How Does Exercise Relate to Sanctification?

Interesting discussion with John Piper and Bob Glenn on how exercise/sleep delves into our personal sanctification... Be blessed.

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/how-does-physical-exercise-relate-to-sanctification

Drew Taylor
RTS Orlando 3rd Year MDiv Student

Book Review. John Piper. Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God

The heart burns in worship what the mind provides for fuel. This is true whether we are believers or idolators. Therefore let us burn on what is true.

This is the centering thought of John Piper's delightful book, Think: the Life of the Mind and the Love of God. Throughout, Piper connects these two great facets of our humanity: loving the Lord our God with both heart and mind as Jesus commanded.

Often these two pursuits (heart and mind) are placed at odds against one another as though doctrine was cold and dead, while real worship was "felt" emotionally, disconnected to propositional truth.

In this book, Piper admonishes believers to fully engage God with our mind. We are to intellectually pursue the wisdom of our Creator since worship and clear thinking (especially about His revealed Word) should be inseparable.

Piper gently attacks two false positions. The first false position is that worship is primarily done with one's feelings. Here Piper attacks the anti-intellectualism that has pervaded American forms of evangelicalism, especially since the Second Great Awakening. On the other hand, Piper deconstructs the prideful position of those whose knowledge "puffs up" lending itself to arrogance, conceit, and self-confidence.

Working through several key Biblical passages throughout the book (Proverbs 2:3-5; Matthew 22:35-40; 1 Corinthians 1:20-24) Piper is relentlessly exegetical. He never strays far from his key Biblical texts. He carefully shows how thoughtful Biblical Christians are exhorted to pursue an apprehension of divine truth with humility.

Chapters seven and eight are worth the price of the whole book. There, Piper utterly destroys modern relativism as both rationally incoherent, and intellectually dishonest. As I read these two chapters which expose the pride of the heart of unbelieving man, I repeatedly wished I could put these pages before the eyes of every member of my church.

Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville Florida.

A Rebellious Nation

And he said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.  And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day.  The descendants also are impudent and stubborn: I send you to them, and you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’  And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them.  And you, son of man, be not afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words,though briers and thorns are with you and you sit on scorpions. Be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.  And you shall speak my words to them, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for they are a rebellious house.

 “But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Be not rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.”  And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. And he spread it before me. And it had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

 And he said to me, “Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey.

And he said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. (Ezekiel 2.1-3.4 ESV)

This is a lengthy portion of Scripture for my post, but it is relevant.  Ezekiel was charged with bringing a message to Israel, however, they were characterized by God as being a “rebellious house”.  If you look closely, God makes it clear to Ezekiel that He understands Israel’s rebellious nature.  After all, He led them through Egypt and the wilderness and they turned against Him anyway.  While He led them through the wilderness and provided for them they still complained and wanted to turn back.  They were an ungrateful people.

Israel’s history included following Molech- an evil demon god whose worship required child sacrifice.  Human sacrifice was common as was sexual perversion as “worship” to the false gods Israel cavorted with.  How could Israel turn on God when He did so much for them?  They had a foundation God built with Moses and Joshua!  They had the Ten Commandments and the Law to keep them on track.  They had the prophets to bring them God’s Word.  What buffoons.

Of course, to be indignant about Israel turning on God is in some ways hypocritical.  As a nation, we have turned our back on God.  He brought together great, not perfect, leaders- just as Moses and Joshua were great and not perfect.  We were given men of wisdom who wrote the Constitution of the United States and brought forth, not a democracy, but a Representative Republic.  They were blessed by God with wisdom.  Preachers were used to bring about revivals and a dependence on God during the history of the United States.  It was a great parallel to how God acted toward Israel (though the differences are real).  

The United States has been blessed by God like none other than Biblical Israel.  

What is the result? The United States has cursed God to His face.  We, as a nation, have spit in the face of God and are begging for judgment.  Israel had kings, we have presidents.  We have chosen our poison.  Our president has flaunted his support of sodomy in our armed forces and in every sector of the nation.  He, as many homosexuals, show no shame in boasting in sin.  ’To the devil with God’s Word’ is an attitude we see in the world.  We sacrifice our children (unborn) to the god of “choice”- Molech would be envious of the blood our nation has shed through unborn lives.  Evil.  We have called evil good and good evil.  Can the United States really expect to survive under these circumstances?  Not without a revived church!  The church, like the prophet Ezekiel, is called to bring forth God’s message whether the rebellious nation listens or not.

Individually, we have been blessed to live in such a nation of freedom, but now the nation needs to receive God’s message.  He has called on us to be witnesses.  He has called on us to live for Him and to proclaim His Gospel to the nation.  Will we be like Ezekiel?  God emphatically demonstrated Israel’s rebelliousness, but when Ezekiel was told to eat what was put before him- a scroll, not a steak, fried chicken or ribs,- he obeyed.  No questions asked.  

The contrast between the rebellious house and Ezekiel are black and white.  Is the contrast between the church and society the same way?  Is the contrast between us, individually, and the society the same?  Pray about it.  Then follow God’s lead (He will only answer one way- He has commissioned us already-Matthew 28.18-20).

Pete Garbacki is a minister with Time for Truth Ministries and Mission.Brasil. Follow him on Twitter @mission_brasil or FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/pete.garbacki.

Fried Chicken and Traditional Marriage?

I love Chick Fil A.

To be honest, the reasons I enjoy eating there have nothing to do with the personal views of their CEO or any management staff. I love Chick Fil A because I love their chicken and they have great service. But unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere, you've heard almost every politico or cultural commentator  celebrating or snubbing the recent comments by CEO Dan Cathy that he supports marriage as between one man and one woman.

The Mayors of Chicago and Boston have reacted and promised to keep this business from opening in their city because of the personal views of their CEO. Of course I am biased (everyone is!) , but if you take a step back and consider  the reality of a government official promising to regulate commerce because of one person's  personal views , it is revealing and striking to say the least. The Jim Henson Company has notified Chick Fil A that it will no longer partner with them on future projects. Facebook had a "snafu" when Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee invited hundreds of thousands of subscribers to Chick Fil A appreciation day, and the invitation mysteriously disappeared for hours. Needless to say, this topic has exploded and generated strong opinions and comments on both sides.

As a minister I am both encouraged and convicted. I am encouraged anytime someone in our culture who is a leader in their community, or contributes in a sphere of influence, stands up for biblical values. But I am also convicted that as a culture, we exist in such an environment where behavior can become so normalized that to question it is to invite a firestorm.

While affirming my commitment that the practice of homosexuality is sin, nonetheless I can't help feel  the church has failed in reaching out to those in the homosexual community. Heterosexual sex outside of marriage is just as sinful, and yet our Christian sub-culture makes allowances for certain taboos and respectable sins (If you haven't read Jerry Bridges' "Respectable Sins" first repent, then go read it :) We in the church need to speak the truth in love, and unfortunately we have proven the culture right at times when they have claimed that those in the conservative Christian world (of which I am an unashamed member) are bigoted or hateful. We need to repent, just as we are calling homosexuals to repent and those who support "gay marriage" to repent. Homosexuals don't need to "get straight"...they need Jesus, just like you and I do. And once we are transformed, our desires and affections are changed that we want to live in the sweet spot of life; loving and delighting in the law of God.

(For more on this topic, click here to read "The Bible, Homosexuality, and Shellfish") 

The Apostle Paul (inspired by the Holy Spirit)  sums up the problem with his usual poise and grace when he wrote to the Corinthians, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Corinthians 1:18) Let us never forget, that our only banner is the crucified and risen Christ;  not any enterprise or fast food chain (as tasty as it may be). We should not be surprised when the world rejects our message, for it is folly to a self-centered and individualistic culture. Yet it is nothing less than the very power of God to those who are refined and refreshed by its healing grace. So on August 1, if you want to eat at Chick Fil A to support their CEO, by all means go ahead! But don't forget, that taking a stand for Christ involves daily dying to our own agendas, and remembering that our life is hidden with Him (Colossians 3:3)

It has been said that some things are as American as Apple Pie and Baseball. Maybe we our entering an era (good and bad)  where something is as traditional as fried chicken and marriage.

Lee Hutchings is an Assistant Pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland, Mississippi

What Happens to Those Who Never Hear the Gospel?

One perennial question lingers that plagues the redeemed believer. If it does not bother us deeply—cause us to lose sleep even—we have every reason to suspect the validity of our own conversion. The question is this: what happens to those tribes who do not hear the gospel? 

Let’s answer this question two ways, first logically and then directly with Scripture. 

Suppose that God saves those who have not heard the gospel on the pretense of their being isolated from the announcement of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. What premises would this conclusion demand? It would require one of two premises (possibly both) to be true; (a) that the taint of the sin-plague did not cause this tribe’s ultimate bodily and spiritual death or else (b) that God saves some other way than through the announcement of the gospel. Neither of these premises fit the data of Scripture. 

In fact, if such a tribe’s salvation had been guaranteed through their NOT having heard the gospel, the most dangerous and reckless thing would be for a Christian to preach it to them! At that moment, their soul would then be put in jeopardy after having heard the good news. This would make missions a danger to unengaged tribes by bringing knowledge that, if rejected, could condemn them. 

Let’s allow the Apostle Paul to answer the question in Scripture. In fact he addresses this question head-on in Romans 10:13-17, 

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will 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? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 

In this passage, Paul marches through a logical progression which reaches the same conclusion to the one I gave above. Paul enumerates the following points, 

• The Gospel saves all who call upon the Lord (quoting Joel 2:32).
• One calls upon the Lord by believing The Gospel (defined in Romans 10:9-10).
• We must know the gospel in order to believe it.
• The Gospel must be preached in order to be made known.
• In order to be preached, the gospel requires preachers (missionaries) to those place where it is yet unheard.

In conclusion then, Paul answers the question of the fate of the unreached, not with fire and brimstone (although I believe he had full Scriptural warrant to do so), but rather by pleading with the Roman Christians to march outward with the global gospel proceeding joyfully from their lips. 

(This blog post has been excerpted from Pastor Matthew's book Un-Precious: An Invitation to the Joy of Christian Missions). 

Matthew Everhard is the senior pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Fl. Follow him on Twitter @matt_everhard.

Book Review: Francis Schaeffer. "The God Who is There."

Francis Schaeffer was one of the more important apologists and evangelists in the twentieth century. Almost thirty years after his death, his works seem to many to be prophetic. It becomes all thoughtful Christians to be familiar with his works at some basic level. For many, this volume may be the place to begin.

Full disclosure: readers should know that his "The Great Evangelical Disaster" would be a much easier read for those less conversant in philosophy.

This particular volume is bound with all three of Schaeffer's primary works in his essential trilogy; "The God Who is There," "Escape from Reason," and "He is There and He is Not Silent." Here, I will be reviewing only the first book, "The God Who is There," as it is foundational to its sequels. 

Schaeffer's overall goal is to trace the flow of history to the modern era where the idea of absolute truth ("true truth" as he often calls it) has been abandoned. Schaeffer traces this loss of absolutes at critical junctures in the arenas of philosophy, art, music, and language before moving on to theology. Schaeffer sees the abandonment of absolutes as the death knell to the individual man and the entirety of our culture.

In this work, Schaeffer coins the important term "the line of despair," viz. the threshold at which humanity must abandon rationality and reason in order to also abdicate absolutes. Once a man abandons antithesis (the idea that some things are true and their opposites necessarily untrue; some actions moral and their opposites evil) man begins to live in a realm in which all meaning and truth are compromised. Among the losses most precious, ironically, is man's own understanding of his own life and purpose.

In the realm of theology, Schaeffer diagnoses the problem and deception of liberalism, namely, that it makes a leap into obscurity by removing the traditional meaning of words and replacing them with nebulous undefinable ideas. For instance, the very word "god" can be imputed with virtually any meaning (or lack of meaning) that the speaker desires. While one has the ability to continue the use of religious language (and thus to reap a sentimental benefit) he may simultaneously forgo any real foundational relationship with living God who entered time/space/history in the person of Jesus Christ.

From there, Schaeffer helps Christians to begin to speak to this dreadful existentialism by addressing modern man at the point of his own absurdity. While pointing out the hopelessness of existentialism (what we would now call "post-modernism"; Schaeffer called it modernism), he acknowledges that the weight of the despair of the modern worldview has the potential to crush its adherents if they were intellectually honest enough to live consistently with their own beliefs.

Thus, in the latter half of the book, Schaeffer calls for an intelligent, compassionate defense of the rational, historic Christian faith through a combination of apologetic approaches. Throughout "The God Who Is There," Schaeffer's love for and pity upon unbelieving modern men comes through strongly. Of course, listening and responding to the questions and objections of skeptics was part of his lifeblood, and integral to his intellectual rescue mission in L'Abri in Switzerland.

Ultimately, Schaeffer cries out for three things: (1) an uncompromising defense of doctrinal, systematic Christianity (2) a compassionate approach to men who have fallen below the line of despair and (3) and an integrated all-encompassing worldview founded upon the absolute truth of the God who is (truly) there!

If you are ready for an intellectual challenge, read this book. 

Matthew Everhard is the senior pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Clinging to Hope

It’s funny how we remember the picture books our parents read to us when we were children. I remember one entitled “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” It begins,

I went to sleep with gum in my mouth, and now there’s gum in my hair, and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

When I became an adult, I quickly realized that terrible horrible no good very bad days still happen--they just get a lot more expensive!

In Acts 27, we see a Christian believer, namely the Apostle Paul, do several things well during severe duress: (a) remain transfixed on the sovereignty of God, (b) praise God during the peak of a calamitous storm, and (c) rise from obscurity to lead a contingent of the most ungodly passengers.

Storms, Shipwrecks, and Snakebites

Acts chapters 27 and 28 read like a fast-paced novella. First Paul, Luke, Julius the Roman Centurion, and the prisoners were driven far off their path by a furious storm (27:27). Second, the sailors attempt to escape the doomed ship, leaving the others to die (27:30-32). Third, the ship struck a reef, was run aground, and was destroyed by the surf (27:41). Fourth, there is a murder plot by the soldiers to kill Paul and his fellow prisoners (27:42). And finally as if that wasn’t enough—Paul is bitten by a poisonous viper (28:1-10). This series of events is enough to fray the nerves and destroy the composure of any grown man.

Here are two factors outside your control: the sovereignty of God and the depravity of sinful men. Try as you might to labor, manipulate, finagle, and coax God and others—we are very much at the mercy of these two forces. However this is not to say that your life is like that Alexandrian grain ship in Acts 27, smashed between the surf of destiny and the rocks of fate. There is one factor that you can control in the midst of the life's hurricanes: your response.

I believe it is possible to discern the difference between a mature and immature Christian by what questions they ask during storms, shipwrecks, and snakebites.

• Unbelievers and immature Christians ask “What is God doing TO me?”
• But the mature Christian—who knows both the power of God and the decadence of man-- asks a different question entirely, “What is God doing THROUGH me?”

The thing I like most about Acts 27:33-38 is the absurdity of this scene. Picture this: the ship is three verses away from being smashed to pieces. By the time the sun rises in the sky, every man on that boat will be clinging to boards and paddling for shore. And yet the Apostle Paul—a prisoner himself—decides to host a picnic! And who are the guests? All 276 men aboard including sailors, soldiers, and prisoners. I cannot think of a more ungodly list of dinner guests.

Yet in the midst of the hurricane, with both natural and human evil tearing the ship apart, we see the Apostle Paul--with chains on his wrists--speaking the words of Jesus (“not a hair on your head will perish,” cf. Matthew 10:30 and Luke 21:18), and imitating the compassionate deeds of Jesus (taking bread, thanking God, breaking and eating the bread; cf. Matthew 15:36). With this simple gesture with bread, Paul is pointing to Christ as his supreme joy in the midst of the storm.

Just a simple loaf of bread! That’s all Paul had in his hands for which to give thanks while the ship sinks! It’s not even toasted bread! No jam to slab on it. No coffee in which to dip it. Not a daub of butter on deck anywhere to be found! Just month-old bread. Did anyone see a “Panera” restaurant anywhere in this passage? It’s probably even a bit wet from the sea and the storm. Possibly a bit green with mold. Likely it was stored fore weeks in a barrel or cargo hold somewhere. Just three Christians, Paul, Luke, and Aristarchus and a hoard of pagans, in one of the most unlikely worship services on the biblical record.

And in the midst of the storm, for just a few moments, there is a wonderful, worshipful, thankful, silence. Just 276 men silently chewing their sea-nasty bread. "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). 

I love how chapter 27 ends with these words: “And so it was that all were brought safely to land.” Safely? Is that a bit of an overstatement? I don’t think so.

It seems that, despite the storm, God carried out His merciful plan and honored His promises after all. It turns out God is a good and merciful God. He really does work all things according to the council of His perfect will. If you are in Christ, there is no safer place in the universe then in the center of His plan.

At some point in your life, like Alexander in the children’s book my mother read to me, you may find yourself having a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.” You may find yourself drifting in the open water clinging to a splintered board. But if you are in Christ, there is no safer place in the world.