http://fouroakschurch.com/EEdev/index.php? "Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings." Gerard Manly Hopkins en josh.hughes@fouroaks.net Copyright 2010 2010-07-15T16:13:44+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/1057/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/1057/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} OK, Pastor Paul here with my next to last blog post on God’s Sovereignty.  I am in eager anticipation that the rightful owner of this domain will appear on the scene shortly, updating us on his three month tour of Europe, Scandinavia, and the Sub-Continent. The reality is that in our day and time, even among Christians, these sorts of literary missives regarding the truth or untruth of God’s sovereignty is more likely to be met with a yawn versus a debate.  This is because we think that such arguments and discussions are obtuse, irrelevant, divisive, and disconnected from the realities of our lives.  However, nothing could be further from the truth.  As the evangelical church has increasingly embraced a lowest common denominator sort of theology over the last 40 years, there has been a corresponding increase in the church of shallowness, public scandal, false teaching, diminished influence, and a water-downed gospel that has lost its power.  I will talk next week about why embracing a fully-orbed worldview of God’s sovereignty is so crucial to holding on to missions, evangelism, prayer, assurance of salvation, and the gospel itself.  For now, let me say two things to motivate you to jump into the theological fray. First, there might be a temptation for us to say that we need to “major on the majors and minor on the minors”, meaning that our beliefs about election and predestination are not “major” issues and thus should be benignly neglected because they aren’t affirmed by all Christians.  This is a tragic mistake, because we see election and predestination on almost every page of Scripture, from Abraham’s call to follow God from his pagan ways in Ur to Moses’ rescue as a murderer tending sheep in the wilderness to Paul’s sovereign and dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus.  Election is clearly NOT a minor doctrine in Scripture; Paul, Peter, and the other apostles write extensively about it because election is the heart of the gospel.  “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”; the gospel is the story of God seeking out and saving sinners who otherwise would have nothing to do with but by His sovereign grace.  When we neglect pursuing a robust view of God’s sovereignty, there is something in our worldview and psyche that suffers as a result.  Over time we come to perceive of ourselves as in control of our lives, masters of our domains, autonomous, free, and pursuing our own destinies.  This works fine as long as life is good, but when life is hard, difficult, and full of suffering (which it is and will be), the worldview we have constructed for ourselves comes crashing down.  This happens to churches when they rely on powerful people or personalities to hold these things together, but when those people fail, get sick, leave, or die, which they will, there has to be a center upon which we stand, and that center better be God.  We lose that center when we lose God’s sovereignty. The second thing that should motivate us to engage theologically regards a refrain we often hear today: we don’t need creeds, statements of faith, propositions, or anything else to know God; we just need to love Jesus.  The problem with this line of thinking is, “which Jesus?”  Who is He; what’s He like; what has He done; why should we love Him?  Here’s an illustration: if you are married, and assuming that you did not get married on a blind date, you most certainly did a careful study on your future spouse.  Think of all the things, ladies, your future man had to answer before you made that momentous decision to roll with him. You studied him: Who is this man? What is he like? What are his values? Does he have a job that makes money? These are all part of the study that takes place in the adventure of love, and it is good. The Apostle Paul’s confidence in God comes after HIS careful study of God: He knows Him, he knows what He is like, he knows how He works, he knows what God’s highest priority and purpose is.  Paul studies him; that’s what theology IS. Josh Harris, pastor of Covenant Life Church, says that all of us are constantly doing theology.  And he asks and answers this question: do you need doctrine to know God?  “It is absolutely true that information and facts about my daughter can never take the place of actually loving her. But this doesn’t mean I should avoid knowing about her: her character, personality, likes, dislikes, details about her, her gifts, fears, dreams – all are important to me because she is important to me. Facts can never take her place, but I can’t know her without them.”  Is this not the same with Jesus and God?  Doctrine doesn’t take His place, but we can’t know God and relate to Him the right way without it. Part V: Why Bother? 2010-07-15T16:13:44+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/1054/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/1054/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} Pastor Paul here for the 4th installment of our follow up blog posts to the Romans 9 sermon series.  As we have been discussing providence, sovereignty, God being “in control” over everything, etc. we have been mainly camped out in the arena of salvation, because when people think “sovereignty”, they often think “predestination” or “election.”  However, discussions about predestination really just focus on one particular aspect of God’s sovereignty, when in reality there are a whole slew of implications and applications for other venues where God’s sovereignty comes into play.  One of these venues is YOUR sovereignty; what do I mean? It’s easy, particularly in our mobile, affluent, materialistic, individualized, autonomous culture to think that our lives are our own.  This allusion of being sovereign over ourselves is the air you and I breathe all of the time.  This of course runs counter to the very essence of who we are and who God is, as we have to be reminded that “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Ps. 24), “in him we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17), and “you are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (I Cor. 6). In short, we are not the sovereign; God is the sovereign, which has vast implications for our life. One of the things I used to ask students when I was a youth pastor was whether their lives were more like a pie or more like a bicycle wheel (stay with me here).  When we view our lives as a pie, each slice of the pie represents a different area of our life: relationships, family, school, job, recreation, friends, money, media, church, etc.  One slice of pie doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with any other slice, and in fact who we are in one area of our lives may be completely different than who we are in another area.  Living life like this, though, is not to be confused with Christianity, because as Abraham Kuyper famously said over 100 years ago: In the total expanse of human life there is not a single square inch of which the Christ, who alone is sovereign, does not declare, ‘That is mine!’. However, when we view our life instead as a bicycle wheel, we now see that the spokes (i.e. pieces of the pie) all orbit and are connected to the hub, which is Jesus Christ.  Jesus is sovereign over every area of our lives, which means He has authority to “speak into” the way we live.  All of our lives, not just our church attendance or worship on Sunday mornings, are to be lived to God’s glory, and who we are and how we relate to our jobs, families, relationships, and money are all a part of our worship to God. One of the great truths reclaimed in the Reformation is that it is not simply the guilded class of priests and bishops that have a high and holy calling.  Rather, if you are a Christian, YOU have a high and holy calling to glorify God in whatever you are doing, because everything He made and everything we are called to do is part of our worship of Him.  We are a priesthood of believers, Peter reminds us, and God is our sovereign king who leads us in everything that we do.  Not my sovereign will be done, but HIS sovereign will! Part IV: What God’s Sovereignty Means for My Sovereignty 2010-07-04T22:12:59+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/1038/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/1038/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} Pastor Paul here for Part Tres of our follow up blog posts to the Romans 9 series.  Probably one of the most asked “practical” questions as it relates to the bible’s teaching on election and predestination relates to the issue of evangelism.  The question is oftentimes framed something like this: “If God is sovereign over salvation, electing and predestining according to the counsel of His will, what’s the point in me sharing my faith? If God is going to save whoever he wills and pleases, why should I evangelize at all?”  Some people take this objection a step further by asserting that the doctrines of grace (i.e. Calvinism, belief in predestination, etc.) are actually a deterrent to evangelism, and thus should be avoided and taught against at all costs. The first observation is that while we may have intellectual struggles in piecing and weaving together these doctrines of sovereignty, salvation, and evangelism, all of us instinctively know that God’s sovereignty is a non-negotiable when it comes to people coming to know Him.  J.I. Packer, in his most helpful little book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, says this in regards to praying for someone’s conversion: “Do you limit yourself to asking that God will bring them to a point where they can save themselves, independently of Him? I do not think you do.  [Rather, we will pray] that He will open the eyes of their understanding, soften their hard hearts, renew their natures, and move their wills to receive the Savior…When you pray for unconverted people, you do so on the assumption that it is in God’s power to bring them to faith.” What is Packer saying?  Basically, that all of us instinctively know that God is sovereign over salvation and that unless He gets involved and opens the eyes of a person’s heart to see Christ, that they will not turn to Him.  The problem comes in that while we know this, we struggle with how to reconcile God’s sovereignty with God’s clear command to evangelize the nations.  While this may present a philosophical challenge to us, it is not a problem to God, and thus we have to accept the fact that God’s sovereignty over salvation AND His clear call to fulfill the Great Commission (Mt. 28: 18-20) are both clearly taught in Scripture. Thus, we need to accept both truths as equally valid; let us not make ourselves wiser than God and discount one or the other of these truths at the expense of the other. Secondly, we have to note that for millions of folk, Calvinism has not been a deterrent to evangelism, but actually a great motivator.  The First and Second Great Awakenings, which spawned the massive missionary movements of the next 250 years, were built upon the Calvinistic teachings of God’s sovereignty and man’s helpless and lost estate apart from the gospel.  Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, David Brainerd, George Mueller, William Carrey and countless others were propelled by their firm conviction in God’s sovereignty.  After all, why evangelize at all if God is not sovereign?  They knew they could go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit, evangelizing in confidence, knowing that their responsibility was to evangelize and that it was God’s responsibility to bring forth the results of saving men and women through the power of the gospel. Thirdly, the greatest missionary and church planter the world has ever know, the Apostle Paul, clearly saw no contradiction between God’s sovereignty and evangelism.  In fact, he taught both doctrines with equal fervor.  We find in Romans 9 Paul’s clear teaching that salvation is not dependent upon “human will or effort” but upon God.  At the same time, Paul clearly affirms in Romans 10: 14-15 that evangelism is absolutely necessary for someone to be saved: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”  Paul understood that God most often accomplishes His will through human agency and action; evangelism is the means by which God accomplishes His sovereign will. Finally, what does this conviction in God’s sovereignty in salvation do for us? When we say things like, “I won’t evangelize because God will save whom He wants anyway”, we have to understand that not only are we being disobedient to the clear commands of Scripture, we are also missing the great spiritual blessing that comes in being used by God to accomplish His will.  However, ff we understand God’s sovereignty rightly, it will launch us with confidence into evangelism.  The Apostle Paul evangelized like no one else has ever evangelized, precisely BECAUSE he believed in God’s sovereignty.  Let us do the same! Part III: If God is Sovereign, Why Share My Faith? 2010-06-14T15:40:29+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/994/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/994/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} I (Pastor Paul) am back for round 2 of the follow up blog posts to our series on Romans 9.  One of the things that I want to do through these posts is to hit on questions and issues that emerge as we think about the implications of God’s sovereignty. The title of this particular blog post is intentionally provocative, as it points to the idea that somehow God must be double-minded as it relates to his sovereign will.  How can God providentially direct the affairs of men including the election of some (but not all) to eternal life, which is clearly the teaching of Ephesians 1, while at the same time desiring that all men be saved (I Tim. 2: 4)?  I have cut and pasted below a lengthy excerpt from John Piper’s article, “Are There Two Wills in God?” which examines this issue of how we reconcile God’s sovereign will with His desire for all men to be saved.  Be forewarned: these sorts of questions cannot be answered in pithy sound bites; indeed, they take quite a bit of time to unpack biblically, so dive in and have your soul enriched! The Piper article can be found in its entirety HERE, with the excerpts below a helpful primer in orienting us biblically to the pertinent issues. 1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, and Ezekiel 18:23 might be called the Arminian pillar texts concerning the universal saving will of God. In 1 Timothy 2:1-4 Paul says that the reason we should pray for kings and all in high positions is that this may bring about a quiet and peaceable life which “is good, and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who wills (thelei) all persons to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” In 2 Peter 3:8-9 the apostle says that the delay of the second coming of Christ is owing to the fact that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. “The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not willing (boulomenos) that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” And in Ezekiel 18:23 and 32 the Lord speaks about his heart for the perishing: “Do I indeed delight in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather in his turning from his way that he might live? . . . I do not delight (ehephoz) in the death of the one who dies, says the Lord; so turn and live” (cf. 33:11). Affirming the will of God to save all, while also affirming the unconditional election of some, implies that there are at least “two wills” in God, or two ways of willing. It implies that God decrees one state of affairs while also willing and teaching that a different state of affairs should come to pass. This distinction in the way God wills has been expressed in various ways throughout the centuries. It is not a new contrivance. For example, theologians have spoken of sovereign will and moral will, efficient will and permissive will, secret will and revealed will, will of decree and will of command, decretive will and preceptive will, voluntas signi (will of sign) and voluntas beneplaciti (will of good pleasure), etc. Perhaps the most effective way to [illustrate] this is to begin by drawing attention to the way Scripture portrays God willing something in one sense which he disapproves in another sense. Then, after seeing some of the biblical evidence, we can step back and ponder how to understand this in relation to God’s saving purposes. The most compelling example of God’s willing for sin to come to pass while at the same time disapproving the sin is his willing the death of his perfect, divine Son. The betrayal of Jesus by Judas was a morally evil act inspired immediately by Satan (Luke 22:3). Yet in Acts 2:23 Luke says, “This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan (boule) and foreknowledge of God.” The betrayal was sin, and it involved the instrumentality of Satan; but it was part of God’s ordained plan. That is, there is a sense in which God willed the delivering up of his Son, even though the act was sin. Moreover Herod’s contempt for Jesus (Luke 23:11) and Pilate’s spineless expediency (Luke 23:24) and the Jews’ “Crucify! Crucify him!” (Luke 23:21) and the Gentile soldiers’ mockery (Luke 23:36) were also sinful attitudes and deeds. Yet in Acts 4:27-28 Luke expresses his understanding of the sovereignty of God in these acts by recording the prayer of the Jerusalem saints: Truly in this city there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever thy hand and thy plan (boule) had predestined to take place.  Herod, Pilate, the soldiers and Jewish crowds lifted their hand to rebel against the Most High only to find that their rebellion was unwitting (sinful) service in the inscrutable designs of God. The appalling death of Christ was the will and work of God the Father. Isaiah wrote, “We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God . . . It was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief” (Isaiah 53:4,10). God’s will was very much engaged in the events that brought his Son to death on the cross. God considered it “fitting to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10). Yet, as Jonathan Edwards points out, Christ’s suffering “could not come to pass but by sin. For contempt and disgrace was one thing he was to suffer.” It goes almost without saying that God wills obedience to his moral law, and that he wills this in a way that can be rejected by many. This is evident from numerous texts: “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will (thelema) of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:50). “The one who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). The “will of God” in these texts is the revealed, moral instruction of the Old and New Testaments, which proscribes sin. Therefore we know it was not the “will of God” that Judas and Pilate and Herod and the Gentile soldiers and the Jewish crowds disobey the moral law of God by sinning in delivering Jesus up to be crucified. But we also know that it was the will of God that this come to pass. Therefore we know that God in some sense wills what he does not will in another sense. Behind this complex relationship of two wills in God is the foundational biblical premise that God is indeed sovereign in a way that makes him ruler of all actions.  There are passages that ascribe to God the final control over all calamities and disasters wrought by nature or by man. Amos 3:6, “Does evil befall a city, unless the LORD has done it? Isaiah 45:7, “I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make peace and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things.” Lamentations 3:37-38, “Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?” Noteworthy in these texts is that the calamities in view involve human hostilities and cruelties that God would disapprove of even as he wills that they be. What are we to say of the fact that God wills something that in fact does not happen. There are two possibilities as far as I can see. One is that there is a power in the universe greater than God’s which is frustrating him by overruling what he wills. Neither Calvinist nor Arminian affirms this.  The other possibility is that God wills not to save all, even though he is willing to save all, because there is something else that he wills more, which would be lost if he exerted his sovereign power to save all. This is the solution that I as a Calvinist affirm along with Arminians. In other words both Calvinists and Arminians affirm two wills in God when they ponder deeply over 1 Timothy 2:4. Both can say that God wills for all to be saved. But then when queried why all are not saved both Calvinist and Arminian answer that God is committed to something even more valuable than saving all. The difference between Calvinists and Arminians lies not in whether there are two wills in God, but in what they say this higher commitment is. What does God will more than saving all? The answer given by Arminians is that human self-determination and the possible resulting love relationship with God are more valuable than saving all people by sovereign, efficacious grace. The answer given by Calvinists is that the greater value is the manifestation of the full range of God’s glory in wrath and mercy (Romans 9:22-23) and the humbling of man so that he enjoys giving all credit to God for his salvation (1 Corinthians 1:29). This is utterly crucial to see, for what it implies is that 1 Timothy 2:4 does not settle the momentous issue of God’s higher commitment which restrains him from saving all. There is no mention here of free will. Nor is there mention of sovereign, prevenient, efficacious grace. If all we had was this text we could only guess what restrains God from saving all. When free will is found in this verse it is a philosophical, metaphysical assumption not an exegetical conclusion. The assumption is that if God wills in one sense for all to be saved, then he cannot in another sense will that only some be saved. That assumption is not in the text, nor is it demanded by logic, nor is it taught in the rest of Scripture. Therefore 1 Timothy 2:4 does not settle the issue; it creates it. Both Arminians and Calvinists must look elsewhere to answer whether the gift of human self-determination or the glory of divine sovereignty is the reality that restrains God’s will to save all people. When God looks at a painful or wicked event through his narrow lens, he sees the tragedy or the sin for what it is in itself and he is angered and grieved. “I do not delight in the death of anyone, says the Lord God” (Ezekiel 18:32). But when God looks at a painful or wicked event through his wide-angle lens, he sees the tragedy or the sin in relation to everything leading up to it and everything flowing out from it. He sees it in all the connections and effects that form a pattern or mosaic stretching into eternity. This mosaic, with all its (good and evil) parts he does delight in (Psalm 115:3). Therefore we should not stumble over the fact that God does and does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. When Moses warns Israel that the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon them and destroying them if they do not repent (Deuteronomy 28:63), he means that those who have rebelled against the Lord and moved beyond repentance will not be able to gloat that they have made the Almighty miserable. God is not defeated in the triumphs of his righteous judgment. Quite the contrary. Moses says that when they are judged they will unwittingly provide an occasion for God to rejoice in the demonstration of his justice and his power and the infinite worth of his glory (Romans 9:22-23). In other words, God has a real and deep compassion for perishing sinners. Jeremiah points to this reality in God’s heart. In Lamentations 3:32-33 he speaks of the judgment that God has brought upon Jerusalem: “Though he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men.” The word “willingly” translates a composite Hebrew word (milibo) which means literally “from his heart” (cf. 1 Kings 12:33). It appears that this is Jeremiah’s way of saying that God does will the affliction that he caused, but he does not will it in the same way he wills compassion. The affliction did not come “from his heart.” Jeremiah was trying, as we are, to come to terms with the way a sovereign God wills two different things, affliction and compassion. God’s expression of pity and his entreaties have heart in them. There is a genuine inclination in God’s heart to spare those who have committed treason against his kingdom. But his motivation is complex, and not every true element in it rises to the level of effective choice. In his great and mysterious heart there are kinds of longings and desires that are real— they tell us something true about his character. Yet not all of these longings govern God’s actions. He is governed by the depth of his wisdom expressed through a plan that no ordinary human deliberation would ever conceive (Romans 11:33-36; 1 Corinthians 2:9). There are holy and just reasons for why the affections of God’s heart have the nature and intensity and proportion that they do. Therefore I affirm with John 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2:4 that God loves the world with a deep compassion that desires the salvation of all men. Yet I also affirm that God has chosen from before the foundation of the world whom he will save from sin. Since not all people are saved we must choose whether we believe (with the Arminians) that God’s will to save all people is restrained by his commitment to human self-determination or whether we believe (with the Calvinists) that God’s will to save all people is restrained by his commitment to the glorification of his sovereign grace (Ephesians 1:6,12,14; Romans 9:22-23).  This decision should not be made on the basis of metaphysical assumptions about what we think human accountability requires. It should be made on the basis of what the scriptures teach. I do not find in the Bible that human beings have the ultimate power of self-determination. As far as I can tell it is a philosophical inference based on metaphysical presuppositions. That is, my answer to the above question about what restrains God’s will to save all people is his supreme commitment to uphold and display the full range of his glory through the sovereign demonstration of his wrath and mercy for the enjoyment of his elect and believing people from every tribe and tongue and nation.   A Follow Up to Romans 9 Part II: Is God Schizophrenic? 2010-06-07T18:43:19+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/990/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/990/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} I, Pastor Paul, have righteously co-opted Pastor Erik’s blog for the next two months until he is back from his sabbatical at the beginning of August. I am going to be posting a series of follow up comments to our Romans 9 series, particularly focusing upon issues, questions, and bible texts that we were not able to delve into in depth as a part of this series.  I know that many of you will have ongoing questions about how Paul’s teaching in Romans 9 on God’s sovereignty over sin and salvation jives with other texts and truths we find in Scripture, and I hope to tackle some of these in the coming days. For this week, knowing that only a righteous remnant was with us on Memorial Day weekend for the last sermon in the Romans 9 series, I will review some of the resources and helps that I mentioned and recommended on Sunday that should aid you as you engage God’s Word in this area.  Also, I am including at the end the exhortation that I gave to the 4 Oaks church family regarding how we should approach these things.  Here goes…. 1. Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, by Michael Horton, which continues to go like hotcakes off the Four Oaks Bookshelf, is a great starter resource to orient you to many of the pertinent issues regarding election, God’s sovereignty, and predestination.  You can order the book directly here.  2. The Pastors Summer Theology Series begins on Sunday, June 20, during the first service, where we will be teaching on Horton’s book and having a more interactive format for you to be a part of for you to engage, dialogue, and ask questions.  You can sign up on the church website here. 3. The Romans 9 sermon series itself can be found on-line on the 4 Oaks church website, so please listen to the 4 week series in its entirety before you send in any threatening emails on behalf of Jacob Arminius or John Wesley (insider theologian’s joke, there).  And, we hope to make these four sermons available in a booklet form soon to put on the Four Oaks Bookshelf as a ready-made resource. 4. I commend to you John Piper’s book, The Justification of God, as the best biblical, expositional treatment of Romans 9 that I have ever read.  This is not a devotional or inspirational book, but is a heady, deep, exegetical, biblical study of this passage.  You may also want to peruse J.I. Packer’s excellent little book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, which is a great resource for better understanding how evangelism and God’s sovereignty “fit” together. As you wrestle through these things, and wrestling with God’s Word is a good thing, I really want to challenge you with something: if you find yourself struggling, resisting, pushing back, or even, I dare say, becoming agitated or angry at this series or teaching, ask yourself this:  are your struggles born out of a firm conviction with a clear conscience of what the Scriptures teach? In other words, are you arriving at a different theological conclusion than what you have been taught in this Romans 9 series because you are firmly convinced in your mind through a command of the Scriptures that God’s Word teaches something different?  If so, I entrust you to the Lord; each man answers in his own conscience to these things before God. However, if your struggles are more of a result of preconceived notions, cultural assumptions, biblical ignorance, personal background, or philosophical presuppositions, I really charge you to become a student God’s Word during this season. Look to the Scriptures and the Scriptures alone to be the ultimate authority in these matters. Our culture has much to say about this issue of free will and God’s sovereignty,  whether it be the $4,000,000 study being done by the Templeton Foundation, Neo and Morpheus’ endless dialogue in the Matrix, or the expose on free will and fate in LOST.  Make sure that you are not breathing in the cultural air regarding human autonomy and independence as you approach God’s Word and truths. Next week: How does God’s sovereignty jive with I Timothy 2: 4 and God’s desire for all men to be saved? Stay tuned! A Follow Up to Romans 9 Part I: Resources and Helps 2010-06-01T15:24:29+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/979/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/979/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} Well, we took the first week of sabbatical to just unwind and rest. It has been a great time. We also had a really sweet morning of worship on our first Lord’s Day away from Four Oaks with MetroLife Church here in Orlando (part of Sovereign Grace Ministries). Pastor Danny Jones’ sermon on Philippians 2:1-4 really hit the spot: good exegesis, faithful exposition, right on doctrine, heart hitting application. And this is the way it should be. So…needless to say, this is where the Braun family will be worshiping these next two months here in O-Town. I hear tell from reliable sources that this same faithfulness happened at Four Oaks through Dr.Paul Gilbert. Praise God. Four Oaks is of course where our heart always is, no matter where we happen to be bodily. One of my goals through this sabbatical is to read. If you care to keep up, here’s my sabbatical reading list. I’ll probably blog a bit through some of these titles as I move along. General Interest and Edification: John Piper, Future Grace; Finally Alive Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters (and other essays) Spurgeon’s Sermons, vol. 1 Edwards, Sermons (previously unpublished), vol. 1 Ministry and Preaching Oriented: Marshall and Payne, The Trellis and the Vine Mike Braun, The Forgotten Bible  (working title) Larry Osborne,  Sticky Church Jack Hughes, Expository Preaching with Word Pictures Roger Wagner, Tongues Aflame-Learning to Preach from the Apostles Spurgeon, An All-Round Ministry Specific Theology - Eschatology: Robert Culver, Systematic Theology; The Earthly Reign of Christ Horner, Future Israel Four Views on Rapture; Millennial Maze Tori and Family: Jani Ortlund, The Loving Law our Lasting Legacy J.A. Alexander, Thoughts on Family Worship E. Dodds, Marriage to a Difficult Man R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress Narnia Chronicles There you have it! Most of these titles are SPF 30 or over, so feel free to take them to the beach. “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”  Philippians 1:9-11 Some Summer Sabbatical Reading 2010-05-11T03:45:01+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/975/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/975/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} Pastor Josh here posting on behalf of the pastoral team. At Four Oaks, the council of elders has instituted a sabbatical policy for those of us who have the privilege of serving as staff pastors. Every seven years, each pastor is released by the church for a period of months to lay down their day to day ministry burdens for the sake of rest, connecting in deeper ways with family, personal and professional enrichment and study. Pastor Erik and his family began their sabbatical last Sunday, May 2nd. Instead of his usual expository sermon, he shared a brief exhortation of thanksgiving and prayer for our church (listen to it here). At the end of the service, we took time to honor Erik and Tori for their ten years of faithful service to our church. As a part of that time, we showed a video put together by our Creative Team. It is embedded below for those of you who missed it. Pastor Erik Sabbatical Video from Four Oaks on Vimeo. Please remember to pray for Pastor Erik as he rests, recharges, studies and connects with his precious family over the days and weeks ahead. Video: Honoring Ten Years of Faithfulness 2010-05-06T17:24:28+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/965/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/965/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable…    (Luke 15:1-3) I asked the question on Sunday, “Do you have ears to hear that the problem of the Pharisees is the same as the Sinners and Tax Collectors?” It is quite popular to lean heavy on those poor Pharisees. And, rightly so, because they are the focus of some strong admonition from Jesus throughout the gospels. But, we need to get something straight. Let’s make some cultural adjustments so that the biblical principle is rightly understood and applied. It wasn’t just that the Pharisees were ‘religious’ that Jesus chastened them so. And it wasn’t that the sinners and tax collectors were just so cool, and ‘real’ that Jesus responded to them with grace.  It is easy to fall into the flesh trap of thinking Jesus was angry at the kids who prayed at the flag pole but he really liked to party down with the smokers and hacky sack kids out on the lawn.  You have got to remember that back in the first century the Pharisees were the cool kids, the cultured elite.  It was radical and ‘non-conformist’ for our Lord to stick the finger in their uppity faces.  I might venture to say that today his finger would wag toward the sinners and tax collectors. Because these days legalism is so first century while fornication, thievery, and swindling is all the rage. Jesus leaned heavy on the Pharisees for two reasons. They were unrepentant. They were hypocrites. This charge can be leveled against church going folk and biker gang members alike. Remember, the badge of the Pharisee is the same badge of the tax collector, and the same badge we all wear: the badge of sinful self reliance. The sinner relying upon worldly pleasures, the vanity of his sinful exploits, the identity of his rebellion. The legalist Pharisee relying upon his arbitrary, self garnered righteousness.  The legalist and the libertine have the same dark root sin of proud self reliance. Do you have ears to hear? The road to salvation is the same for the Pharisee and for the tax collector.  The gospel for the Pharisee Saul (Philippians 3:3-6) is the same for the tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 19:5-10).  Everywhere Jesus went he did the same thing, and he did it to the ‘sinner’ and legalist alike: he confronted sin, he offered grace, and it had to be received with repentance and faith.  The Apostle Paul joyfully received the sovereign grace of God through the work of Christ by faith.  It bore the fruit in keeping with repentance and he counted all his righteousness rubbish. There is no other way. The diminutive Zacchaeus received the sovereign grace of God through the work of Christ. It bore the fruit in keeping with repentance and he gave half of his goods to the poor and returned what he stole four-fold. There is no other road. So, listen up, all you Pharisees. Listen up, all you cool kids.  Do you have ears to hear? The Pharisees Were the Cool Kids 2010-04-19T16:02:40+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/961/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/961/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} As I was reciting Hebrews 11 over and over I was struck by a truth that is so crucial to the life of the believer but so rarely emphasized. Clearly, in Hebrews 11, the saints of the “Hall of Faith” are Christians. They are saved, as we are, by the grace of God through Christ’s work applied by the instrument of faith.  “Without faith it is impossible to please him, for those who draw near to God must believe that he exists and rewards those who seek him .By faith Noah . . . in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that is by faith.” (11:6-7) But what is so painfully obvious yet so often overlooked throughout the chapter is that these believers are not only justified by faith, but also sanctified by faith. By faith they have righteous standing before God. But it was by faith that they lived life. It was by faith that they did things. Anything they accomplished was accomplished by faith.  The dominant theme of Hebrews 11 is that these believers were living by faith in what John Piper calls “future grace”.  Their faith is future looking, it is sanctification toward a future goal.  The future reward, the future joy, the future fulfillment of God’s promises are to be the driving force of holiness in our lives. Consider the ‘faith in future grace’ of Moses in 11:24-27: By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter,  choosing rather to be mistreated with God’s people than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.  He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. Moses is living out the life of faith defined in verse 1, “the assuance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.  What drove his forsaking of the fleeting pleasure of sin? What was the source of power for refusing sin and pursuing sanctification? The future pleasure offered to the people of God by His grace! What drove his forsaking of the wealth of Egypt’s treasure?  The promise of future reward found by faith in Christ.  He was assured of the hope that in Christ, though there is reproach in this present age,  there will come ‘pleasures evermore’ (Psalm 16:11). What caused Abraham to go out of his homeland? He was assured of the hope of a ‘city with foundations whose designer and builder is God’ (11:10). There is an eternal, heavenly city that offers joys and pleasures which drove Abraham to forsake the temporal blessings and comfort of his hometown. What motivates your sanctification? What drives you in your pursuit of holiness? Is it the ‘debtor’s ethic’?  Piper defines this for us in Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: “it comes packaged as a gratitude ethic and says things like: “God has done so much for you; now what will you do for Him?”  ”He gave you His lfe; now how much will you give to Him?” [In this] the Christian life is pictured as an effort to pay back the debt we owe to God.  The admission is made that we will never fully pay it off, but the debtor’s ethic demands that we work at it.  Good deeds and religious acts are the installment payments we make on the unending debt we owe God. “ [pg. 34] The debtor’s ethic nullifies grace. The debtor’s ethic is impossible. The debtor’s ethic focuses not on faith as the instrument of grace to the heart but upon works and actions. Is it temporal reward? Money? Accolades? Reputation? Is it pride? Is it works righteousness? This was the primary motivation for legalistic, pharisaical righteousness. Is it human fear (as opposed to what Hebrews 11: 7 calls ‘holy fear’)? Fear of loss: the loss of relationship, the loss of a job, the loss of pride?  There is a fear that motivates me away from pornography that is less than true, reverent fear of God. It is a fear that I will lose my job. It is a fear that my wife will be angry, hurt, and disgraced. There is fear that I will shame the church. Though these fears are real and legitimate- yet they are nothing in comparison to a motivation that comes through faith in the all surpassing joys and promises of God that are offered to me and to which lust and pornography cannot compare.  (Men- you MUST buy Piper’s Future Grace and read his chapter on fighting lust with faith in future grace.) Is your motivation the fear of man? People pleasing? Is it mere duty? Is it mere thoughtlessness? The truth of Hebrews 11 is that there is a future reward, there are future joys, future pleasures that must replace, by the instrument of faith to the heart, the hope and trust in temporal, fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying joys, rewards, and pleasures. So, Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “the life I live I live by faith”…and in Galatians 5:6, “for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Let me give you another example from my life.  The other day I was driving home at 5 pm and I knew that I had around 2-3 hours of daylight to get some work done around the house.  I know that Tori needs my help, and much of it must be done by me. But my human desire is not to do it. There is a temporal reward that I desire- to sit in front of the TV and be left alone (because I deserve it!).  What should motivate me to work here?  I could be motivated by a selfish pride to show my wife and family that I am a faithful, dutiful husband. I could be motivated by a selfish and proud desire to show that we have a tidy, pretty, well kept home (sans swamp). I could be motivated by a fear that I would not please my wife and cause unrest in the home. All these are man-ward. They are temporal, fleeting and ultimately failing motivations for righteousness. There are more excellent and holy fears that I must consider. There are more excellent and holy promises that are offered to my soul to which I might anchor my life and actions by faith. What are God’s promises to me in serving my wife? Read Ephesians 5 to find out! What are God’s promises to be in laboring and serving my family with joy and faithfulness?  Is there eternal reward for me in this labor? Will my faithfulness please God? Will my faithfulness service by faith bring eternal joy? The bible says it does! Do I serve in the home and care for my family because of the temporal rewards they offer, or because I believe God exists and HE is my reward?  Am I doing my work unto myself, my own fleeting comforts, for the eye of the neighbors, to keep my wife happy, to keep my kids from rebellion – or because I serve a living God, who offers living and eternal promises to me and reflects his glory and joys through all my service and labors unto him? So,  by faith cling to the promises of God in His Word. To do this you must know his Word, search his Word, study his Word, hide his Word in your heart. In this way whenever the world, the flesh, and the devil tempt you toward fleeting, temporal, and destructive desires you can replace them with all the promises and joys offered us in Christ through his Word. By this faith in the promises, rewards, and future grace the people of old received their commendation. And so shall we if we discover this true source of sanctifying power. Sanctified by Faith 2010-04-07T18:31:35+00:00 http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/950/ http://fouroakschurch.com/index.php/blogs/bright-wings/950/#When:{gmt_entry_date format="%H:%i:%sZ"} “Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.” Luke 13:10 It is hip for Christians to proclaim, and publish, the tragic inadequacies of ‘the church’.  Churches today are irrelevant. Churches today are too professional. Churches today are not missional. Churches today are inbred. Churches today are too political. Churches today are not political enough. The criticism often gives way to wholesale rejection of the church. Why waste an hour and a half on Sunday for church when you could just gather with your two buddies for coffee and doughnuts? “Where two or three are gathered!” is the cry of the disgruntled and displaced Sunday morning Latte community. Along with the disillusionment comes the faint biblical support. Jesus had his harshest words for the religious establishment. Jesus took the gospel outside the synagogue. Jesus did ministry on the streets with the prostitute and tax collector. And this is true. But it is only part of the truth. Jesus also went to church. Of course, it wasn’t the ‘ekklesia’ formed by Christ at Pentecost through his Apostles. It was the synagogue. This was a gathering of at least ten households in a community under leadership, for Bible reading and preaching, for worship, and for care and support. “And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.” Luke 4:15 “And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.” Luke 4:16 We often muse, if Jesus were to come today rather than the first century, what would he say to us? Yes, he would challenge vain religion and crippling legalism. Yes, he would challenge lame and lukewarm religious behavior. Yes, he would love the poor and charge us to do likewise. Yes, he would go to the street people, the people of the earth. He would also look you in the eye and ask you why you weren’t in church on Sunday. And please don’t claim Christian authenticity when you extol the poor-loving Jesus but get rankled at the church going Jesus. Don’t bless hip obedience and curse uncool commitment. If you do- you and the synagogue ruler of Luke 13:14 are on the same team. And check it well, it was his custom to go to synagogue. He was known for it. You could bank on it.  Here is why Jesus went to synagogue. And it is very simple. He was one of God’s people, and God called his people to gather together, so Jesus went. They did this at the Temple in Jerusalem, or in synagogues all over Galilee every Sabbath. Jesus, as one of God’s people, obeyed God and was blessed by God through it. Regardless of how relevant those people were (and they weren’t), regardless of how hypocritical the synagogue ruler was, regardless of the misfits, fools, cripples, proud, rich, poor…etc. In actuality, Jesus went in order to regard all of those people. And there are so many other good and glorious reasons Christians go to church. We go for fellowship.  To encourage one another, to hold one another accountable, to care for each other, to enjoy the family God’s given us. We go for preaching and teaching. This was a big reason for Jesus’ synagogue going. He was a preacher and the synagogue was where a good deal of bible preaching and teaching went down.  You need to be under the preaching of God’s Word. You need to hear what God has laid on your preacher’s heart. You need to receive the Word in that special, spiritual, and corporate way that God designed it to be received. Remember, most of the New Testament were letters written to churches. Jesus’ words of Revelation 1-3 weren’t to seven people, but seven churches. We go for worship. To adore and praise God with song, with prayers, with offerings. We are to worship 24/7 of course. But God has ordained that we set aside a time for his people, his family, to come around the table. The meal is set, the conversation is sweet, the service is offered, and the Spirit does a special work. I don’t let one of my kids stay in their room with the TV on while our family is around the table. Your heavenly Father doesn’t want you back their either. We go to church to be the church.  I think of my dear brother Neal Thompson who went to be with the Lord a few weeks ago. He had served at Community Church in Gainesville, Florida as an elder for over 40 years. Neal prayed over me at my installation as pastor as Four Oaks. As a boy growing up in that church I don’t recall a time being at church where Neal and the Thompson family wasn’t around. In fact, it is difficult for me to conceive of that church family without him there. If the doors were open, Neal was there. Neal would teach. Neal would lead in the hymn sing. Neal would stand in the foyer and greet you. Neal was in elder meetings. Neal was at prayer meetings. Neal didn’t go to church. Neal, to me, was the church. Because he was the church, I got to have a church. Because he was the church, hundreds of ne’er do well hippie kids from the University of Florida heard about Jesus in the ‘70s. I’m sure he had his share of disillusionment. I’m sure the people frustrated him. I’m sure he frustrated people. This is all par for the course, and you play the course till Jesus calls you home or returns. So, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And, it shall be my custom on the Lord’s Day to be in his house with his people. What about you? Jesus Wants You in Church 2010-03-23T14:55:54+00:00