Power to say 'no' to self

Those of us who are Christians, it seems, are frequently looking for help in our fight against sin - and not just sin, but the sin of self-centeredness in particular. How transformed my relationships with my wife, my sons and my neighbors would be if I were less self-centered! Can you relate?

In the opening verses of Colossians, Paul gives us a powerful weapon in our fight against the sin of selfishness. Consider his logic in 1:3-5, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints -"

Stop right there. Paul is testifying to the supernatural and self-denying love the Colossian Christians had for each other. That's what you want. It's what I want. How do we get it? What was the Colossian's secret? Let's keep reading: "...because of the hope laid up for you in heaven." There it is. The key to the Colossian's selfless love for each other was a regular remembrance that soon they would be in heaven where all joy would be theirs for eternity. In heaven they knew they would have Christ in His fullness, THEREFORE they could afford to serve others rather than themselves, they could afford to spend their money on others rather than themselves, they could afford to help others pursue their dreams rather than use others to pursue their own dreams here and now because of the certain and eternal joy which waited for them in heaven. Their future impacted their present and robust relational sanctification was the result.

Do you want the power to say 'no' to yourself to the glory of God today? Remember the future.

Save the date!

For a few months now we've been mentioning a church-wide retreat happening in the autumn. We want everyone at Trinity to attend, so here are the retreat's vital stats:

When: October 1-3 (Friday evening through Sunday morning)

Where: Camp of the Cross near Garrison

Prices will vary depending on your lodging choice. To get a feel for the choices, check out the camp website here. More details about cost for the camp, as well as scholarships available depending on need, will be forthcoming. Stay posted!

Why: Seasonally we all need a time away from our normal routine and activities in order to listen to God's Word, talk with other believers and think and pray deeply about what God is teaching us and how He's transforming us. A church-wide retreat can provide just such an opportunity to apply God's truth at a relationally deeper level. Specifically, I'll be leading us through Ed Welch's book Running Scared, helping us face our fears and discover how the gospel has the power to set us free from their tyranny. On top of that, the retreat will be just plain fun with games, hiking, camp-fires, great food and more.

Mark it down and make it a priority. Bring your family and bring a friend. You'll be glad you did!

For more information, contact Melody Baker, Sherry Ritchie or Renee Olson.

The cost of following Christ

How much does your Christianity cost you on a given day? If we're honest, most of us don't pay a lot for following Jesus because we're risking little for His name and glory. Those who best know the cost of following are those who face the greatest opposition from others. Consider the cost paid by one French Protestant as recounted by Eustache Knobelsdorf, a German student in Paris, who witnessed the following in 1542:

"I saw two [Protestants] burned [in Paris]. Their death inspired me in differing sentiments. If you had been there, you would have hoped for a less severe punishment for these poor unfortunates....The first was a very young man, not yet with a beard...he was the son of a cobbler. He was brought in front of the judges and condemned to have his tongue cut out and burned straight afterward. Without changing the expression of his face, the young man presented his tongue to the executioner's knife, sticking it out as far as he could. The executioner pulled it out even further with pincers, cut it off and hit the sufferer several times on the tongue and threw it in the young man's face. Then he was put into a tipcart, which was driven to the place of execution, but, to see him, one would think he was going to a feast....When the chain had been placed around his body, I could not describe to you with what equanamity of soul and with what expression in his features he endured the cries...and insults of the crowd that were directed toward him. He did not make a sound, but from time to time he spat out blood that was filling his mouth, and he lifted his eyes to heaven, as if he was waiting for some miraculous rescue. When his head was covered in sulphur, the executioner showed him the fire with a menacing air; but the young man, without being scared, let it be known, by a movement of his body, that he was giving himself up willingly to be burned."

- Calvin, Bruce Gordon, p. 192

Thankfully, we're not being led off by an executioner for our Christianity today. Still, following Jesus will cost if we're taking His commission to make war against our sin and bring in His Kingdom. What price are you paying for His glory today?

Are you a jerk online?

I've certainly been guilty. Maybe you, too. Read about it here.

HT: Jason Skjervem

The Music of Proverbs

How timely that just as we are deep into our series on Proverbs, the godly musicians from Sovereign Grace Music have released a cd based on this book of the Bible. Download a song or two - or buy the whole album and 'paint the walls of your home' as it were with the musical wisdom of God. You can find it here.

Deeply disturbed

In Numbers 25 we find a singularly disturbing individual. We know the story: just prior to Israel's crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land, some Moabite women seduced Israelite men to take part in their pagan love-feasts. As a result, God's anger burned against Israel. Moses commanded the leaders who allowed such sin to be slain and hung in the sun.

With the Israelites weeping in response to God's judgment for their egregious sin, a Simeonite named Zimri brought a Moabite woman named Cozbi into the Israelite camp in broad daylight and into his tent. Zimri's sin could not have been more high-handed.

Still, Zimri's not the man in the story I find singularly disturbing. The truly disturbing one is Phineas, the son of Eleazer the high priest, who - out of zeal for the Lord and the holiness of His people - pursues the unequally yoked couple and runs them through with his spear. God adds to our disturbance by commending Phineas' zeal by saying in v. 11, "Phineas...has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy."

Too often our temptation is to read a story like Numbers 25, commend Phineas' spiritual zeal and apply it rather lamely to ourselves in terms of more zeal for reading our Bibles or taking a stand for Jesus in the marketplace. But the context demands that we apply Phineas' zeal in terms of our relationships with one another in the church - taking bold risks for the sake of holiness as we make war against idolatry in one another's lives.

This is where Phineas becomes truly disturbing. We like him as a model of zeal, but we want the right to pick and choose in which realms we express our holy zeal. Zeal for God which boldly challenges sin in one another's lives? We're rarely willing to go there. Challenging our Christian friends for whom church attendance is an optional extra in the summer? Challenging that person in your small group who cracks disrespectful jokes about her husband? Challenging that teen who dresses immodestly or that church member who has sat on the margins of church life for years without deeply investing in the lives of other believers toward mutual sanctification? When it comes to zeal in our relationships in the church toward greater holiness, we find the example of Phineas deeply disturbing.

And, yet, Numbers 25 commends Phineas as 'jealous for his God.' Could you or I be so labeled? Are we willing to take bold risks to make it so? If not, perhaps that is the fact, more than any other, we should find most disturbing.

Resting in God's providential plan

Do you ever wish you were somewhere else - a different city, job or climate? We all feel that way at times because, this side of heaven, we live in the realm of the 'imperfect' and the 'incomplete.'

Even great Christians feel that way at times. That's certainly true of the reformer John Calvin. Despite the fact that God had called him to minister to the people in Geneva, Switzerland in 1536, the city fathers banished him in 1538, unwilling to stomach his proposed reforms. For three years he found refuge in Strasbourg, France and flourished in ministry there. When asked by his friend Pierre Viret if he planned to return to Geneva, Calvin answered, "...it would be perferable to perish for eternity than be tormented in that place. If you wish me well, my dear Viret, do not mention the subject!" (Gordon, Calvin, p. 121) Nevertheless, in 1541 Calvin was back in Geneva where he knew God wanted him and the church needed him. Were it not for his location in Geneva over the next quarter century, John Calvin would likely not have played such an influential role in the Protestant Reformation as he did.

God's sovereignty is the ultimate corrective to our discontent. Are you 'someplace' you'd rather not be right now? Someday you may understand just how strategic your location was for the glory of God and the extension of His Kingdom. For now, you can trust Him and find contentment even there - even if you, like Calvin, think you would rather 'perish for eternity than be tormented in that place.' From God's perspective, our places are always better than we think.

If you care about worship....

For the past thirty years or so, an inordinate amount of attention has been given to the style, sound and executional details of Christian worship. Unfortunately, this has often overshadowed the far more important biblical nature of true worship. If you are serious about understanding and making much of God in true Christian worship, please read the excellent article found here.

Awestruck beyond despair to worship

David's famous exclamation in Psalm 8:3-4 teaches us about the purpose for God's creation of moons and planets: a staggering recognition of our smallness and frailty and God's condescending care designed to increase our trust and worship of Him.

When I look at your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars

which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

Perhaps the same logic compelled God to put creativity and engineering know-how into the minds of our world's great builders. Though their creations make us feel safer and travel farther, they equally display our innate inabilities and human limitations in a way designed to force us back to the only One in Whom there is no limitation. Unexpectedly, this insight is teased out by a very perceptive unbeliever who's books are more than worth reading: Alain De Botton. He writes,

"We see beauty in thick slate roofs that challenge hailstones to do their worst, in sea defences that shrug off the waves which batter them, and in bolts, rivets, cables, beams and buttresses. We feel moved by edifices - cathedral, skyscrapers, hangars, tunnels and pylons - which compensate for our inadequacies, our inability to cross mountains or carry cables between cities. We respond with emotion to creations which transport us across distances we could never walk, which shelter us during storms we could not weather, which pick up signals we could never hear with our own ears and which hang daintily off cliffs from which we would fall instantly to our deaths."

- The Architecture of Happiness, p. 204

If bridges, buildings, trains and communication devices do all this for us to our good to make up for our inadequacies, how much more sufficient is our God Who rules the universe and spoke it into being with a word? Can He not care for us today? Yes, He can and He will.

Discouraged?

If you're like me, many things in life discourage you, but none more than yourself. Given the depth of our sin-prone hearts that shouldn't surprise us. Where, then, can we find encouragement to keep going to get optimistically joyful? In God.

"Your Lord is not away somewhere and He never sleeps. He never greets your calls with a busy signal. He is never too tired or too busy to respond. He will never mock your ignorance or weakness, and He does not cruelly throw your failure in your face. He will never threaten that He is at the end of His rope with you. He will not grow weary of your inconsistencies, bored with your ambivalence or irritated when once again you fall short.

His loving face will always be toward you and, because of the cross, you will never see the back of His head. He will meet your moment by moment needs - providing strength from His Spirit, wisdom from His Word, resources from the body of Christ, forgiveness that is your daily need and deliverance from constant temptation. Even the trials He sends your way will supply what you need: the character to live for Him more effectively. These are all the evidences of His commitment to you, that you might be who you are supposed to be and do what He has created you to do."

- Paul Tripp, Broken-Down House, p. 223