This is the last straw!

Did you hear that the Obama Administration is trying to pass legislation to prevent Christians from owning a Bible without also owning a Quran?

It’s true. I saw it on Facebook. On the same page I saw proof that President Obama is really a Muslim terrorist. Guys we really need to take back our government from these liberal nuts. We need God back in the White House. So write your senator today and tell them “Quran? We don’t need no stinkin’ Quran!”

—

The above snippet has never actually appeared on Facebook, but it might as well have. Every week there is some new report of the government taking away our religious freedoms. And 90% of the time they are shown to be gross exaggerations or totally false.

Ed Stetzer sums it up well:

Too often, Christians are in a state of perpetual grievance, where each passing day brings another new controversy about which we must act or else Christianity in America will crumble.

When we hear a story about government attacks on Christians and we disagree with the politics of those in power, we assume the worst about the individuals in the military and our government. We live out the exact opposite of James 1:19. We are slow to listen, not giving time for all the facts to come out. We are quick to speak, gullibly forwarding the emails, retweeting the links and sharing the Facebook photos.

We are quick to anger, behaving as if every rumor deserved our righteous indignation and called for temple tables to be overturned (at least on Facebook).

This concerns me. First it concerns me because it shows how little discernment we actually have as believers. Secondly it shows how much we are driven by fear instead of confidence in Jesus Christ to move along history. Such fear is ridiculous in light of a sovereign Lord.

What also concerns me is that we are becoming like the little boy that cried wolf. Every time that we cause an untruth to go viral, and then that lie is debunked, we start to look like the crazy uncle that talks about his night spent in a UFO. We cry “wolf” and then its discovered that the “wolf” was nothing more than a Chihuahua and our active imagination.

Then when real concerns actually show up we no longer have a voice. We’ve been branded the crazy uncle that sees a conspiracy theory everywhere. Everyone assumes that this cry of “wolf” will soon be exposed as another over-eager Christian, motivated by fear, over-exaggerating and getting all worked up over nothing. Then our freedoms get eaten.

My advice, stop being motivated by fear. Trust in the Jesus that rules history and you won’t fall for every new Facebook exposé. Don’t share something if it could be true. Wait until you are certain that it actually is true.

–

You can follow Mike on Twitter (@mikeleake), his personal blog, or by hacking into the various systems that the government has been using to track me all these years.

There is nothing quite like delivering your first sermon. Really there is nothing quite like delivering any sermon. It is a unique event. And with this many young men launching into the ministry (or even those that have been going at it for awhile) often look to books for help in preaching.

If that describes you here are a few books that I would recommend.

On Preparing a Sermon

Christ-Centered Preaching by Bryan Chapell. This is the best book that I have ever read on preparing a sermon.

Preaching to a Post-Everything World by Zack Eswine. Eswine is a wonderful addition to Chapell’s work. He adapts Chapell to a post-modern context.

Biblical Preaching by Haddon Robinson. This is a classic. Robinson will help you craft sermons of a little different style than those suggested by Chapell.

On Delivering a Sermon

Preaching with Bold Assurance by Hershel York. Dr. York teaches preaching at SBTS. That should tell you something.

Preaching with Passion by Alex Montoya. This is one of those preaching texts that gets to the heart of the preacher. His chapter on brokenness is phenomenal.

Spirit-Empowered Preaching by Arturo Azurdia. Azurdia makes a great case that Spirit-empowered preaching only comes through Christ-centered sermons.

Lectures to My Students by Charles Spurgeon. This will help with far more than just delivering sermons. But there is so much material in this book that a young minister could camp out for quite some time.

Why Johnny Can’t Preach by T. David Gordon. Gordon analyzes how the media has shaped the message. This is a great caution for every preacher to heed.

On Preaching

Feed My Sheep by Various Authors. A compilation of essays that makes the case for the necessity of faithful preaching.

The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper. If you could sit with Jonathan Edwards and John Piper for about an hour and ask them about preaching this is the book that you’d get.

Between Two Worlds by John Stott. Stott believes that the preachers task is to bridge the gap between the world of the Bible and the world of today. This book shows the preacher how.

He is Not Silent by Albert Mohler. Dr. Mohler believes that most contemporary preaching is no longer confident in the power of God’s Word. This is a plea to restore that confidence even in our postmodern context.

If you can only get three…

Get Chapell, Eswine, and Piper.

If you can only get one…

 

This is a tough choice but I have to say get Chapell’s book.

I’m on my couch attempting to relax. It’s been a stressful week and I would love to escape into a favorite television show. My muscles begin to relax…my shoulders loosen up a little.

“Ahhh, yes…finally a little time to…”

An agitated little boy approaches me. He’s whimpering and snot crying. My relaxation will have to wait.

Finally, after a couple minutes of wailing, I am informed of the problem. He has lost a piece to a toy. It’s a piece that he has 8-10 others just like. He could still play his game if he didn’t have this little insignificant piece. Unfortunately for my relaxation this piece is not insignificant to him.

My solution to our little conundrum is to settle for a similar piece. We can search for the other piece later. In fact I bet if we just go about our day it will turn up somewhere. No need to call in a search party.

His solution is different. He wants to call in a search party. Stop everything. Grab the flashlights. Disassemble the entire house. All of this to find a one-inch piece that is barely discernible from his 10 other one-inch pieces.

I’m thinking to myself, “Son, in the grand scheme of things this little toy is about as significant as a piece of dust. In a hundred years from now it won’t matter that you used this piece over the other. Why should we start a search party for what amounts to me as a ball of dust?”

The searching heart of Jesus

I’m thankful that the searching heart of Jesus is more like my son’s than my own. He left the glories of heaven to “seek and to save” that which amounts to nothing more significant than a pile of dust. (see Psalm 103)

Dust. Sweep up into the vacuum with a push of the button, dust.

Insignificant…

But not to it’s Maker. Just as that little “insignificant” piece was everything but that to my son, so also we are significant to our Maker.

Dust balls? You bet.

But dust balls that matter to the Maker. Dust balls that cause angels to rejoice. Heaven to swoop. And the Creator to bleed.

That is significant.

That title bothers you doesn’t it?

It bothers me too. But that is telling. We revere angels—as maybe we should. So I invite you to imagine a scenario with me for a moment.

You’re driving home from work. You haven’t had codeine or any other mind-altering substance. You’ve been sleeping well. You didn’t have Indian food for lunch, either. All of a sudden you get this weird urge to pull over to the side of the road. You ignore it for awhile but after it keeps gnawing at your guts you sheepishly veer off to the shoulder.

Your car has not been stopped for more than 15 seconds when a man that looks like Michael Landon gets in your car. He tells you that he has a very important message for you. He explains that he is an angel. And he even shows you his wings and his drivers license to confirm it.

His important message is that most Christians have gotten the gospel message of Jesus entirely wrong. He lets you know that the message that Christians proclaim is only partially true. Because of a vast conspiracy, that Satan himself was behind, an entire book of the New Testament has been left out.

The angel hands you a tattered scroll with some funky ancient writing on it. He opens it and reads the important portions to you. It turns out that Christians are correct about salvation in Jesus by grace through faith. That is what gets you into the kingdom. But you do not stay there simply by a continued faith in Jesus. The way that you stay in the kingdom is through a complex set of rituals that mark you off as the people of God. Everyone that does not engage in these rituals (similar to the putting blood on the doorpost in Exodus) will not inherit eternal life even if they have initial faith in Jesus.

How You Decide If This is Bunk

This seems really weird to you, but the guy is really convincing. So, how will you determine whether this is true or not? How will you go about getting at the truth? Some might answer, “Well, I need to figure out if this is really an angel or not. If it’s really an angel then I ought to really consider what he’s saying. But if it’s just some crazy guy dressed up like Michael Landon then I can dismiss this.”

That might be your answer. And you might also be totally wrong.

The Scriptures teach you that it doesn’t matter if this really is an angel. If it’s an angel then the angel is an idiot. This is what Paul says in Galatians 1:8,

“…but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”

You don’t need to know whether or not this is an angel to know that what he is telling you is bunk. It doesn’t match up to the gospel and so the credentials of the messenger really do not amount to a hill of beans*. What matters is the content of the gospel. As soon as this Pa Ingalls look-a-like starts blathering on about a different gospel you know his words are nothing more than serpent talk—even if he is an angel.

Today’s “Angels”

It doesn’t take wings to teach a different gospel. There are many different gospels that are being promoted in our world, sadly even from “Christian” pulpits. For many of them they are followed simply because of their credentials. Their book deals, the number of people coming to their church, the massive amount of people they have “helped”, etc., serve as an angel license. Surely they aren’t preaching a “different gospel” if the Lord is giving them so much success.

It might be easy for us to point a finger at those goobers that embrace a different gospel simply because of the flashy teachers credentials, but let’s be really honest…we can be just as awestruck.

Dude…it’s John Piper**. You can trust what he’s saying. And you can. He’s not going to preach you a different gospel nor is he deserving of an anathema. So, in that sense Galatians 1 doesn’t apply at all. I still think that we can learn a lesson here, though. We ought to be careful not to be so enamored with some dude’s credentials (even if it’s a long list of gospel-centered talks) that we begin weighing what people say based upon their name instead of on the unchanging gospel message.

So, let’s weigh the veracity of a message based upon it’s faithfulness to the gospel of Christ instead of Preacher Joe and his stellar gospel credentials.

—

*I’m not really sure what the exchange rate for a hill of beans is these days, but my grandma seems to think that they aren’t much.

**You can substitute John Piper for any other solid Bible teacher.

In his book, 25 Principles for Leadership That Matters, Albert Mohler states that, “Leaders who want to make a difference, and to make that difference last, must write.”

I am passionate about writing. I’ve often wondered if I’m a pastor who writes or a writer who pastors. In actuality I don’t think these two can be easily separated. Writing is a huge part of my pastoral ministry. It’s easy for me to heed Mohler’s advice to write. Other pastors have to work harder at writing. For those of you that read my article yesterday on 7 Reasons Why Pastors Should Be Writers, and immediately thought to yourself, “no way, man”. This article is for you.

Here are Six Tips for Helping the Busiest of Pastors to Start Writing

1. Write out your sermons and edit them for the public. You don’t have to go into the pulpit with a full manuscript if that isn’t your bag. But it does help to be intentional about your thoughts and really flesh out the right words. Once you write your sermons you could easily turn one sermon into a week of blog posts.
2. Prioritize. It is essential that you are convinced that writing is a vital part of your ministry. If not it will get thrown aside quickly. Force yourself to write at least something every day.
3. Make it part of your devotional time. Do your daily devotionals with a pen and paper. Write out your thoughts and prayers. Go back to them a week later and try to craft them into an article.
4. Avoid procrastination, today. This is especially for those of us that have deadlines to meet. If you don’t take captive every moment then sure enough you’ll be called out for a hospital visit when you had planned on writing.
5. It’s okay if you aren’t Stephen King. You don’t have to be the best writer in the world. Just write something. If it’s not good enough for publication then keep it between you and your aunt Maude. Or perhaps try a blog. That’s where us not-ready-for-primetime players get our feet wet and actually get gooder…I mean better.
6. Read Good Writers. You will get better at communicating if you take the time to read those that have mastered the craft. Don’t spend all your time in commentaries. One of the most helpful things that you can do for your preaching and ministry is to read a good novel. (Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I know that the power is in the Word preached and not the preachers eloquence. But we don’t necessarily have biblical promises attached to the words that we choose in business meetings. Those can be made better by reading helpful communicators).