Ain’t No Shame, Kevin DeYoung

Every once in awhile a little rant is called for. So here’s mine.

What ever happened to being called a Christian? Did I miss the ecumenical council that decreed the phrase “Christ follower” or “Jesus-disciple” be used for churchgoers under the age of 40? Of course, there’s nothing wrong with calling yourself a “Christ follower” or a “Jesus-disciple.” You can be a part of “Team Jesus” or walk in the “way of Rabbi Yeshua” if that floats your boat. There are plenty of justifiable phrases to go around.

Provided we don’t pick our phrases in order to avoid necessary unpleasantries.

I understand that “Christian” may feel stale, and that it carries baggage with some people. But the label is biblical (Acts 11:26). And the baggage is sometimes unavoidable. If you want to be a “follower of Jesus” instead of a “Christian” because the former implies only ethical emulation, while the latter suggests doctrinal and institutional commitment, then you need to check your motives not the baggage. Again, I don’t have a problem using “disciple of Jesus” to spice things up a bit. A phrase like that may even be prudent in extreme situations of persecution. But if we in North America are using it just to be trendy, or to gut Christianity of its theological center, or to simply avoid being one of those guys, we should really take a deep breath and learn to live with a term that’s been around since first century Antioch.

And while I’m at it, we should also be careful that we don’t make everything about “Jesus.” (Wait a second, did he just say that?!) Let me explain. I love Jesus. I love to pray to Jesus. I love to say the name “Jesus” in my sermons, a lot. I talk about following Jesus, worshiping Jesus, believing in Jesus, and having a big, glorious Jesus. No apologies necessary for saying “Jesus.” But then one time an older member of our congregation asked why I didn’t say “Christ” more often. I had never really thought about it before. I guess “Jesus” just packs a little more punch, has a little more edge, sounds a little fresher than Christ or Lord or the Son of God.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with referencing “Jesus.” The gospels do it a whole bunch. But we must not forget–and we must help our younger listeners remember–that we are not merely followers of a man named Jesus. We worship the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are disciples of this man Jesus, but this man is also our Savior and God. He is, after all, more than a carpenter.

Following Jesus is a movement. Believing in Christ is a faith. Let’s make sure we don’t have the first sentence without the second.

Don’t ditch the name that marks us out as his. Ain’t no shame in being called a Christian.

thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/

Postmodern Architecture

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God Pursuing Us

Henry Ward Beecher once said that he found God when he realized that his mother would move heaven and earth to rescue him from trouble even if that trouble was of his own making. God can do no less than a holy mother. The truth is, we may want to shut God out of our lives, but he can't shut himself out of them, can't be content to be left out and just leave it at that. Robed in flesh, God the Son weeps over a city that is ruining itself by rejecting him (Luke 19:41-45). If any of us has tried in vain to bring home a sinning child or husband or wife, one we loved more than life itself, we know why God's chest was heaving and great sobs were bursting from him. He can't stay away from us.

Jim McGuiggan, Celebrating the Wrath of God: Reflections on the Agony and Ecstasy of His Relentless Love.

Unction by Tullian Tchividjian

I’m a die-hard believer in unction. Unction is an old fashioned word which describes an effusion of power from the Holy Spirit as one preaches. It is the one thing preachers need above everything else. It is the accompanying power of the Spirit. This is what Charles Spurgeon dubbed “the sacred annointing.” It is power from on high.

In his book on the preaching of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Sacred Annointing, Tony Sargent describes unction well. He writes:

'[Unction] is the afflatus of the Spirit resting on the speaker. It is the preacher gliding on eagles’ wings, soaring high, swooping low, carrying and being carried along by a dynamic other than his own. His consciousness of what is happening is not obliterated. He is not in a trance. He is being worked on but is aware that he is still working. He is being spoken through but he knows he is still speaking. The words are his but the facility with which they come compels him to realise that the source is beyond himself. The man is overwhelmed. He is on fire.

Oh how my heart burns for this sacred annointing, this unction! I hope and pray that preachers all over the world would spend much of their sermon preparation time begging God for this power on high. For, it is preachers who are borne along by the Holy Spirit that are used to effect a deep and sobering awareness of God and his truth that transforms.'

In his book Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace, Iain Murray writes:

'Preaching under the annointing of the Holy Spirit is preaching which brings with it a consciousness of God. It produces an impression upon the hearer that is altogether stronger than anything belonging to the circumstances of the occasion. Visible things fall into the background; the surroundings, the fellow worshippers, even the speaker himself, all become secondary to an awareness of God himself. Instead of witnessing a public gathering, the hearer receives the conviction that he is being addressed personally, and with an authority greater than that of a human messenger.'

Given the fact that the ultimate factor in the church’s engagement with society is the church’s engagement with God, my earnest prayer is that, for the sake of the world, more preachers would come to know and understand what Andrew Bonar meant when he wrote: “It is one thing to bring truth from the Bible, and another to bring it from God himself through the Bible.”

Please pray, dear friends, that God would annoint my mind and mouth on Sunday as I preach so that God’s people would hear from God. Please pray that God’s Spirit would so inhabit my words that everyone would leave worship tomorrow being able to say, “God was surely in that place.”

I can’t manufacture unction regardless of how well crafted my sermon is and how well prepared I may be. The biggest work must come from God.

So, come thou fount of every blessing and do for your people what I cannot. Amen.

On Earth as it is in Heaven, January 15th, 2010

Piper on Natural Disasters

The point of every deadly calamity is this: Repent. Let our hearts be broken that God means so little to us. Grieve that he is a whipping boy to be blamed for pain, but not praised for pleasure. Lament that he makes headlines only when man mocks his power, but no headlines for ten thousand days of wrath withheld. Let us rend our hearts that we love life more than we love Jesus Christ. Let us cast ourselves on the mercy of our Maker. He offers it through the death and resurrection of his Son."



— John Piper after the 2004 Indonesian tsunami

Bad Luck or Divine Plan?

But the unpredictable exists because God created it. It suits his purposes that randomness exists; he wants it that way and insists that its reality be laid at his feet. He tells Job that he’s the one who sends the rain on desolate land where no people dwell (Job 38:25-27). What a waste of water, we might think. But God chose to do it, whether we think it wise or not, and it was God doing it even though we would speak of it as unpredictable and random.

Jim McGuiggan, Celebrating the Wrath of God: Reflections on the Agony and Ecstasy of His Relentless Love