Locusts and Wild Honey

Steve Lawson on the Doctrines of Grace

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 | General | 1 Comment

I just listened to a great series of sermons by one of my favorite preachers, Dr. Steve Lawson. He explains the Doctrines of Grace, otherwise known as Calvinism, following the familiar acronym TULIP, with crystal clarity, Biblical integrity, and contagious passion. Download the mp3s. Highly recommended:

• Session 1 - Total Depravity
• Session 2 - Unconditional Election
• Session 3 - Limited Atonement
• Session 4 - Irresistible Grace
• Session 5 - Perserverance of the Saints

Founders Conference 2008

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | General | No Comments

Last week the National Founders Conference met in Owasso, Oklahoma. Speakers included Ed Stetzer, Andy Davis, Voddie Baucham, Tom Nettles, Don Whitney, Ted Christman, and Phil Newton. They have graciously made the audio available. I’ve already downloaded the mp3s to my iPod and look forward to hearing them all. While traveling yesterday, my wife and I listened to Andy Davis and his challenge to memorize scripture.

1. Ted Christman on “An Exposition of Psalm 1?
2. Andy Davis on “Dangers in Reforming a Church”
3. Tom Nettles on “Biographical Sketch of Daniel Marshall”
4. Voddie Baucham on “Building a Solid Doctrinal Foundation”
5. Ed Stetzer on “Lengthening the Cords and Strengthening the Stakes, Part 1?
6. Don Whitney on “Reforming Through Discipline”
7. Ed Stetzer on “Lengthening the Cords and Strengthening the Stakes, Part 2?
8. Andy Davis on “The Importance of Filling Your Life With Scripture”
9. Phil Newton on “From Planting to Reforming”

btw, the mps do not appear to have id3 tags, so you may need to manually add them to find them on your player. I find it helpful to put the speaker in the artist field, the sermon name in the song title field and “Founders Conference 2008″ in the album field. For fun, add the Founders logo as the album art.

What’s So Great About the Doctrines of Grace?

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 | Books | No Comments

Last year I reviewed Richard Philips’ book, “Jesus the Evangelist. I just read his latest work, “What’s So Great About the Doctrines of Grace.” I highly recommend the book, even though I don’t particularly care for the unfortunate title. Usually the line, “What’s so great about…” expresses cynicism and Philips endeavors to do the exact opposite. A better title would have been “The Great Doctrines of Grace,” or “The Thrilling Doctrines of Grace” or some other fitting adjective.

Philips explains and exalts over the doctrines of grace, commonly referred to as “the five points of Calvinism.” He opens the book with his main theme:

I LOVE THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE. I love them as doctrines, that is, as biblical teachings that are sublime and wonderful beyond all human expectation. There can hardly be thrills greater to the mind than those produced by the central doctrines of the Reformed faith. But I especially love these doctrines because of their marvelous theme: the sovereign grace of God for unworthy sinners. For even greater than their enlightening effect on the mind, the doctrines of God are utterly transforming to the believing heart. To love the doctrines of grace is to love God as He has revealed Himself in His Word. He is “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10), and unless we anchor our faith in the fullness of grace taught in Scripture, we will never glorify God for our salvation as He so richly deserves.

Later, in speaking of the purpose of the book, he adds:

This purpose is to help believers feel the power of these precious truths in their lives. In other words, I aim not merely to teach the doctrines of grace, but to show what is so great about them. And how great they are! If we really believe the Bible’s teaching on the sovereign, mighty, and effectual grace of God, these doctrines not only will be dearly beloved, they will exercise a radical influence on our entire attitude toward God, ourselves, the present life, and the life to come.

Philips accomplishes his goal by spending one chapter for each of the five points and begins with an overarching treatment of the sovereignty of God. These six chapters explain theological truth in a manner that communicates practical application to the life of the believer. Non-Calvinists often criticize discussions of the doctrines of grace as being cold calculated systematic theology irrelevant in the day-to-day life of the believer. Philips explodes this erroneous notion by boldly drawing the lines between deep theology, high worship, and wide expansive application to Christian discipleship.

Disciplines of a Godly Man

Thursday, June 12th, 2008 | Books | No Comments

With Father’s Day this Sunday, let me highly recommend the book, “Disciplines of a Godly Man” by R. Kent Hughes. Saturated with biblical wisdom, Hughes calls men to godliness in their relationships, soul, character, and ministry. He overviews 17 areas of a mans life, purity, marriage, fatherhood, friendship, mind, devotion, prayer, worship, integrity, tongue, work, perseverance, church, leadership, giving, witness, and ministry. Each chapter stands alone and serves as a great introduction to the particular discipline. Its a field guide to practical Christian living from a masculine perspective. Every Christian man would benefit from the book. It would also work great to facilitate small group discussion.

Responsible Church Membership

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 | General | 2 Comments

Some time tomorrow, Tom Ascol will attempt, once again, to present a resolution to the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention calling “Southern Baptists to repent of our failure to maintain responsible church membership.” I do not know if the resolution will reach the floor, much less meet with approval, but as for Lakeshore Baptist Church, where I pastor, we have heard the call and desire to move toward a more meaningful, definite, love-motivated, Christ-honoring, joy-enhancing regenerate church membership.

This past Sunday Lakeshore Baptist Church celebrated our 97th anniversary. A handful of believers met together in 1911 to found the church in Lakeshore. In the sparse minutes of that meeting we learn that the moderator read from their Articles of Faith and their Church Covenant. The record also gave a definite list of five original church members. I pointed to these three pieces of data and appealed to the churches founders as examples to dedicate ourselves to upholding and valuing sound doctrine, our covenant promises to each other, and to maintain definite responsible caring church membership rolls for the glory of God. While I think we could receive a decent grade on the first point, we would need to repeat the class on the other two and probably enlist a tutor.

In the Homecoming sermon, I swallowed hard, acknowledged my own personal failure in leadership regarding our church rolls, asked for forgiveness, and publicly repented. My cards lay face up on the table and we pray that God would grant us the grace to lovingly move forward toward a more healthy church. At the risk of airing our dirty laundry, I am making the audio of the sermon available here. (1 hour 15 min.)

 

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Ecclesiastical Hitchhikers

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 | General | 1 Comment

I’m reading R. Kent Hughes’ book, Disciplines of a Godly Man. In his chapter on the church, he describes the rampant aversion to meaningful church membership. He calls the phenomenon “ecclesiastical hitchhikers.” He writes:

Church attendance is infected with a malaise of conditional loyalty which has produced an army of ecclesiastical hitchhikers. The hitchhiker’s thumb says, “You buy the car, pay for repairs and upkeep and insurance, fill the car with gas — and I’ll ride with you. But if you have an accident, you are on your own! And I’ll probably sue.” So it is with the credo of so many of today’s church at tenders: “You go to the meetings and serve on the boards and committees, you grapple with the issues and do the work of the church and pay the bills —and I’ll come along for the ride. But if things do not suit me, I’ll criticize and complain and probably bail out — my thumb is always out for a better ride.”

This putative loyalty is fueled by a consumer ethos — a “McChristian” mentality — which picks and chooses here and there to fill one’s ecclesiastical shopping list. There are hitchhikers who attend one church for the preaching, send their children to a second church for its dynamic youth program, and go to a third church’s small group. Church hitchhikers have a telling vocabulary: “I go to” or “I attend,” but never “I belong to” or “I am a member.”

So today, at the end of the twentieth century, we have a phenomenon unthinkable in any other century: churchless Christians. There is a vast herd of professed Christians who exist as nomadic hitchhikers without accountability, without discipline, without discipleship, living apart from the regular benefits of the ordinances…

…membership in an invisible Church without participation in its local expression is never contemplated in the New Testament.

So we conclude that church hitchhikers, ecclesiastical wanderers, spiritual Lone Rangers, Christians who disdain membership, are aberrations in the history of the Christian Church and are in grievous error.

????????
from Disciplines of a Godly Man pp 169-170