“If we truly love them, we’ll not impress them with our learning, but help them with theirs.” — John Stott

If you haven’t read Tim Keller’s previous book “The Reason For God” or listened to any of Keller’s sermons, you are robbing yourself of a valuable perspective and unique insight.

In much the same vein as his first book, Keller takes a very familiar parable from the Bible and provides a very different take on it than most of us have heard growing up in church or attending mass.  The book is not written for people who would call themselves Christian, although it is a must read for that group as well, but is written for those who are skeptics.  Those who are wary of Christianity.  Those who equate following Jesus with what they’ve seen from the “elder brothers” in churches for most of their lives.

Tim Keller is a brilliant man and this book is inspired (at least in part) by a sermon one of his dear friends (Edmund Clowney) preached.  Keller argues that in the parable of the prodigal son, we learn that the parable really isn’t about the prodigal son at all.  It’s really about the elder brother (both the one we have been presented with most of our lives and the one we long to have).  You’ll have to read the book to discover what I’m talking about.

The book is a small book with only 134 pages and should take an average reader about 4 - 6 hours to digest.  It’s well worth it and follows a lot of the same logic and reasoning that Keller presented when he preached on the parable himself.  I would love to put thousands of copies of this book into the hands of folks here in Jefferson City…I think it’s that good.  Here’s the money quote:

We sentimentalize this parable if we do that.  The targets of this story are not “wayward sinners” but religious people who do everything the Bible requires.  Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders.  He wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self-righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.  It is a mistake, then, to think that Jesus tells this story primarily to assure younger brothers of his unconditional love.

No, the original listeners were not melted into tears by this story but rather they were thunderstruck, offended, and infuriated.  Jesus’ purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories.  Through this parable, Jesus challenges what nearly everyone had thought about God, sin, and salvation.  History reveals the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother, but it also condemns the older brother’s moralistic life in the strongest terms.  Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost, both paths are dead-ends, and that every thought the human race had about how to connect to God has been wrong.

This book will be a recommended resource for all folks at Eternity. Check out the others over at our Nomad page as well as additional Keller resources on that page as well.

Check out the blog over at Eternity for some great news regarding one of the church’s first partnerships in Jefferson City.  God is great!

I came across this post today from a guy named Jonathan Dodson who is planting a church in Austin, TX. In it, he shares “5 Characteristics Of Missional Communities” which he takes from a book titled “Exiles: Living Missionally In A Post-Christian Culture“:

• Bless. We will bless at least one other member of our community every day.
• Eat. We will east with other members of our community at least three times a week.
• Listen. We will commit ourselves weekly to listening to the promptings of God in our lives.
• Learn. We will read from the Gospels each week and remain diligent in learning more about Jesus.
• Sent. We will see our daily life as an expression of our sent-ness by God into this world.

As I read those over and thought about them for a while I saw how similar they are to the values of Eternity:

• The Gospel (Bless, Sent)
• Learning (Learn)
• Doing (Sent, Eat)
• Multiplying (Listen, Bless, Eat)

What was also interesting to me was the simplicity of how those values can be carried out. It doesn’t have to be complex or extremely hard. It can be as simple as a phone call, doing a meal together, listening to a sermon, reading the Bible together, or just remaining aware that we are missionaries sent into the Jefferson City culture and have that impact our friendships and relationships.

Sometimes we just need to master the simple things before we move on to the more complex ones.

Yesterday I shared an excerpt of a sermon on 1Corinthians 1 from Spurgeon, and today I’d like to share how he ended that sermon because I think it is a prayer that all of us should pray…

Remember, this was written in 1904!  There’s some advice that never goes out of style:

So, dear friend, go home, and say, “I solemnly vow, yet not in my own strength; but I solemnly vow, by thy grace, that, from this moment, henceforward, it shall be my aim to live more as a confirmer of the truth! I did not know my high calling before, but I now know that I am a, confirmer of the truth. Lord, help me so to live that there may never be any flaw in my conduct, never any vile word proceed out of my lips, make me so to live that I may confirm thy truth! Lord, help me to confirm the witness of Christ! “Go and register that vow, and that resolution, and seek God’s grace that you may not let it be a vow uncarried out; but may you be able to live to the glory of God, and to the honor of his blessed name! Amen.

Today, I was reading in 1 Corinthians 1 and read a sermon that Charles Spurgeon preached on verse 6.  Here’s an excerpt that I thought was noteworthy to share:

Then, again, if you can bear the taunts of wicked men without returning them, that will be a good way of confirming religion. When I have entered into controversy with some men, and have been betrayed into heat of temper, I could have bitten my fingers off that I should have done so. If you can keep your temper when men laugh at you, and if, when they revile you, you do not return it, you will confirm the truth. They will say, “There is something in that man’s religion, otherwise he could not so keep his temper.” You have read of James Haldane. Once, when unconverted, he threw a ship’s tumbler at the head of a person who had insulted him; but when he was regenerated, on another occasion of insult, simply said, “I would resent it, but I have learned to forgive injuries and overlook insults.” Men were obliged to say of him, “There is something in the religion which can bring such a lion as that down, and make him such a lamb.” Thus you will confirm the witness of Christ, if you quietly endure persecution. If you can bear the laugh and jeer of wicked men patiently, you will confirm the truth.

All the trials of life seem to fade away when your son on his 5^th birthday wraps his arms around you and says the magic words “I Love You Daddy”… I love you too, son. Even though you can’t or probably won’t read this.

One of the amazing things I’m learning as a church planter is the power of community. Now - before you say “Well duh Sherlock” - let me explain.

Community isn’t powerful because people simply get together. Millions of people gather in groups every day in the world and there’s no change. Simply “connecting” isn’t going to do anything.

No, community is powerful when people understand it as the most (behind only Word And Sacrament) powerful means of grace available to us as Christians. And the degree to which it is powerful is directly tied to the degree to which people get naked in community. You read that right. If you want to receive grace from the community (church) you are in, you are going to have to get naked.

Except naked in this instance has nothing to do with your clothes. It has to do with your sin. It has to do with your ugly mess of a life and how willing you are to expose it to those you are in community with. Adam and Eve, when they sinned in the Garden, sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness and they hid.

And millions of Christians are missing the power of the Gospel available to them in community because they have done the same thing. They have covered up their private areas and gone and hid from other people. And they will live their whole lives in fear, shame, hiding, and depression because they’ll never be able to stand naked and not ashamed before God.

Rather, I’m learning that we have to call people to expose themselves. Who they are. What is wrong. And what reality is for them. Once that happens and we take the fig leaves off and come out from behind the trees and stand before God and everybody as we truly are, we are free to begin receiving grace (love, encouragement, challenges, rebuke, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, empathy, service, etc) from those who are around us in church. The Gospel cannot be displayed in isolation. It’s most powerfully displayed in community.

The most powerful church in the world will be the church where everyone is naked. I bet you never thought you’d ever read that.

Speak - Actually opening your mouth

The Truth - The “real” reason for the conflict

In Love - Centering on the other person encountering Jesus instead of your need to “get it off your chest”

First off, let me say this — I acknowledge that there are deep concerns and differences with Barack Obama’s politics. I acknowledge that there are deep doubts of whether speeches given and promises made will actually match existential reality once he is no longer President-Elect but rather the actual 44^th President Of The United States Of America. My commentary here does not condone, condemn, or in any way even comment on Barack Obama the politician.

Parts of his acceptance speech last night struck me in one very unique way. They resonated with a powerful Biblical theme and they went to the very core of why I think the church is struggling to stay relevant with younger generations of people.

We hear a lot in the church today about community. People who have no connection with Jesus who long to find a place where they can find acceptance, grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, compassion, empathy, support, encouragement, friendship, and hope. And yet, even as we know this about people, we create an environment in the American church that mirrors the “rugged individualism” of the American spirit. We make God’s saving grace and redemption an almost entirely individual pursuit. Spiritual growth and growing as a Christ follower is almost always couched in terms of the role that “I” play in the process. The focus begins and stays on “me”.

And so last night as I watched Obama give his speech, I was struck by one thing. There was a deep thread of community woven throughout the speech. Once again, I’m going on the face value of the comments and making no commentary about them. Here’s a couple key excerpts:

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

Sounds a lot like “every tribe, every nation, every tongue” doesn’t it? The church isn’t made up of rich, poor, Jew or Gentile. We are the church.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other……In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people……to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

As you watched last night, and as the American people indicated by their votes (regardless of whether you think rightly or wrongly), that sense of call to community resonated. And I think it’s resonating in a deep way in the hearts of people who are tired of going to church and feeling alone. Who are tired of struggling to be good Christ followers and believing that they have no one they can turn to. Who are ready for the church to be a place where we truly do love, honor, welcome, greet, serve, teach, admonish, sing, support, encourage, forgive, bear the burdens of, and fellowship with one another all unto the Glory of God….

You may or may not like Obama, but we must see an understanding of the deep desire for community that flows out of man and woman being created in the image of God who Himself exists in Trinitarian community become a reality in the American church today. It is no surprise to hear the echoes of what God intended for man to come out of the mouth of the man who will hold the highest elected office in the land. Seeing how God put it there in the first place.