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We’re continuing our Incarnate Series at the Pivot this Sunday night. Hope to see all the usual suspects and if you’re in the area, it’d be great to have you join us.
This series is focused on how we are to live and speak as representatives of Christ in this world. I haven’t started developing the message yet, but this Sunday night is slated to be about telling the gospel.
Here’s Piper – whom we affectionately call jpipes – doing it in 6.
Haven’t been able to post lately. I’m going to try to get back into the swing of things though in the next couple of weeks.
The NEXT Conference, formerly called New Attitude, was exceptional. If you weren’t able to go and want to catch up on what you missed, you can download the messages at their website.
Also, Justin Taylor has been asked to pass along some book recommendations as a follow up to the theme of the conference. What are some great books related to the Person and Work of Jesus Christ?
The Excellency of Christ, by Jonathan Edwards, is arguably one of the greatest sermons in church history. Here is an extracted meditation on Christ’s humiliation for you to contemplate on this Good Friday.
Recently I was re-listening to a message from C.J. Mahaney, addressed to pastors at a preaching conference in 2008. In it, he urged Sovereign Grace pastors to see preaching as the primary expression of their spiritual leadership within the local church and shared his deep conviction that the kind of preaching that builds long-lasting, healthy churches is not simply expositional preaching but gospel-centered preaching…. this kind of preaching.
Shai Linne gives no fuzzy language:
Two Sundays ago, I gave a message entitled The Summons to Sing and the Promises of Grace. The premise of the sermon was that congregational singing is more than just singing. It is beholding. It is trust-awakening. It is responding. It is experiencing the overflow of our Singing God’s joy in our gathered worship.
Some people came up afterwards, including one of the pastors, saying, “I had never thought of God as a ‘singing God’.” I remember the first moment I heard this truth as well – at a WorshipGOD Conference where Bob Kauflin expounded on it.
One of Bob’s primary emphases over the years – and this is reflected in every conference I’ve attended where he was the host – is that Christian musicians should be students of Scripture and conversant in theology and doctrine.
Why?
Says Bob, here’s why…
We’ve just concluded our longest Pivot series ever – a study through Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It is one of my all time favorite books of the Bible, and now I love it even more.
You can download the sermons at the Pivot website or buy the cd set in The Book Nook at Lakeview.
Here’s the last message dealing with Christian contentment and Paul’s closing words to his dear friends in Philippi.
It’s a veritable D.A. Depot. D.A. Carson’s writing, lectures and sermons are some of the best, most theologically astute, pastorally sensitive and robustly gospel-centered ones you’ll find anywhere.
Carson is a first rate scholar, but unusual in that he grew up in a home where his father faithfully pastored a small church of about 150 people. So, when Carson launched into ministry he vowed never to take or turn down a ministry offer based on the size of the venue or the honorarium. As a result he has been very active (25+ years) in campus evangelism, visiting local churches, speaking at conference large and small, etc. I had the privilege of meeting him at The Clash earlier this year when he gave multiple lectures to about 150 young college students from Sovereign Grace churches in Grantham, PA.
His remarkable God-given intellect combined with his passion for God’s Word, God’s Church and God’s Gospel have suited him to be a wonderful instrument of blessing to kingdom work both here and abroad. He’s written on everything from spiritual gifts to postmodernism to devotional works to lectures on the New Perspective to colloquiums on Just War Theory in Washington, D.C. And he is a skilled woodworker to boot.
I bet I could take him from the free-throw line though.
Three reasons you should check out these listening resources.
I’ve come to value both of these men very much as they have helped me understand God’s Word better. I’ve also been provoked by their evident humility.
Last Sunday morning, our pastor, Keith Collins, communicated to the church that no living preacher has had a greater impact on his life personally than CJ Mahaney. He was saying that on his way to saying that no one should miss out on this coming weekend as we will have CJ with us as a guest speaker.
When it comes to contending for the centrality of the gospel I don’t know of anyone who does this more consistently, winsomely and effectively than CJ Mahaney. In this way his ministry has been a welcome inspiration and corrective to my more generally and ambiguously ‘God-centered’ perspective.
I recently heard John Piper say in a video interview that early in his ministry he believes he missed the centrality of the gospel in favor of a sort of mere God-centeredness. He went on to say that a right understanding of God-centeredness ends up landing on a firm footing of Christ-centeredness and in turn, cross-centeredness. CJ has been committing his life to this particularly Christian, unashamedly gospel-centered message, and the impact of his “keeping the main thing the main thing” has been far-reaching.
If you live in the area let me personally invite you to be with us.
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