On Sunday I was privileged again to preach in Wilsonville at Canyon Creek Church . This time the text was  Philippians 3:1-11 , and my title: "Worthless Doing and Priceless Knowing ." Asked to give a little synopsis for the church bulletin, this is what I wrote: We have natural bent towards religion. That is, we tend to find our identity by what we do, rather than in Who God is. It is easy to think we have done so much on our own, for our "gains" are clearly seen by looking at our own religious resumes and feeble good works — especially by comparison with others. Yet, in...

Only a few dozen pages into the new Total Church book. It arrived this week in the mail — 4 weeks before it’s official publishing date — and I was hoping to dig into it this weekend if possible. Last night I couldn’t put it down. Looking forward to interacting with the UK authors’ concepts, as they try to unfold what they mean by the subtitle: "A radical reshaping around Gospel and community." The publisher gives a summary: "As two pastors outline the biblical calling to make both the gospel and community central in the Christian life, they apply...

I listen to messages by handful of different preachers on a semi-regular basis. One is the pastoral team at The Journey Church in St. Louis. Jonathan McIntosh, executive pastor at The Journey Church, used the following quote from Dallas Willard in a recent message introducing their summer series on the Sermon on the Mount: A City on a Hill . "At the literally mundane level, Jesus knew how to transform the molecular structure of water to make it wine. That knowledge also allowed Him to take a few pieces of bread and some little fish and feed thousands of people. He could create matter from...

“The gospel shows us that our spiritual problem lies not only in failing to obey God, but also in relying on our obedience to make us fully acceptable to God, ourselves and others. Every kind of character flaw comes from this natural impulse to be our own savior through our performance and achievement. On the one hand, proud and disdainful personalities come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are succeeding. But on the other hand, discouraged and self-loathing personalities also come from basing your identity on your performance and thinking you are failing. Belief...

"We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor. Otherwise he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith, in his neighbor through love. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor." - Martin Luther, On Christian Liberty HT: Of First Importance SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Not just in ourselves", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2008/07/29/not-just-in-ourselves/" });

Next to our kitchen sink we have a "slop bucket." It serves in the way a garbage disposal does for most Americans: all the food scraps go in it. At least once a week we take it out before the flies congregate too much. (I’m told it was the norm of previous generations to have slop buckets in their homes.) It seems that many Christians have a "slop bucket" when it comes to sin. We simply dump our little sins throughout the days and weeks with hardly any care at all, and then go to Jesus seeking forgiveness when things get really bad (or the slop bucket is full). We repent...

John Piper: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The idolatrous false-gospel of the prosperity gospel", url: "http://www.deTheos.com/2008/07/04/the-idolatrous-false-gospel-of-the-prosperity-gospel/" });

“Our only hope for living the radical demands of the Christian life is that God is totally for us now and forever. Therefore, God has not ordained that living the Christian life should be the basis of our hope that God is for us. That basis is the death and righteousness of Christ, counted as ours through faith alone. On the cross Christ endured for us all the punishment required of us because of our sin. And in order that God, as our Father, might be completely for us and not against us forever, Christ has performed for us, in his perfect obedience to God, all that God required of us...

Sometimes we say our words must be a balance of love and truth . Think about that phrase. A balance? As if truth and love are to be weighed in comparison? Shall we have 50% love and 50% truth, or if we are really bold, then 80% truth but keep the loving flowing a little at 20%. The concept comes from Ephesians 4:15 : "speaking the truth in love." Our truth must be filtered in love, and our love must be filtered in truth. There is a happy tension in there for sure. People deserve 100% of both, for love and truth are not enemies but rather best of friends. God is Truth; He is Love; He...

“Transcendent living is Christ-centered living. Living for Christ is the only way you will ever be liberated from your bondage to the overwhelming tendency to shrink the size of your life to the size of your life. The only way to spin free of the narrow confines of your little cubicle kingdom is to live in the big sky country of Christ-centered living. You will never win the battle with yourself simply by saying ‘no’ to yourself. The battle only begins to be won when you say ‘yes’ to the call of your King, the Lord Jesus Christ.” - Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More (Greensboro, NC:...