does it. All our waiting is vain unless he shows up. And children are a heritage from the Lord. The sudden shift to children is no accident. The psalmist is refining our hope. The restored Jerusalem and the Lord‘s work are associated with the blessing of children.

But it’s not just any children. Not at this point in the story, not in this “drama of the Son.” Since Genesis 3:15 we’ve been looking for one born of a woman. Then for the offspring of Abraham (Genesis 12:3). Then for the descendent of David, the Son whose kingdom will be established forever (2 Samuel 7:13). We’re looking for this Son. He’s the locus of our hope.

The superscript is another step to help us see this. This psalm in the Songs of Ascents has an additional line. “A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon.” Solomon? Yes. A son of David. The psalmist wants us to know that all our waiting is targeted on this Son. So the line about Solomon makes us think “David’s son” and, perhaps, it also means to put Solomon in the same place as us. Maybe he knows (like we find out in 1 Kings) that he’s not the promised one.

We begin to hear the message: Solomon has come and gone . . . and we’re still looking for the Son.

And while we, after the Nativity, are not so much looking for the Son, we are looking to him. Jerusalem is not yet new and we know the only way it will be is by this One.

________

A Song of Ascents
There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. (Psalm 132:17)

Psalm 132 is the longest and clearest of the Songs of Ascents. As we’ve seen in the earlier psalms, we are coming up out of exile in hopes of a restored Jerusalem. Psalm 132 tells us why this Jerusalem is so special: it is the place of God’s dwelling and the throne of his anointed.

Two concepts come together in this city: the Lord‘s presence (the ark) and the Lord‘s reign (Davidic kingship). This is what makes it the zip code of our dreams. These two things. The place where God dwells. Where his presence is known. Where his nearness is felt. And the domain of his power. The execution of his authority. The government of his righteousness.

The psalmist is looking for this place. He wants to go there. Then in the fullness of time, in a person, God sends it all here. The presence and kingship come in a baby. A horn sprouts for David. Jesus is God with us (Matthew 1:22–23). And Jesus is the King (Matthew 2:5–6) — both of Israel and the nations (Matthew 2:11).

Don’t miss it, though. Psalm 132 isn’t really fulfilled in the Gospels. It’s more like a bullet straight to Revelation 21. The picture here is post-Golgotha. This horn of David will see his enemies clothed in shame (Psalm 132:18). He won’t be wearing a crown of thorns then.

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb [the descendant of David]. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb . (Revelation 21:22–23; 22:16)

No longer will there by anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. (Revelation 21:3)

Here is the vision of ultimate Christmas merriment.

We know that Jesus has come and that he will come again. Christmas is the time to celebrate his birth and long for his return.

Originally posted at Desiring God.