There are two very critical areas in which we have yet to show the sort of passion, enthusiasm and growth we need.

1. An Earnest Committment to Global Missions
2. Our Committment and Passion for Personal Holiness

Hebrews 2:14 tells us to strive for peace with everyone and holiness, without which we cannot seek the Lord. We are striving for a personal, progressive, actual holiness, without which we will not see the Lord.

Those who do not have some evidence of grace and holiness, will not see the Lord. If there is not at least a desire and yearning for holiness, you ought to question whether you are truly saved. Let us think about and strive after not just that which God has saved us from but that which he has saved us to.

This sermon is not about why as much as how do we grow in holiness. There are thousands of people right here, thousands or hundreds of dozens sitting in our churches each Sunday desiring to grow from one bit of glory to the next. How will we help them get there? LEgalism? License? Platitudes?

1 Corinthians 15:10 - Paul says that on the one hand I am working very hard. Our work is not only a response to the grace of God, it is the effect of the grace of God.

• Spirit-powered
  Let me give you two Biblical images for the Spirit's work:
  1. The Spirit as Power
     The spirit is granted to strengthen us. Eph 3:16
     Rom 8 - The Spirit that dwells in us is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
     He is a mighty rushing wind, not just a little vapor. Christians who think they can never change dishonor the Holy Spirit.
  2. The Spirit as Light
     The Spirit reveals sin. John 16. To expose the world to sin, righteousness, and judgment.
     Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. This is what happens when you preach with conviction and God really works in your life. Things scatter. God in his mercy shines a giant spotlight on the people's sins. This is what you're trying to do when you preach and teach. This is a prayer God has always answered in my life. I pray, "Lord, show me my sin." God is gracious to turn on the lights and show you your sin.
     We have, in our bulletin, every week before the message, a prayer for illumination, that God would speak through His Word to lead us into all truth.
     How does it happen that you preach and two people, one needing to be comforted the other convicted and they both get what they need? Because the Spirit works in them.
     The Spirit throws a spotlight on Christ, not just revealing your sin. When the Spirit converts, it is never apart from throwing a spotlight on the glory of Christ. We become what we behold. We want to become like Christ. When the light comes on and you run to the darkness, that's resisting the Spirit, quenching the Spirit, grieving the Spirit.
• Gospel-driven

  The Gospel Drives us to Godliness out of a Sense of Gratitude
  This is not a debtors ethic, but this is the response fitting to grace.
  Even in hard hearts, human gratitude exists. When you give a kids a gift, they're grateful. Now, it lasts for all of about 5 minutes.
  Gratitude crowds out whatever is course or ugly or mean.
  If you have an anger problem or a bitterness problem, you can be sure you also have a gratitude problem.
  Certain sins become more difficult when you understand your position in Christ. If you are an heir to the whole world, why envy? If you are God's prized possession, why be jealous?

  It's easy to become convinced we can never change. We may think God can forgive 7 times 70, but that's 490, and I've sinned more than that.

  And that is where we must do spiritual warfare with the sword of the Spirit and remember verses like Romans 8:39.

  We are to understand our identity and union in Christ and to live that way.

  Whenever something evil resonates with people made in the image of God, you have to think there is a half-truth there and a damnable lie.

  There's a Lady Gaga song, "Born this Way." And there is a truth there. We cannot be other than we are. But we can be born again. And in Christ we can be different.

• Faith-fueled
  We mustn't think justification is all about faith and sanctification has nothing to do with faith. We are justified by faith and in a different sense sanctified through faith.

  You must be very cautious with this language, because we must mean something different in the word "by" in sanctified by faith. We are justified by faith totally apart from anything we do. Faith plays a role in sanctification, but let's not import the same phrases lest we confuse people. Sanctification is the fight of the faith fueled by our belief in the Gospel, in the truth, in God's promises.

  You can go through Scripture. Start with the beatitudes. You start to hear promises that fuel your fight for holiness. If God promises that the meek will inherit the earth and you want to be somebody, prove yourself, maybe you need to be meek. I don't know if you'll have a big church or house or family, but I want to give you the earth.

  Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. I will not look over to my left because I want to see God, not just at the end but today.

• Effort

  Do not let effort be a four letter word in your Christian vocabulary.

  Scripture tells us again and again to put off the old self and put on the new to make every effort. The reward of eternal life go to those who conquer.

  We work to kill the flesh and be alive in the Spirit.

  The child of God has two great marks about him. His inner peace and his inner warfare.

  Striving, working, fighting, these are Bible words and have a good lineage in Church History. Calvin, Hodge, and more

  We must understand that when it comes to sanctification look to the Lord or be gripped by the Gospel. Sanctification is not by surrender but by divinely enabled toil and effort. Let me bring this down to us and apply this to us as ministers and as we work with our people. How does this work with us and our people.

  Pastors, you understand that being a pastor is hard work. You don't have the luxury of knocking off early on Friday and coming back to town late on Sunday. Others may work harder than us, but we work hard.

  Sometimes you do have to leave the vacation early to come home and do the funeral. Sometimes the sermon is a labor of love and the accent is on the labor. As I tell my people all the time, not every sermon is going to be a home run. Sometimes you feel like you cranked it over the upper deck. Other times it's a bunt single. The longer you do this, the preparation gets easier because you have more tools, you've done this before, etc. IT gets harder because you think you know what's in Scripture, you know what's in there. How long should you spend on your sermons? However long it takes until your soul is helped. If I don't have my soul being thrilled or challenged, they won't notice in the first or second week, or maybe even in the first or second year, but a few years in they will. You know who often notices first, you do. You're often the first one bored. It takes hard, creative work.

  You can present the Gospel in a foolish or shallow way. When I am most prone to laziness as a pastor, the Internet. It's like every 15 minutes you're checking the Internet. You need to work hard at resting. You need to work hard at going to bed on time. You need to work hard at guarding your day off. It's not hard to work 80 hours as a pastor is not hard. To work 60 or 50 or 40 is hard work. YOu have to guard your schedule. You have to learn how to manage time. Sometimes we're not all working hard. It is the easiest job in the world to be selfishly ambitious and be utterly and totally lazy. No one will check on you. What does it mean that we labor and we toil when we preach?

  I think many of us are getting to the point that we are scared that the Bible would have them do some stuff and not do some stuff. The Great Commission tells us to teach people to obey. If you're not interested in obedience, you're not interested in the Great Commission. I don't care how many converts you have. I don't really know any anti-nomians, but what is plaguing some of our churches? The world looks at us and is afraid we might be homophobic. God is more concerned that we might be nomophobic, that we might be afraid of the law. Do you remember that in the Old Testament law came after Gospel. God didn't tell the Israelites to get everything right and then He'll save them. God saved them and then gave them the law. Yes, Law leads to Gospel, but also Gospel leads to law. The Bible insists on the commands.

  If you preach on David and Bathsheba and never say anything about God's mercy, then you're not preaching the Gospel, but if you don't say anything about sexual sin, you're not preaching the text. Or you're preaching on Luke 18. Jesus gives the application, "so that they would always pray and not lose heart." There's a legalistic way to do that, tell them they don't pray enough. Prayer, evangelism, recycling, whatever. You know how to do this as a preacher so that everyone in your church feels guilty about everything you're preaching about. Don't preach it legalistically. So, what do I do? So we say, God wants us to pray, but we climax with "But God will always forgive us when we don't pray." So what do we do? We need to talk about the command to pray and the motivations we have to do that, but there's still a command. There's something to do.

  You preach not just the content but the mood of the text. Depending on your background, training, etc. you can make Psalm 23 hellfire and damnation. Others can turn "brood of vipers" in to "Three Ways God turns Vipers into Sheep."

  You cannot assume that everyone in your church needs a kick in the pants or everyone in your church needs a hug.

  Making an effort to be holy is not somehow sub-Gospel. God saves you from the wrath of God, unto holiness, for glory.

  The benediction from Hebrews. It is the resurrected Christ who will work in you both to will and to do according to his good pleasure.

  They need to fight, strive, labor, toil and make an effort. Sanctification won't just flow out of you because you're in love with justification.

Here are the two points you need to understand.
Holiness does not happen apart from trusting.
Trusting does not put an end to trying.

1 Timothy 1

What do you think is the greatest hinderance to the Gospel and the advance of the Gospel in the Middle East?
Perhaps it is the Christians' lack of confidence in the Gospel.

As I sat listening to the evangelist who said this, I realized that he exposed me with this question. Is there any mark that your live displays a deep and unshakable confidence in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Since misery loves company, is there any evident mark, any compelling evidence that certifies to your own soul that you have a deep and unshakable confidence in teh good news of Jesus Christ? Do you have confidence that the Gospel can trandform the people we think are far from Christ, or do we underestimate the Gospel's ability to transform even the worst of sinners?

The title of this talk refers to terrorists, but think of the person you think of as unreachable. It could be a muslim terrorist, but it could be the prostitute or the drug dealer, or drunk uncle Clint or your third grade teacher. Who is that person who causes you to shrink back from sharing the Gospel or to think there is something more that is needed. Am I confident, down in my bones, in an unashamed Romans 1:16 way in the power of the Gospel to transform? Is Romans 1:16 really our boast? If it is, is it evidence?

My goal is to help us recline on the strength of the Gospel and to cultivate a deep confidence in the Gospel.

1. The Great Change in one Terrorist's Life
   Paul calls Timothy to deal with false teaching, to deal with falsehood. False teachers were leading to false converts, turning away from the converts and back to the Law.

   In v. 11 when Paul mentions the glorious Gospel, the mention of the Gospel seems to have a certain effect on him. You know what happens when your favorite song comes on the radio, it brings you back. That's what happens with Paul at the mention of the Gospel, so verses 12-17 break in on the instruction that Paul has been giving to Timothy, and Paul gives a before and after picture of his life.

   This is a man completely transformed, a Christ appointed, Christ empowered servant of Jesus Christ, but he's not always been that. Paul had a past. "Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecuter and a violent man."

   The first question that tumbles out to me in this before and after picture is this: Why do you suppose Paul continually remembers these things so vividly, when we think of the hard-living, we must remember that some of their sins are not so easily forgotten. Years have passed in Paul's life, but he still remembers the cries of those he persecuted.

   A lady said to me, "God gave up on me a while ago." And what she needed was for me to have confidence in the Gospel. She needed me to proclaim that nothing could take away her sin but the blood of Jesus.

   WHy do you suppose Paul threw himself so fully into this career of being a blasphemer and a persecuter and a violent man?

   In a word, Paul was lost.

   As our brother Al shared yesterday, words are necessary to share the Gospel. What do you suppose happens when CHristians lose words in their vocabulary? We lose those concepts, those ideas. Words are containers for meaning. I don't hear as often Christians speaking of those outside of the Church as being lost.

   Let me give a brief definition of those who are lost. We might define lostness as those who have a convinced blindness and misdirected affections which leads to eternal damnation.

   Paul was convinced, it was an ought for him. He tought it was the right thing to do. He thought he had the right idea, but he did not. He was not suggesting the way to receive mercy was to remain ignorant. He was just describing his own situation. He was convinced he had the light when he did not.

   John 3:19 - The light has come into the world, but men love darkness.

   If we lose the concept of lostness, we lose everything. WE lose the need for missions and evangelism, because God would not punish a seeker earnestly searching for him. This means, beloved, that we had better get real about these things. We had better preach this Gospel in all of its unpopularity and man shaking wrath, but also in all of its gracious glory. We have to confront people with the eye-opening Gospel.

2. The Great Cause of that Change
   The Gospel. The terrorist became an apostle because of the Good News.
   1. The Gospel supplied his need.
      Paul speaks of the mercy he received. In the Gospel, God punished Paul less than he deserved. The grace of God was poured out abundantly along with the mercy and love of God. I picture Paul at the base of Niagara Falls, grace and mercy pouring down on him.

      I suspect this was sweet to Paul. He was so mindful of his life when he was outside of Christ, without God and without hope. He's come to see that all of the benefits of Christ are bound up in our union of Christ. Perhaps he meditates on this so much because he's so familiar with the bankruptcy of life apart from Christ. All that Paul lacked was not supplied in Christ. The blasphemer was given faith. The violent man was made to love. All of that comes in Christ. All that once ruined him was made whole in Christ.

   2. The Gospel is Trustworthy
      I love it when God puts the cookie on the bottom shelf where I can reach it. Verse 15: Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. God says, "Hey knucklehead, put your confidence here, on the Gospel." We should trust the Gospel because it is trustworthy, it bears the weight of our confidence. The Gospel is a steel pillar, a steel rod for our ministries, for our preaching.
3. The Great Celebration of that Change

   The purpose of our unredeemed past is to celebrate the greatness of our redeemed present. How often do we underestimate the power of the Gospel to transform the terrorist, to transform those whose front yards were littered with beer cans.

   1. If we're confident in the Gospel, we're going to position ourselves to release the Gospel.

      Are we trying to share the Gospel or do we think we need to rehabilitate it?

   2. We would redirect our fears from man to God. We would fear being unfaithful more than we would fear being unfruitful.
   3. We would endeavor to preach the Gospel in every circumstance. On what Sunday do we think there are no lost people in our congregation or that our people do not need to hear the Gospel. We would work from every text to the Gospel. God only has one message from Genesis to Revelation.
   4. We would be careful with new converts and our evangelistic message. We would be careful not to view Paul's Damascus road experience as archetypal for conversion. Many are much more gradual, but we think of Paul's conversion as paradigmatic. To confront people with the need to decide for Jesus in the moment is to have a punctiliar understanding of conversion. Is our confidence in our method or in the Gospel.
   5. Study the Gospel in deeper and more varied ways. If our confidence is in the Gospel, we will dive deeper into its truths. Take a different aspect of the Gospel each month and ransack the Scripture searching for how the Gospel magnifies that particular truth. Roll it over in your mind.
   6. Seek to open eyes, not just transfer information.
      That opening of eyes is critical to conversion, unless people see that they are lost, they will not be brought to conversion.
   7. 1 Cor 2:5 - Preach the Gospel in such a way that their faith will rely on the power of God.

1 Timothy 4:16

Is it possible that many of our hearers each week, even many of our members, aren't saved.

Langston Hughes recounted his "salvation" account. One of community pressure. Langston Hughes became and remained-to the best of my knowledge-a persuasive atheist.

Aren't the Gospels full of images that warn us against worrying about false conversions? Should we be suspicious of grace? Well the Bible tells us there's opposition to the truth, that there will be false converts. Why bother trying to fix something that the Bible tells us will be a problem.

Well, the experience of Langston Hughes is one I fear may be repeated thousands, if not millions, of times in our churches in the United States.

I want us to look first at the plan, then the problem, then the source of the problem. And I'll end with a few practical tips.

God's Plan
I want to begin with God's plan. God has an overarching purpose to get glory for Himself through His people.

God would do this through Jesus Christ. This lion of Judah is also the lamb. Revelation talks about the innumerable multitude.

Jesus says he will build his church on Peter and the confession he had made. He promises to always be with his disciples and that they were to go

God would bring his glory through Christ and specifically through the church. It's not merely about evangelizing the lost but about congregating the converted.

God set Israel apart. His people were the means to bring him glory. That's been God's plan from Genesis to Revelation, to have God's name brought glory by His people.

I hope you're encouraged that what you're about is maybe even something bigger than what you thought you were about. But that brings me to point two.

The Problem
God's people were unfaithful. Instead of honoring his name, they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs and worshipped their idols (Ps 106).

When the people were in exile, God explained to them again and again that all that he did, he did for His own name.

Romans 2:24 - God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. In the OT, Israel brought shame on God's name instead of being what they were called to be, a light to the nations. Whatever God did, He did to honor his name, so that the nations would know...

God does all that he does for the glory of his own name. Read through Ezekiel. You preach that from your pulpit, and you'll get a very quick test of what is going on in your church spiritually. Christians love this message. Non-Christians hate it.

Let your light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in Heaven. That's why Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:12 that we are to live exemplary lives before pagans.

The problem that I am pointing to is not the occasional hypocrite but systems that seem to produce false converts but whole congregations that are typified and charactarized not by holiness but by worldliness.

4 Dimensions of this problem.

1. These people are confused about their status. There is no evidence these people are reconciled to God. That's not loving to them.
2. The church's internal love is hindered. As Paul talked about a little yeast working through the whole batch of dough, there are congregations with many people with this problem. Does this make our congregation less loving, less forgiving, less joyful. What toll does this take on the leaders. Most of us our married, we have families to shepherd. Our churches are entirely full of sinners. We are dealing entirely with sinners... even when we are alone. But churches are to be made up of a subset of sinners, repentant sinners. If not, the Church looks more like the world.
3. The Church's witness to the world is subverted. We have nothing better to offer them. When the world is in the church, we have nothing better to offer them. The very light of the Church is dimmed.
4. The worst of all: God's name is defamed. The reason God sets apart a people for Himself is for his own glory, but this sets up a situation for his name to be defamed and blasphemed. 1 Cor 13: The Church is to reflect the truth of Christ. Our churches are to reflect the glory of God, but we work against him when we build churches that camouflage His character.

The Source of the Problem
What do we do that would help to create such false conversions?

We have to begin by looking at ourselves.

1. Teachers
   There are innumerable warnings about false teachers in the NT.
   Maybe God's people are needed to reflect God's character and glory because we do it better when we're in community with one another. That's when you really see the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The teachers have a particular responsibility and accountability for this. I think the text I started with is a good summary. 1 Tim 4:16.
   In order to prepare this I walked through the NT to try to find any evidence for what the writers are saying is a good church vs. a bad church.
2. Doctrine
   We need to know that we can teach the wrong things with disasterous results. Saving faith comes only from the hearing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What if there is a different message? Will false teaching be ignored? No, it will bring converts, but it will bring false converts.
   We need to always be guarding these five truths.
   1. God's judgment is coming. 2 Peter 3
      It's easy to fill a church with people who will follow their own evil desires. Avoiding the doctrine of Hell is one step away from denying it altogether. But when we focus on it, we find ourselves to be more objects of mercy than those siting in judgment.
   2. We should be judged by God. We are lost, depraved under the good, right, fearful, and certain judgment of God. There is not just judgment out there for someone. We need to feel and fear our own helplessness. We deserve God's judgment. If he is as good as He says he is, he should judge us. We must understand that our natural lostness means that people have a tendency not to believe our message. We think that if we keep fiddling with things, we'll get everyone to respond. Be very careful with that reasoning. That can land you far, far away from the Biblical Gospel.
      Those who are from the World will not accept the Gospel, and if they would accept it it's because there has been a change not in them but in the Gospel being preached. Imagine how humility is increased when we realize we deserve judgment. We gain a keen sense of God's mercy. We need it but do not deserve it. I had a young man who wanted to be a member of our church who was an annihilationist. I encouraged him to go back and read a few things, some articles and some Scripture. At first he was a little put off that I had put him off, but a few days later he came back and with a voice full of emotion thanked me because the Cross had become so much sweeter to Him.
   3. Our only hope is in Christ.
      Any denial of the bodily resurrection is a denial of Christ Himself.
      When we get this right, we begin offending and attracting all of the right people. The self-righteous and the falsely self-confident are offended, and those who know they are sinners saved by grace are attracted.

   4. We don't see the fullness of salvation in this life.
      It is an error to see following Christ as primarily for benefits in this life. Christianity is a faith of waiting. "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." What message do we need to teach clearly? Vast crowds can be assembled for self-help, but that is different than the Gospel. We must trust all of God's commands even though they seem to oppose what is good in this life.
      In Nigeria brothers and sisters fear for their lives when they gather for church, but why do they do it anyway? Because they have hope in the next life.
   5. We can deceive ourselves and others about our relationship with God.
      Please teach this clearly. It's counterintuitive in our culture. It's clear in the Bible. We can deceive ourselves. We think we are the world experts on us. 2 Cor 13:15: Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.

   Think of those people that you've baptized in the last year. Have you taught them these five things? If we are off in any of these things, it can result in false converts hiring false teachers. Don't ever, ever, ever take refuge in the doctrine of the soverignty of God that the elect will be saved anyway. That's awful in so many ways.
   If you want to make sure that your successor doesn't preach the Gospel, just make sure that you accept lots of people into membership who aren't truly converted.

3. Life
   Those who listen to the Gospel also watch how we live.
   1. It is an error to present a church without holiness.
      Unholiness may thrive in some churches with no teaching on sin, no accountability, rampant individualism and committment to privacy. Preach through 1 John. Hebrews 12:14: Without holiness, no one will see the Lord.
      How tempting it is to present the Church as affirming and tolerating all sins, even the ones people do not repent from.
      Imagine not just an individual but a whole community that is being transformed in the likeness of God.
   2. It is an error to present a church with no suffering.
      We would all, left to ourselves, avoid poverty and sickness. On the one hand, that is fine as goals for our lives, but that is not sufficient for ultimate goals. True Christianity will call us to suffering.
      Health and Wealth preachers are false teachers, but do we do more mild versions of the same thing? Do we do it with our triumphalism, with our smiles and our triumphant music?
      One of the things I've heard from non-Christian visitors is that they appreciate that we deal with things seriously, that they don't have to pretend everything is okay.
      The truth is, no cross, no crown. Jesus said that in this world you will have trouble. Jesus said that if we would follow him, we must take up our cross and follow Him.
   3. It is an error to present a church without love
      If love does not mark the Church, then it may attract spiritual hobbyists, theological accountants but not inconvenience themselves in love for others. (My note: It is love that leads to suffering.)
      I preach hour long sermons at our chruch and we get a lot of people who like theological knowledge, but I tell the young men who like to read that stuff that if you're not willing to get up an hour early on Sunday to help a 90 year old man get to church, I'm not sure you're a Christian at all.
      I pray that every single one of us experiences a Church full of love. One of the most striking needs our church has is churches full of Christians giving themselves away to one another in love, experiencing real love with authority and kindness and ability to correct.

Is it clear that false conversions are the suicide of the local church?
Let me end with three summary encouragements.

1. Always be evangelizing.
   Evangelize steadily and well. Ask yourself what temptations you face to get false converts rather than true converts. Greater numbers don't mean better.
2. Always be shepherding sheep.
   Exactly how this will look will vary depending on the size of your church, but remember to each person you take into membership, you have good evidence to believe they are eternally fine. Do not forget God has called you to a great role in people's lives.
3. Always remember the account that you are to give to God.
   John Brown said to one of his pupils, "I know the vanity of your heart and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, but assure yourself on the word of an old man that when you are called to give an account of them at the judgment seat of Christ, you will feel you have had enough."
   Save yourself. Did you not know that preachers can be lost. Spurgeon said, "God never saved any man for being a preacher."
   Watch your life and doctrine closely, for if you do you will save yourself and your hearers.

Piper: Danvers Statement, we tried to articulate a vision of how men and women are equal in the image of God and yet complement each other in their differences best when the differences are seen and recognized in society, the church, and family and not minimized. We also decry the abuse or belitting of women, so we wanted to distance ourselves from that. So it came up in one of our meetings that we call it "Complementarianism," as men and women complement and one another, so we hope to steer a Biblical path between the nulifying of those differences and the domination of women. Women are not to be doormats or absent minded.

Host: Egalitarianism had been around in Evangelicalism since its beginning. Why did the Danvers Statement and Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood happen in the 80s?

Piper: I don't remember culturally but personally I was teaching at Bethel and there was a rise of aggressive feminism. And so I felt the need to respond.

Russell (Chairman of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood): What I fear is that we have people who can check off the complementarian box but aren't actually living that out. We need to define what a complementarian marriage looks like. I have had in recent years new situations. A woman came to me and said that her husband wanted to become a woman, not that he wanted to leave her but just that he wanted to become a woman.

Greg: Functional egalitarianism among the young people I council is really all over the place. Young men think there is no difference between egalitarianism and complementarianism until there is a decision where there is disagreement.

Host: Why is this essential?

Piper: It's not essential to be saved. But once you move beyond that level, there are serious implications. Hermenutically for the Gospel, it is significant. If you do the hermenutical gymnastics necessary to avoid complementarianism, there's a high risk of getting the Gospel wrong. Marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. If you say there is no head in marriage, then you are saying there is no head (Christ) in the church. It is written on male and female hearts to malfunction long term, even if ministry is currently now successful.

Greg: In order to get to an egalitarian position, you have to bring into your hermenutic some bad DNA that will eventually work on other texts as well.

Russell: When the US Military went into Iraq, you saw a statue of Saddam being torn down. Marriage is designed to show you Christ in the church. God creates Adam to have someone like him to be taken from him. Adam didn't just need someone to be with but someone to complement him. It's not a question of whether or not we will have male headship, it is the quality of male headship that we will have. Complementarianism is not saying "Women submit" but "Wives submit yourself to your husband." She is refusing to submit to men generally. She is submitting to her current or future husband.

Host: Guys are going one of three ways. One is that guys are leaning into complementarianism. Two is that guys say we're going to backburner this. Three is guys who begin to question the issue itself.

Russell: I think there's a fourth path: hyper-masculinity and femininity. When people embrace this issue, they are forced to become counter-cultural in this society. When you see that man who is working two or three jobs so that he can provide for his wife and children, when you see that woman who isn't working so that she can pour into the next generation, you're seeing something that looks increasingly strange to the outside culture. In our printed materials we seem to say the supermodels shall inherit the earth.

Greg: When you're the pastor of a local church, it's impossible to backburner the issue. You have to make decisions about who will teach, read, and lead on a regular basis. I think we tend to mess up when we frame the conversation in negatives, in terms of what women cannot or should not do. I begin by saying there are many ways that women are to be serving in the church and list what those are. And then, yes, I'll say there are a few things women are not supposed to do in the church, and that shouldn't be offensive to us, because that is what God set out in the Scripture.

Host: Is there an acceptance or embrace of this message in our culture?

Piper: I talk to pretty conservative places, so it's not a fair sample. The answer is yes. It's different with young people today than it was in the late 80s. THese guys have churches full of young, articulate, flourishing women who are embracing complentarianism. Can I answer your other question? There's a line of continuity between simple homespun egalitarianism and gay marriage. Using the "There is neither male nor female" passage in that way ends there. The question that egalitarianism has never been able to answer is that when a child asks what it means to grow up to be a man or woman, it won't do to talk about plumbing, because that's not your personhood. And you can't just talk about courage or humility because the child will say, no, I mean a man and not a woman. If you can't give some idea of complementarity, it won't work.

Host: You just segued into an important conversation. There are some folks here who don't buy into complementarianism.

Russell: First, you have to deal with the Biblical texts. There are some texts specifically addressed to men and women. So you have to deal with those texts. I think you also have to deal with actual Biblical complementarianism, not a caricature of it. When Jesus is giving himself up for his Bride at the Cross, his Bride doesn't want him to. Peter tries to defend Jesus.

Greg: I think the objection that I run into from the young people I try to pastor is a misunderstanding that role between men and women speaks to dignity. No, God given role does not speak to dignity. Within the context of equal dignity, God has every right to give out roles.

Piper: I'd start with Ephesians because I think that's the clearest. It carefully walks through, beautifies marriage. It's what every woman wants, a man who will lead her and respect her, and be strong for her. Then I'd go to 1 Timothy 2. The two things that a woman is prohibited from (teach and have authority), is what distinguishes an elder from a deacon. Walk through the 8 or 9 evidences in Genesis 1-3 about the differences in role.

We want and need all of the Gospel. When we first started coming together, we came together in the Gospel.

From a Dilbert comic: "That came so dangerously close to being interesting."

The haunting fear is that we will come dangerously close to preaching the Gospel. We're fulfilling what Paul said to Timothy when he said maintain that pattern of sound doctrine. Be not ashamed of the Gospel.

We're here because we know the power of the Gospel, because we know it's power to save, and we want to be Gospel preachers wanting to live Gospel lives leading Gospel churches in a world transformed by the Gospel.

And yet we can still underestimate the Gospel.

And there are very urgent issues of debate. The issues we sought to address in our affirmations and denials still exist, and a couple have been intensified.

First the Gospel has to be heard, and in order to be heard, it has to be articulated.

in Romans 10, Paul is clearly writing to his people who have not accepted Christ.

Paul writes the whole machinery of salvation.

The Word is Brought Near
How did any one of us come to faith? The Word was brought near to us.
First, it was brought near to Israel. God chose them from among the nations.
The Gospel was brought near to us, and now it is near to us.
Paul is writing to Gentiles who have come to know Jesus Christ as savior because the Gospel was brought near to them. It is now our responsibility to bring the Word of God near to others.
For our salvation it was brought near to us in the incarnation. It is now brought near to sinners in the preaching of the Gospel.
Proximity to the Gospel is not the point, hearing the Gospel is the point. Proximity requires articulation. If one who knows the Gospel is near one who does not and never proclaims the Gospel, there is no salvation.
Our task is to bring the word near to others even as it was brought near to us. Paul commissioned preachers. His goal was for all Christians to be evangelists

The Power of the Gospel to Save
We believe that we are to preach the Gospel to all persons everywhere in the firm and unshakable belief that anyone who believes will be saved.
What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? To confess with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he is raised from the dead.

The Gospel is not Brought Near Without Words
There is more to the Gospel than just words, but words are most fundamental. These days it is becoming increasingly popular to quote St. Francis of Assisi: "Preach the Gospel always, use words when necessary." That's probably not an actual quote, although it does sound like Francis. And it does sound like those who think we can bring the Gospel near just by being there or being kind, or just, or loving. But the Gospel requires articulation. For salvation to take place, the Gospel has to be told, taught, explained.
There's a certain enticing ring of authenticity to the supposed quote by St. Francis. We certainly don't want to turn it on its head and think we don't need to live out the Gospel, but we really can't do much of importance without words. It's not just the preaching of the Gospel. Most important experiences require words. A proposal in marriage. You might be able to insinuate this without words, but let me give you single men a suggestion. Use words. We are made in the image of God. God is a speaking God, and we are a speaking people.
Walter Ong, a 20th century scholar of orality, said that most language begins with speech. It only later takes written form. Meaning, it turns out, requires orality.
Duane Litfin writs about the priority of the word over the limitations of gesture.
Gestures can be very effective in two ways, in the basic communication of affirmation and denial. In virtually every culture, there is a basic gesture for yes and no.
Gestures are very useful for communicating emotional states.
But beyond that they aren't that useful.
The Gospel requires words.
The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 2 "You received the word of God, which you heard from us, which you received not as the words of men but as what it really is, the words of God."
In 1 Cor 15:1-11 - Now I would remind you, brothers, of the Gospel that I have preached to you..."
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. Faith comes by hearing and not by any other means. It's not just auditory. There's an internal call of the Spirit, but we must kae the external call.
Our sovereign God did not present the Gospel of Jesus Christ and end up frustrated that it needed to be communicated in words.
We are then to tell, to teach, to preach, but also to persuade.
I am unapologetically a conversionist. The Gospel brings us from one state and status to another that is radically different.
The Spirit gives life. The flesh profits nothing.
How will they believe if they have never heard?
How do we expect that anyone will be saved if they do not hear? How will they hear without a preacher? And how will the preaching take place if no one is sent?
In its context, that passage is not first and foremost about commissioning missionaries.
Evangelicals are Gospel people. Only recently have we turned from the idea that we need to speak the Gospel and begun saying, "Stop talking and show me the Gospel."
The Laussane Congress said, "Evangelism itself is the proclamation of the historical, biblical Christ as Savior and Lord, with an view toward persuading people to come to him personally and so be reconciled to God."
The only means of reaching people is articulating the Gospel in words.
Faith without works is dead. We long to see more evidence of the Gospel in our churches in our lives. I know our faith is to be demonstrated and not merely said, but salvation will not come until the Gospel is articulated. We must use words to tell of the sacrificial and substitutionary death on the cross. We have to be willing to die for sentences, for words.
A pattern of right words reminds us of our responsibility to get the Gospel right. We want never to underestimate the power of the Gospel. We never want to underestimate the power of the articulated Gospel.
How is it that you came to believe? How is it that the Gospel came to you?
We should not be surprised that someone is saved even by the Gospel preached by a preacher on the Internet or TV or by a Gideon Bible. Sometimes it is when you are sitting next to someone and have an opportunity to share the hope that is in you. And we're surprised. How can we be surprised?
We heard those three testimonies, and maybe really just one testimony. At some point the Gospel had to be heard. There were words that somehow produced belief in us.
We have confidence in our words when we preach because they are the words of the Gospel.

This letter was written by the quintessential pastor. 2 Cor is the pastoral epistle par excellance. This is the most personal of his letters. We get to know him personally and pastorally in a unique way.

2 Cor 4 contains many things for pastors, especially the temptation to lose heart. This was a constant temptation for Paul. 2 Cor 11 talks about the daily anxiety on Paul for all of the churches. He was familiar with the temptation to lose heart with the church, especially the Corinthian church.

Here in this chapter we encounter Paul's resolve not to lose heart. It actually frames the chapter in verses 1 and 16. These are remarkable statements in light of all this man suffered. These are remarkable statements, though tempted to lose heart, he resolved by the grace of God not to lose heart.

What informed that resolve? How do I have that resolve? The temptation to lose heart is a common temptation to lose heart. This is especially true every Monday when we evaluate and receive evaluation our Sunday sermon.

Even the best pastors are subject to this temptation. I was with one of my favorite expositors of Scripture, whom I respect and admire, and he asked me to pray that he would not bomb so regularly when he preached. And that evening he preached an amazing sermon, and later lamented how he bombed once again. There is no pastor exempt from this temptation.

Gradually, imperceptibly, over a period of time, you have been losing heart. I believe this conference is a gift from God to strengthen and encourage your heart.

I'm trying to prepare you for all that's about to take place, so that we don't waste this conference. This conference is a gift from God, and I don't want any of us to waste it. Purpose to lean into every message. Listen humbly and not critically to each and every message. Use the time during meals to review what you found helpful during the message. Let's humbly lean into every message.

We gather as needy men. We have not gathered to impress one another. We do not gather to simply critique each other. We need grace, and grace will be provided in abundance by God in the preaching of his Word.

Let us draw others into our lives as well. Let us draw others into our life and heart. If it is not well with your soul, then communicate that at the appropriate moment of time. Sometimes grace is just a humble acknowledgment away.

Let us draw others into our lives so that we might receive help for our needy souls, so that we might not waste our lives. I know there have been times that I have not done that at conferences, I've wasted messages or conferences.

So, what does a pastor do when he begins to lose heart for his role?

1. The Call of Christian Ministry (v. 1-6)
   Paul references his call. "Having this ministry." Then he describes the nature of his ministry. "What we proclaim is not ourselves but Jesus Christ our Lord." Paul's ministry was fundamentally one of the proclamation of the Gospel.
   It is this ministry that has strengthened Paul not to lose heart.
   The Corinthians became a living illustration of v. 4-6, and it is this reflection that sustains.
   Pastoral ministry is about an ongoing confrontation of the god of this world with blindness, with hardness of heart, with remaining sin, but we do not lose heart because we have this ministry, this message. Since we are called to preach this message, we do so with integrity, and we must resist any impulse to tamper with this message. We are not innovators. We are proclaimers. We don't proclaim ourselves (v. 5). We don't preach to draw attention to ourselves. We preach to draw attention to him. And when we have been captivated by God's glory, why would we want to draw attention to ourselves?
   Some 30 years after Paul's conversion, he writes to Timothy, "Though I formerly was a persecuter and blasphemer, I received mercy." The man never got over this. What about you? Have you gotten over it? Have you become acclimated to it? Are you amazed you have been called to this ministry? Do you live with an amazement that you have been called to this ministry? In light of my sinfulness and God's holiness, the only explanation for having received this call is God's mercy, because every day, horrible, sinful stuff takes place in my heart. I am not worthy of this task. I am horribly unworthy for this task.
   And yet, I have been entrusted with this task, called ot this task. And yet because of His mercy, He dispells the darkness when I preach the Gospel. When I preach the Gospel, sinners see that face. They hear the cries of Calvary. They see him as the one the Father raised from the dead. They see the Lamb slain seated on the throne. Sinners see all of that and turn from their sin and trust in their savior for the forgiveness of their sin and trust in this ministry and message that we have the privelege to proclaim.
   It's to easy to become preoccupied with someone's besetting sin and not keep their conversion in view. A friend came to me the other day and wanted to meet with me to just thank me for preaching the Gospel at the time he was converted. After that meeting I went back to work with fresh energy, fresh eyes.
2. The Context/Conditions of Christian Ministry (v. 7-16)
   Paul knew it wouldn't be easy. He understood the call was not only to proclaim but to suffer and serve. It takes place in the context of personal weakness and a fallen world hostile to the Gospel.
   Bewilderment, persecution, being struck down. These were not philosophical categories to Paul. He experienced them first hand.
   Aspiring pastors, young pastor, this is what you have to look forward to. You need to have this theology of suffering in place prior to your experience of this or else you will be blindsided. If you are interacting with an older pastor, I would use these categories to inform your study of another individual or someone who is mentoring you. Every pastor is familiar, to differing degrees and in different ways, with suffering. Every pastor knows what it's like to be bewildered.
   I'm so glad Paul was bewildered, had an "I don't know" in his pastoral toolbox. This is soothing to my soul.
   Struck down, this would appear to refer to Paul being stoned in Lystra, but there are many ways you can be struck down. A friend who helps you start the church abruptly leaves and slanders you as he goes. A staff member who has served you for a number of years announces he's leaving and badmouths you as he heads for the door. Depression is perhaps the most common way of being struck down for pastors. "Lecture to my Students" by Charles Spurgeon - The Minister's Fainting Fits. Spurgeon talks about physical maladies, mental maladies. "Some minds appear to have a gloomy tinge almost essential to their individuality." There are some that are more apt to gloom. It is part of the ordinary pastoral experience. "When you cannot trace his hand, you must learn to trust his heart."
   In the midst of this, we discover that God is wonderfully at work. If you never suffered, your congregation would never be able to observe the power of God in your life. And they want to see if the Gospel makes a discernable difference in your life when you are suffering, and though we encounter these harsh realities in verses 8 and 9, but the accent in these verses is not on the harsh realities but on the grace of God. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, struck down but not destroyed. The access is on the "but not." Paul is celebrating the grace of God that sustains us in the midst of these harsh realities, and these should bring great strength to our souls.
   Ultimately it's not about Paul's resolve, but the sustaining grace of God. It is about the power of the sustaining grace of God. Left to myself I would be crushed, destroyed, despairing... "BUT NOT." Every pastor has "but not" written over his life. This will serve your wives big time. There have been many times my wife has been trying to provide me a Biblical perspective, and I don't want to hear it. She tries but then leaves it alone, and at some point there will be a "but not" perspective.
   In verses 10-12, Paul describes the paradox of ministry, always dying, but never lifeless. Some of the dying seems mundane, weekly sermon preparation while someone is outside. Wives you die each time you give up your husband for the sake of sermon preparation, for the sake of ministry. Death is at work in you. Some dying is more pronounced, accepting a call to a more dangerous place or a less fruitful place or being a support pastor rather than a lead pastor.
   But how sweet is the result? "Death is at work in us, but life in you." Life in the form of the Gospel, of the transfer of the Gospel to the next generation.
   If you look behind the curtain at a genuinely fruitful church, you will find dying pastors.
   But it was in the midst of those harsh circumstances that Paul found the but nots.
3. The Hope of Christian Ministry (v. 16-18)
   Endurance in ministry is rooted in an eternal perspective.
   Paul had this eternal perspective. He studied the unseen. He gave careful attention to the future. He became aware of this inner work of renewal taking place that foreshadowed the future resurrection. He was also aware that the flesh was wasting away. This is like a segment of my conversation with my friends every time we're together. We're more aware than ever that we're wasting away.
   But here's the difference the eternal perspective provides, as he compares present suffering with future glory, he concludes there is no comparison.

   This isn't my normal comparison. My normal comparison is to tell people it could be worse, but Paul didn't do that. He compared today's suffering with future glory. And Paul's stories are all worse than yours. When you talk about being struck down, you talk about someone saying something mean to you, and he shows you his scars.

   The older you get, the more you need to understand how to look at the unseen, the future. I still spend way to much of my time looking at the present.

   Looking at the future strengthens your resolve, and you are ready again to preach and endure. You have fresh hope. You don't lose heart.

My apologies for my hiatus from blogging. My planned hiatus was followed by an unplanned one. You know how it is when you have a discipline that you stay out of for a while. It's tough to start the discipline again.

Anyway, this week, Andy Backus and I are at the Together for the Gospel Conference. This year's theme is Together for the Underestimated Gospel. I'll be blogging my notes for the sessions, so stay tuned for updates!

This was too good to keep to myself. From Mark Batterson's The Circle Maker:

With God, there is no big or small, easy or difficult, possible or impossible. This is difficult to comprehend because all we've ever known are the four dimensions we were born into, but God is not subject to the natural laws He instituted. He has no beginning and no end. To the infinite, all finites are equal. Even our hardest prayers are easy for the Omnipotent One to answer because there is no degree of difficulty.

Talk about your deep theological truths.

I've had many conversations with people who complain that they're bored at work because they don't have enough to do.

When I tell them they should find something to do, they respond by saying they've asked for more work but aren't given anything.

In essence, they're telling their boss that their position isn't needed and should be downsized.

If you don't have enough to do, it's time to start taking some initiative.

• Write a best practices document.
• Clean your workplace.
• Volunteer for another project in your organization.
• Research the latest trends in your field.
• Provide unbelievable customer service.
• Learn more about your organization.
• Assist a busy coworker.

If you have lots of free time at work and aren't looking for productive ways to fill it, you're not worth your paycheck.

The first professional job I got after college was as a Data Entry Specialist* for a Senator.  I have a $100k education, and I'm doing data entry.  Not exactly my dream job.

But before long I started helping my boss manage our database, and I did much of the work of a flaky coworker who was never in the office.  I began assisting staff in another department that I wanted to join, and I did my own work with excellence so that other peoples' jobs would be easier.

I once got a mild reprimand for taking too much initiative after making a slight error in a project.  I was told that maybe I should cool my jets for a little while until the dust settled.

But you know what, my supervisor got management to give me a $3000 bonus that wasn't normally given to first year employees, and when I left the job, that same boss said I had brought a new level of professionalism to the position.

If you don't have enough to do, it's time to start taking some initiative. The rest of us are busy and could really use a hand.

Photo by sunshinecity

*Yes, the title really included the words "Data Entry" followed by the word "Specialist."  I couldn't make that up.

The first cathedrals were built as instruments of worship.  They were intended to honor God through their excellence—as He deserves the best we can offer—and to inspire awe through their grandeur—reminding visitors of the greatness of God.*

Today we often view things like cathedrals as frivolous. It seems almost obscene to spend so much time, money, and effort on a building when there is such great need in the world. Shouldn't we rather care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and advocate for the voiceless?

Yes, we must do these.  If there's one thing that my generation of Christ followers has done better than my parents' generation, it's just that.

But in Scripture we read the story of a woman who takes a bottle of perfume worth a year's wages and pours it over Jesus' head. When those around object that the money should rather have been used to help the poor, Jesus tells them to "Leave her alone" and asks "Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me."

"She has done a beautiful thing to me."

She met no tangible need, served no practical purpose.

And yet Scripture says:

She did a beautiful thing... to Jesus... the Son of God... Creator of all that exists.

God: big, mysterious, powerful, holy, faithful, wrathful, sovereign, merciful, beautiful, jealous, love...

...and because of all of those things, worthy. He is worthy of a jar of ointment worth a year's wages. He is worthy of grand monuments. He is worthy of being worshiped with extravagance and seeming frivolity.

I fear this may be something that my generation has forgotten. We've elevated our acts of service and unrooted them from a profound understanding of the magnitude of our Creator and our primary purpose in life: to glorify the Almighty.

We've made our God small enough that small acts of worship are sufficient.

NCC spent last summer exploring nine attributes of God's character. We preached sermons on them. We discussed them in our small groups. We sang original music about them.

When the summer was over we held a church-wide event (no small feat when you're one church with seven locations) where we worshiped in song with the pieces that our musicians had written, and we recorded the event in order to produce a live album.

It was a huge undertaking. The amount of staff time that went in to writing the songs and orchestrating the event was incredible. The amount of money that was spent renting facilities and equipment, hiring production staff, and paying music producers was significant.

There have been times when I've asked myself, "Was it really worth it? Was it really worth all of the time and money and headache to record some songs?"

But what I've come to realize is that these aren't just "some songs." This album is a modern day cathedral. It is an alabaster jar of ointment.

These songs were written by our worship leaders—people who are committed to excellence in their craft—assisted by our discipleship staff—people who are concerned that we speak truthfully and accurately about God. They were performed by our mostly volunteer musicians who gave up a great deal of their summer to practice. They were sung by our congregation who spent their summer learning about and reflecting on the attributes of God in light of the studies led by our small group leaders and the sermons delivered by our teachers.

People gave their best to create their best music, their best art, to glorify God as best as they could.

It was an extravagant act of worship, undertaken because God is worthy of extravagance.

The album releases next week. I'd encourage you to visit this modern day cathedral.

*I recognize that many cathedrals were built with mixed, if not outright wrong, motives.  However, I believe that many cathedrals were built with the intention of bringing God glory.

http://clioseye.sfasu.edu/Archives/Student%20Reviews%20Archives/gothic%20cathedrals.htm
http://bit.ly/v1WiVW