It’s Been A While…

It has been a little while since I have consistently posted at Mercy Swimming. So let me update you on what’s been rattling around in my heart and mind over the past few weeks:

Things I’m Excited About…I’m excited about a lot, so I’d better list…

New Preaching Series–It’s been three weeks since I finished a (year and a half long) series through the book of Acts, called “The Church Unstoppable.” You can listen to those sermons here. Two weeks ago we began a journey through the book of Hosea entitled, “Love Defined.” So far it’s been a joy for me to see this amazing picture of redemption, forgiveness, judgement and love. Join us on Sundays or listen here. May God prosper His word among us!

Upcoming Conferences/Events–Yes, I am excited about Together for the Gospel 2010, April 13-15th. If you have not already visited their website you should…and you ought to take the time to watch the video tours of several of the main speaker’s personal libraries. It will make you want more books, so guard yourself from temptation.

I’m also very excited about the annual gathering of Southern Baptists in Orlando this summer. Why? That brings me to my next point…

The Great Commission Resurgence–There’s something happening in the SBC. Last summer, the gathered assembly commissioned the President to appoint a committee (Great Commission Task Force) to evaluate and present ways in which the SBC can more effectively fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus. Their initial report is now available here. Pray for the SBC, and the decisions to by made and affirmed this June.

By the way, the SBC Pastor’s Conference has an amazing line up! Can’t wait to sit under these great brothers as they minister the Word to us this summer.

Danny Akin; Francis Chan; Matt Chandler;
Tony Evans; Steve Gaines; David Landrith;
CJ Mahaney; Al Mohler; Russell Moore;
David Platt; Andy Stanley; David Uth;
Ken Whitten; Ravi Zacharias;

A New, Much Anticipated Biblical Theology–Dr. Jim Hamilton’s Biblical Theology is due out this October! You can visit this blog to see a preview including the beautiful cover! Can’t wait to get my hands on this baby (probably both hands at 480 pages!).

A New President at Wheaton–I am so excited to hear the Dr. Phillip Ryken will be the next President at Wheaton College. I feel deeply for his church, however. You can see the deep emotion and sadness when a pastor has to leave his flock in his address here. All the info about this exciting news can be found here.

Pick the Next Redeemer Institutes–Finally, I’m excited about the upcoming Redeemer Institutes, that YOU CAN PICK!! That’s right, you can give three to five suggestions for our upcoming Institutes this Spring and Fall. All the information is here. If you’re not a facebook user, you can leave your suggestions on my blog and I’ll consider them for sure.

I apologize if you feel like you’ve just taken a gulp form the fire hydrant. Hopefully I’ll be a more consistent blogger in the future so I can do this in smaller chunks. Thanks for reading and swimming in mercy with me!

Man’s Injustice and Divine Judgment–Asaph on Abortion

This past Sunday at Baptist Church of the Redeemer, Mr. Chris Pope served us with this excellent sermon entitled “The Injustice of Man and the Judgment of God,” from Psalm 82 You can listen here.

Thank you Chris for forcing our eyes to look upon the great atrocity of our time and reminding us that nothing escapes the gaze of the Almighty Judge!

May the Lord prosper his word and embolden his people!

An Evidence of Grace: Brothers Who Can Preach!

Yesterday I spent some significant time outlining some evidences of God’s grace in my life. I’ll say more about my day of Silence and Solitude in a future post.

One of the evidences of God’s grace in our church is that we have a good group of men who are gifted as preachers and teachers (not counting the guys on staff). I was reminded again of this grace this past Sunday at Redeemer as Chris Pope brought the Word from 1 Peter 1:3-9. I highly recommend that you listen to this excellent message entitled Living Hope and Unspeakable Joy. You can listen here.

Praise God for His abundant grace to the Church!

Jim Hamilton Preaches in Chapel at Southern Seminary

Jim’s text: 2 Samuel 11
Title: The Wife of Uriah

May God protect and strengthen us through His Word!

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Tommy Dahn on Humility and Intimacy in the Body of Christ

This past Sunday at Redeemer, we had the joy of having Mr. Tommy Dahn preach the Word to us! Tommy is the Senior Pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas. My friend and former pastor, Jim Hamilton once said that Tommy is the “ideal Southern Baptist pastor.” He preaches the word faithfully and loves his people relentlessly.

Tommy planned to preach on the entire book of Philippians, but only made it through chapter 2! All of us preachers can understand that! When he finished preaching, I found myself wanting to invite him back to preach on the rest of the book!

You can download, stream or podcast (if you have not already!) here.

Also, I recently interviewed Tommy on the topic of pastoral ministry. You can access that interview and others here.

Note: Tommy plans to preach this book in about 4 months to his congregation. You can listen to sermons from Providence here.

May God prosper his word in Houston and beyond!

Pretend Christianity?

John Thacker preached a great sermon Sunday on James 2:18-26, entitled “Living Faith.” You can download, stream or podcast here.

John’s sermon was extremely clear and encouraging. There is a temptation to give into moralism when we approach practical sections of God’s word. John serves us well be rooting his exhortation (like James does) deep in the roots of the gospel. Enjoy!

Link to Sermon

Sermon Preview for Sunday, August 9th at Redeemer

I love to play pretend with my kids. We pretend to be all sorts of things: characters from The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, ferocious animals, warriors, professional athletes…you name it. The big idea behind pretending (pretense) is that you act like you are something that you are not, for a period of time. These games of pretend don’t usually last very long. I may “pretend” to have been killed in battle, but in about a minute, I eventually open my eyes and put my tongue back in my mouth and stand up. You can’t pretend forever.

Children are not the ones who play this game. Imagine a grown man walked into an office building as people were busily typing away at their computers and screamed “I’ve just been mugged!” Everyone is shocked and runs quickly to investigate the situation. Curiously, as he tells his story of being beaten, held at gunpoint and violently robbed, his co-workers begin to notice that his suit is still nicely in place, as if it were just from the cleaners. His tie is perfectly tied and his hair is combed just right. His shoes are shiny and his Rolex watch is still ticking. It slowly becomes clear that this man was not mugged, but simply looking for an excuse for being late to work again. One thing about pretending is that eventually your profession and your reality will meet and you will be exposed.

The purpose of the book of James is to expose pretenders. In this letter, James, the brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem Church, seeks to discuss true religion, true faith and true wisdom. This week at Redeemer, we are excited to have Mr. John Thacker preaching from James 2:18-26, as he considers “Living Faith.” Did you know that one day many professing, Sunday school going, church attending people will be found to be pretenders? James says that even the demons believe God and shudder. What constitutes a demonic faith? It seems to be professed faith that is not evidenced in grace filled works of righteousness. So, how does your profession (I’ve just been robbed) line up with the evidence? What are the evidences of true regeneration? How can we spot empty works in our lives and repent of them? How can we practice true religion and repent of the false religion that only destroys? Join us this week as we are reminded that faith without works is the worst game of pretend that anyone could ever play.

New Website for Baptist Church of the Redeemer

Today the new website for Baptist Church of the Redeemer went live! Take a moment and browse around to see some of the new features and the new look.

Be sure to check your podcast feeds to make sure they are the same for the weekly sermons. Also, you’ll need to change your podcast settings for Alethia Audio. We have a new sermon player dedicated to the audio from the Redeemer Institute as well, so be sure to sign up! Here’s all you need to know:

New Podcast Links:

Redeemer Sermons: http://www.sermonfeed.com/bcredeemer/main

Alethia Audio: http://www.sermonfeed.com/bcredeemer/alethia_ministries

The Redeemer Institute: http://www.sermonfeed.com/bcredeemer/redeemer_institure

I want to be sure and thank the folks who have worked to make this happen: Thanks to John Thacker who created and maintained our previous website. Thanks to Joseph Doty who worked on getting things together with servers and who was patient with pastors who change their minds often! Thanks to the folks at Faith Connector who made this really easy. Thanks to Richard Fields who took the initiative to get this thing done and who oversaw the entire project.

Our prayer is that this website will serve the saints at Redeemer and those across the city for many years to come. Stay tuned for upcoming additions as they become available.

Redeemer Institute Audio Now Available–Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Session I: Unity and Diversity: Why Has God Made us Different and the Same?

Session II: Recovering A Vision for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

Session III: Q & A with the elders at Redeemer

Listen, download and/or podcast this and future messages here.

Tim Keller on Discerning, Exposing and Destroying Idols…

The first message at the 2009 Gospel Coalition National Conference was delivered by Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan NY.

Title: The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry
Text: Acts 19:23-41
Video available here

Would Paul go to Hollywood, Harvard and the NY Times to argue for the truth of the gospel? Keller says yes!

Main Points:

1. Discerning Idols–What is an idol? Something you can’t have a meaningful life without. Every place Paul went, he would identify idols an deal with them with the gospel. When people were confronted with their idols and converted, their lives were changed. Is that the case in our church today? Keller argues that this reality is actually the scandal of our church today: namely that we profess Christ and yet are still enslaved to our idols…and we don’t impact the culture for the gospel.

Idols of our day: family, children, career, achievement, romantic relationship, physical beauty, money, political or social cause, moral record, your ministry success, religiosity, popularity…When you lose one of these things and it has become an ultimate thing…you want to throw yourself off a bridge. That’s how you know it’s an idol in your life.

2. Exposing Idols–(Paul said that these “gods” are no gods at all). 3 Kinds of Idols:

*Personal Idols–[Money]–Artemis was the “business idol” or financial prosperity. Child sacrifices would actually take place. Do we practice child sacrifice today when we make our careers our gods? We sacrifice our children on the altar of money. [Romance]–If you look to another person for worth or value (I’m nobody unless this person loves me), they are your idol. There will be no boundaries on your relationship…you are a under the authority of your slavemaster. [Children]–If my children are (fill in the blank),then I know that I’m worth something…living our lives our through our children, they are idols. Beware of bitterness toward God and to your children.

*Religious Idols–[Truth]–Is it possible to say that I’m saved because of the rightness of my belief instead of by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus? Are you the “scoffer” in Proverbs. They are always dogmatic and disdainful of opponents. Is this your default mode? [Gifts]–Do you mistake spiritual gifts for spiritual fruit? Do you seek justification by ministry? We can make an idol out of good preaching. [Morality]–I do “x,y,z” and therefore I’m right with God or super spiritual…

*Cultural Idols–Science, Technology, Education will solve everything. There have been devastating results…poverty, racism are still around.

3. Destroying Idols–How do you destroy idols? It is a dangerous business to expose and destroy idols. Paul risked his life everyday, and it absolutely cost Jesus his.

Colossians 2:15: He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

My Takeaways: The Lord revealed certain idols in my own life. I won’t share all of them here, but I will mention one. I think I have made an idol out of wanting to be “a great man,” or “a successful pastor.” I think in some ways I have confused my spiritual gifts for spiritual fruit in my life. The Lord is so good to remind me that He is the one who will build his church, not me! He is the one who ultimately will shepherd the flock. I’m so glad that it’s not up to me to do this! I praise God for his gift of repentance, even to us pastors! May the Lord just give me the grace to be faithful and watch God do this thing at Baptist Church of the Redeemer!

Also, I want to do a better job of discerning idols in my church and in my city. Things that came to mind for me especially were issues of morality. It seems like many in our city/state are focused on their record or “report card.” We are quick to look down our noses on those who have scars in their past. Obviously, money, career, relationships, are active idols as well. How do you de-mythologize things like beauty and money? Only with the gospel! I want to study our idols, expose them and seek to destroy them with the gospel. May the Lord bring it to pass!

What About You? Any thoughts on these things?

What’s Next? John Piper on 2 Timothy 1:1-12.