Matt Chandler on the Authority of the Bible

I’ve posted before on a preacher I enjoy listening to named Matt Chandler. I recently found some videos of him that I thought you might enjoy. Stephanie was amazed because she had a much different picture of him in her head. Maybe you do to. In this video Matt explains why it is important to have an authoritative view of the Bible. I think this 3:00 min clip highlights both his wit and his intensity.

Enjoy.

Day Off Thoughts

Today is the first day I have had off in 9 days. I’ve enjoyed laying around, wrestling with the kids, drinking coffee, doing some reading, and napping a bit. Stephanie is harassing me because it is 3 pm and I’m still wearing my sleeping clothes, but you know what, I think I deserve a slob day. Anyway, this piece of Scripture has gotten me thinking today,

14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

As many of you know I have gone trough a theological shifting of sorts in the last 18 months. Part of this change is my understanding of the condition of man and the role of God in the saving of individuals. I am definitely not ‘arrived’ (and I hope I never think I completely have because people who are too sure usually end up being jerks) but I am spending more time wondering how someone who is sinful and anti-God from the womb, could in anyway on their own, make a choice to follow Jesus.

This verse from Corinthians seems to imply a similar conclusion. A person who is far from God cannot even understand their own sinfulness and need for a Saviour without some illumination of the mind and soul done by the Spirit of God. In my experience my free will choice will always be a selfish one, moving me further from God not closer to him.

Thoughts?

The Importance of Christ-Centered Bedtime Stories

Every night I am home, when it is time for the kids to go to bed, I am the one ‘chosen’ by them for the job of tucking them in, and the same question is always asked during our bedtime routine, “Daddy, will you tell us a story?”

I love telling the kids stories. Sometimes I fall asleep while I am laying on the floor telling them. I know this happens because I mumble my way through the story, floating in and out of consciousness, before accidentally ending with the word “Amen” instead of “the end.” To which Jacob promptly sits up and corrects me. But most of the time I make it through.

There are nights when I will read the kids a book. Occasionally I will read right out of the Bible. Other times I will make up something completely random. These seem to be the favorites and the kids request them by details, such as…”the Space Alien” one, the “Little Mermaid” one, the “Puppy” one. It is funny because I try to retell a made-up story and I can’t always get the details right, which really bothers my OCD kids.

Lately, however, I have been rethinking my bedtime story selection. I have really been convicted about the importance of using that time to sear Biblical truth into my kids minds and hearts. So I have been telling Bibles stories and inserting my kids as the people. One night, Jacob is in the role of young Samuel learning to hear God’s voice. Another night, Isabelle is the courageous and beautiful Queen Ester rescuing her people. Tonight Jacob and Isabelle were cast as the Good Samaritan in Jesus parable about loving our neighbors.

Bedtime is the perfect time to instill a love of the Bible in the hearts of your kids.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 teaches,
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

In Proverbs 22:6 the Lord says,
6 Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

So what stories are you telling yours kids? I would encourage each and every parent, make sure that the stories you tell are filled with the themes and teachings of Jesus. Of course this means that you yourself know the stories of your Bible. If you don’t, maybe you and your kids can learn it together.

However you decide to do it, use the precious time with your kids before bed to build their spiritual foundation and their love for Jesus Christ.

The Gap Between God’s Promise and Its Fulfillment

Talking with my mom tonight and she reminded me of something in Scripture. Many times Biblical characters had to wait long amounts of time between the promises of God and their fulfillment. Thing about it. Abraham waited ten years between the promise of a son and the birth of one. Moses wandered in the desert for 40 years before his people could enter the promise land. Joseph spent years in prison and many years as Pharaoh’s helper before he was able to assist his family during the famine.

I live in a culture that teaches me I can have everything I want, when I want it. However, God doesn’t seem to like my cultures plan. More often he promises me something and then delays fulfilling that promise. But his delay is not without purpose. There is shaping and forming that needs to be done in my life. There is junk that needs to be chiseled away before I will be ready to receive.

If you are at a point where you think God has forgotten his promises to you, be encouraged with these Scriptures,

3 For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay. (Habakkuk 2:3)

9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, (2 Peter 3:9)

Biblical Manhood

Read this verse from this blog. Can’t forget this verse when I get back into pastoral ministry.

Mark Driscoll is preaching through Nehemiah right now. It is a can’t miss podcast when he comes to this verse.

Green Grass and Cool Water Please

On Tuesday I spoke with the HR woman from Eagle Brook Church about setting up an interview for the position of Service and Event Producer which I had applied for. We scheduled the interview for Thursday at 2 pm and from my perspective the interview went great. Thank you for all your prayers.

I left the church offices Thursday feeling like I had a good shot at the position. I was unusually upbeat and excited because it seemed to Stephanie and I that God’s hands were in the details of this thing, and we hoped that we would soon be venturing out on a much needed new adventure in our lives.

Then I received an email on Friday from the Eagle Brook HR lady which read,

Thank you very much for participating in our interviews yesterday. It was great to get to know you, and your skills, experience and career goals. Unfortunately, at this time we will not be asking you back for a 2nd interview. I will be keeping your resume on file, in case we open up the 2nd position later in the year.

I have to admit, I didn’t see it coming. Yesterday was a tough day for the me; I was battling feelings of depression and despair all day. News like the news I received makes you step back and question things. It forced me to evaluate whether or not I believe things like this and this.

My brother Jeff texted me the lyrics from a Jeremy Camp song when he heard about my disappointment. The whole song encapsulates both my struggle and my desire,

I will walk by faith
Even when I cannot see
because this broken road
Prepares Your will for me

Each day when I drive home I go past a car dealership with a Christian owner who puts Bible verses up on the big light board in his parking light. Yesterday there was a verse posted from Psalm 107. This is an amazing Psalm which describes the steadfast love of God. Please read it today. In each stanza of the Psalm there is a phrase that recurs:

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

Those words are refreshing to a depressed and despairing soul. We are not alone. We are not forsaken. I know that God will answer us. I believe in His timing and His leading. I know that my being turned away from Eagle Brook does not mean God has turned away from me. It may in fact be His kind hand redirecting a lost sheep to the place where there will be green grass to eat and cool water to drink.

How little do I know compared to the mind of the Lord!

Jesus is the Radiance of God’s Glory

Wow it is already May 1st. Amazing.

This month my small group is reading, meditating on and talking about the Book of Hebrews. Here is something sweet to savor, chew on and digest into your soul.

Hebrews 1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (ESV)

Hope your month goes great.

Laying Down My Life

I was struck by something I noticed happening inside myself on Saturday while I was delivering Easter Lilies.

I had a couple stops in Northeast Minneapolis and as I drove through the city I wondered how safe it would be to live in homes around me. I remembered Tim Keller and his sermons on loving the city, and I thought about how important it is for the Gospel to take root in the city because social change so often begins in the city. I recalled the words of Jesus in Scripture about God’s concern for the poor running through my mind, and I was sad because of how run down and impoverished the neighborhood was. But I also knew that I didn’t want to live there. And so I drove away from the city conflicted by the fact that even though, theoretically, the city needs so much help, practically I just couldn’t picture my wife and I purposefully moving there and raising our kids in the midst of everything.

My next stops after leaving Minneapolis were in Mendota Heights and Apply Valley. Both homes I delivered to in these southern metro suburban cities were large and located in immaculate neighborhoods . As I drove by large brick homes with SUVs and hockey nets sitting on paver stone driveways I thought, “I wish I could afford to live here.” True, there were no Scriptures running through my head and no burden for any people outside of my own, but there were dreams of safety and pleasure and joy for my kids.

I would guess that these types of conflicting feelings are true for many middle class Christian Americans. We feel the burden for the poor and we wish we could do something, and at the same time, we would prefer if our doing something didn’t demand much of the lives that we are currently enjoying. I would be most comfortable sacrificing for others up to the point that it doesn’t cost me anything. But that wouldn’t really be sacrifice would it?

If I understand this text to by metaphoric, knowing that in many instances I am not literally going to die, then how do I fulfill this command of Christ,

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. (John 15:12-14)

Part of the answer may lie in expansion of Jesus words by His Apostle John in 1 John,

16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth….

23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (1 John 3:16-18, 23)

These are texts that I have read a hundred times and still I am forced to wrestle with their implications. I don’t believe that there is a black and white answer. Rather, in private prayer and communal conversations, we should strive to work out these truths out in our lives that we may achieve the peaceful assurance that John inserts between the two texts above.

19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. (1 John 3:19-22)

All in a Day’s Work

My guess is that there was never a long line of young men in Israel lining up for this job in the priesthood.

Faith Under Fire

My wife and I have been spending our Sunday afternoons with friends watching and discussing some DVD segments from Lee Strobel’s Faith Under Fire small group series. The DVD is set up so that groups of people watch small segments of debate between two informed guests. Strobel moderates the debate and adds some of his own commentary before and after the guest segments. The two questions we have seen debated so far are…

1. Is the supernatural real?
2. Is Jesus merely a Prophet or is he the Son of God?

The video segments have been interesting but they are extremely short. I feel like there is not enough time alloted to really get a handle on what each guest is trying to say. Just as you are getting a taste of the different arguments the video cuts off and encourages you to discuss your opinions with small group members.

As we have been talking through the questions above we keep wondering how two intelligent people could arrive at such different conclusions about the same things. In wondering about this a few verses keep popping up to the front of my mind. I will write them out below for your own consideration.

25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. (Matthew 11:25-27)

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12)