Denise and I are in the process of researching Jackson’s schooling options for next year as he enters the kindergarten world.  Last week we looked at New Covenant School and got to sit in on some classes, toured the facilities and had some face time with the Headmaster.  In addition to that, we also watched a 10 minute video on the school.  One of the things that stood out to me from the video was that two of the students talked about how their teachers were their friends. They didn’t say it in a way that came at the expense of respecting them as authorities.  Far from it. But they knew that these teachers were for them…that they wanted to see them succeed.  They also knew that they were there for them…that if they needed help understanding something, they were available to answer questions or explain something further.  They also knew what it was like to be a student, having been one in their younger days.

I didn’t have a teacher like that until college.  Mrs. Parks was my Intermediate Accounting professor and it was her unfortunate job to teach a class that had a 50% drop out rate. It wasn’t because she was a bad teacher, just the opposite.  It was because Intermediate Accounting separated the accounting majors from the business or finance majors. For some reason, Mrs. Parks was really nice to me and incredibly helpful.  She let me call her at home when I was stuck on an accounting problem set.  She even came up to campus on a number of occasions and did some evening tutoring for me and some of my classmates.  In the course of that semester, Mrs. Parks had become my friend.  She had demonstrated that she was for me and there for me.  I’m glad to be able to still call her a friend.

Thinking about these New Covenant teachers and Mrs. Parks, it got me thinking about Abraham, whom James said was a friend of God.  Do you remember why he was a friend of God?  Because he believed the truth God had revealed to him about who he was and what he had come to do in and through Abraham.  Abraham acted on what he knew to be true about God and himself.  Because of that, Abraham enjoyed the privilege of being God’s friend.

The same is true for us because of our union with Christ.  Through the gift of faith we have believed God and his promises and trusted in the finished work of Christ.  Therefore God has become our friend.  The question for me is do I believe that God is my friend?  Do I see him as being for me and being there for me?  Do I trust that he will do for me what seems unlikely in the face of trials?  The answer over and over again is Yes, and Amen!  

How are you right with God?

ONLY BY TRUE FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST.  In spite of the fact that my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have not kept any one of them, and that I am still ever prone to all that is evil, nevertheless, without any merit of my own, out of pure grace, God grants to me the benefits of the perfect sacrifice of Christ, imputing to me His righteousness and holiness as if I had never committed a single sin or had ever been sinful, as if I myself had fulfilled all the obedience which Christ has fulfilled for me; if only I accept such favor with a trusting heart.

1 On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, 2 and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9 For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11 And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. (Luke 5:1-11)

Every problem in this world can be traced back to Genesis 3 and Adam and Eve’s sin.  That’s especially true of our work.  The picture of Peter and his crew sitting on the shore after a long and fruitless night of fishing, fixing/mending their nets for the next night’s work is so descriptive of the Genesis 3 frustration that we experience in work.  We work hard, do all the right things at the right time, but we often come up empty.  That’s frustrating.  No, it’s maddening.  

And then comes Jesus who “rents” Peter’s boat for a pulpit and then after he’s done preaching, he asks Peter to take him on a fishing excursion on his day off to fish at the worst possible time of day.  But as Luke tells us, the unexpected happened.  Jesus filled their nets with fish, so many fish that they needed a second boat to haul in the catch.  

What do we take from this?  I think for one, Jesus gives them a picture of the kingdom fullness he came to bring.  Where there is brokenness and emptiness, frustration and heartache Jesus comes to fill us with himself.  

But there is something more that I’ve missed until now.  It would have been one thing for Jesus to call the disciples to come follow him and become fishers of men prior to their amazing catch…when they were probably hating their job and wondering why they kept at it. To be sure, Jesus calls many who are at rock bottom, who have nowhere else to turn. But he calls Peter at the pinnacle of his success.  He had a once-in-a-lifetime catch that would have made all those fruitless nights of fishing worth it.  Before this catch, he had nothing to lose, but now it seems that he has everything to lose.  Why on earth would he walk away from that life?

Quite simply, because he wasn’t called to it.  It’s not that fishing for fish was beneath him or anyone else for that matter.  But if Jesus has called you for more, than to do less will leave you feeling as empty as those fishing nets were.  Jesus gives Peter a glimpse of what it would mean for him to fish for, catch and release men, women and children whose lives had been changed by the gospel…just as his had been.  

Jesus still calls men, women and children to become fishers of men.  He calls some of us to do that as pastors and others as paralegals.  Some of us will do that as missionaries and others as mid-wives.  Some of us will do that as evangelists and others as engineers.  But we are all called into the family business no matter where God puts us.  Are you running away from the family fishing business?  Do your nets look full but are really empty?  Maybe like Peter, it’s time to drop your nets and follow Jesus.

I am reading the book, The Rest of God by Mark Buchanon, which aims at restoring our soul by restoring our Sabbath.  One of the things I appreciate is his approach to the Sabbath which is not just a day but an orientation/attitude.  Here is a sampling of that:

“God made us from dust.  We’re never too far from our origins.  The apostle Paul says we’re only clay pots — dust mixed with water, passed through fire.  Hard, yes, but brittle too.  Knowing this, God gave us the gift of Sabbath — not just a day, but as an orientation, a way of seeing and knowing.  Sabbath-keeping is a form of mending.  It’s mortar in the joints.  Keep Sabbath, or else break too easily, and oversoon.  Keep it, otherwise our dustiness consumes us, becomes us, and we end up able to hold exactly nothing.

In a culture where busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is sloth.  But without rest, we miss the rest of God: the rest he invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply. “Be still, and know that I am God.” Some knowing is never pursued, only received.  And for that, you need to be still.“

Sabbath is both a day and an attitude to nurture such stillness.  It is both time on a calendar and a disposition of the heart.  It is a day we enter, but just as much a way we see.  Sabbath imparts the rest of God—actual physical, mental, spiritual rest, but also the rest of God—the things of God’s nature and presence we miss in our busyness. 

Lord, give us all (but especially me) grace to see this, to believe this, to live this.

“To be an enemy of the cross is to set ourselves against its purposes.  Self-righteousness (instead of looking to the cross for justification), self-indulgence (instead of taking up the cross to follow Christ), self-advertisement (instead of preaching Christ crucified) and self-glorification (instead of glorying in the cross) – these are the distortions which make us ‘enemies’ of Christ’s cross.”  (John Stott)

A good read for those of you who are considering reading through the Bible in 2014. Margie Haack and her husband Dennis have a wonderful ministry called Ransom Fellowship that helps Christians deepen discipleship and develop discernment. May it transform your Bible reading this year (or next)!

http://margie.ransomfellowship.org/?p=200&rl=s%3DBible%2BReading%2Bfor%2BShirkers%2Band%2BSlackers

This is a message I preached at REPC on December 29, 2013 entitled “Gospel Incarnation.”  Follow the link to REPC website to listen.

On January 1, John Piper will be transitioning out of his role of Senior Pastor At Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, a role he has served faithfully in for 30 years.  Recently Mark Driscoll interviewed him on The Resurgence website about what he has learned in those 30 years.  You can read the interview here. The first question Mark asked John was, “What would John Piper today tell a young John Piper who is getting ready to enter into ministry?”  I thought his answer was wise and helpful, particularly in the stage we are in transitioning out of planting Grace Hill and looking to a future call.

I would quote to him V. Raymond Edman: “Don’t question in the dark what God showed you in the light.” Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don’t. You are in good company. You are in the pit with King David. He waited. “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction” (Ps. 40:1–2). God will do that for you. You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope.

So, if you feel like there is no way out to whatever situation you find yourself in take hope, God has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of the pits that you can conceive.  

Man is saved from  by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to God glory alone.

In just five years (2017), it will have been 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his infamous and world-changing 95 Theses to the door of the the church in Wittenburg, Germany on All Hallows Eve (October 31). He posted his “bulletin board material”, which were 95 statements meant to reform the church in the hopes of awakening her to the wonder, beauty and transforming power of the gospel of God’s grace in Jesus that had been lost through the centuries. It was to be the start of the Reformation of the church in which Scripture alone guided the church to see that man is rescued from his sin by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to God’s glory alone.  Historian Robert Capon paints a powerful and provocative word picture in describing the impact of the Reformation on the church.

The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace – bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us singlehandedly.  The word of the Gospel – after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps – suddently turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.

This is precisely what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  

Soli de Gloria!!!