The Rebel's Guide To Joy Part 1: Acts 16, Philippians 1:1-1a

First off, the beginning to this sermon is hilarious. That's my first observation. Secondly, 'culture is not THE place to look for happiness'. Agreed. Pastor Mark begins by outlaying what the culture has to say about happiness and joy. Beginning with the easy to write off hedonism, moving to the pop-spirituality, and then a bolt out of the blue... 'Joel Osteen'. Who is this guy?! Haha... I've completely missed something here. Supposedly he's on the radio, on the TV, in magazines, is number 1 on itunes, and has published books. Maybe I've been so wrapped up in frantically trying to get my head around what's going on in Church by reading commentators that I've missed what's actually going on down south? Anyone else missed out on who this Joel Osteen guy is? *I just checked out Amazon, it's true, this guy's a pretty big deal by the looks of things, but not really any different from the 90s dudes with the nice teeth, he'll pass into history without making too much of a dent I suspect*

Anyways... supposedly he's suggesting that 'joy is to be found in the same place that culture and pop-spirituality tells us'. And it seems to be 'health and wealth'. I'm so frustrated with the current 'Gospel', the reactionary anti-health and wealth 'Gospel', that I'd forgotten that in many places the 'health and wealth Gospel' still has many followers. I just don't bump into many these days. Anyways, I'm getting tired of the polarized 'health and wealthers' and the 'sexy servants of the poor' discussion. In case you're a lazy blogger and don't read other posts, I do believe that the Church as the body of Christ has a responsibility to tend to people's physical needs, as well as spiritual needs. Love the poor, go for it. Swiftly moving on...

Ok, so now Driscoll is doing what I'm doing basically. Only he's watching a Joel Osteen sermon and discussing it. So what's going on here is I'm discussing a Mark Driscoll sermon in which he discusses a Joel Osteen sermon... I know it's confusing.

The Osteen clip really, genuinely, hurts. There is a real pain in me when I hear that garbage. And it pains me even more to see tens of thousands of people buying it. I agree with Mark, we have to be careful not to accept garbage because it is popular, even... ESPECIALLY... among Christians. That's one thing I noticed in the Christian bookstores here (North America). The majority of their shelves are stacked with books that are pop-spirituality, feel-good, garbage. Again, enough about this, I don't want this to become endlessly frustrating as well. I want to learn from the Word of God in Philippians. It will suffice to say that Jesus does not guarantee painfree health, stressfree finances or troublefree relationships.

Where does the answer to 'how to find Joy?' lie? Having read 'Desiring God' and a bunch of other Piper books I'm guessing where Driscoll's going with this. Let's see.

Joy is not found in culture, Joy is not found in religion, Joy is found 'in Christ Jesus' (Phil 1:1). Good.

As Christians we are 'saints'. This is something that I've fought hard to be made known for a few years now. Paul repeatedly addresses Christians as... saints. As a Christian I am a saint. This says something of who I am now. My identity no longer lies in my sin, my identity lives in the freedom of being a Christian, won by Christ. I live in a fallen world. I do sin. However, I am forgiven, when I come to God humbly with a repentant heart acknowledging that I have sinned against Him, that I do not deserve His forgiveness, but appealing to the sacrifice made on the cross of Christ. Our identity is that of a forgiven saint. Cool.

We are all slaves, to something. I'm a bondservant of Christ (Gal 1:10). I don't want to be a slave to sin. I don't want to be a slave to religion. I don't want to be a slave to the idol of service. I want to be a servant of Christ. I know He's a Master that loves me. My slavery is voluntary to Jesus.

And I appreciated the clip on Robert Robinson, I love the media stuff Mars Hill puts out. It's just well done. The music at the end, maybe not my taste, I loved the original, but hey, they're being missional, so GREAT. The lyrics are phenomenal. I'm looking forward to a sermon series on Hymns here at Catalyst in the New Year.

Anyways, that's that. It's 5am. I was away at a youth retreat all weekend. I'm tired.

The Rebel's Guide To Joy Preview

Recently I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the Church. I'm reading D.A. Carson's 'Becoming Conservant with the Emerging Church' and John Piper's 'Brothers We Are Not Professionals'. Tonight I'm considering whether or not I should put this study on hold and simply focus on 1. A book of Scripture and 2. J.I. Packer's 'Knowing God'.

I spent some of this evening on the 'Ask Anything' blog. This blog gives individuals anywhere the opportunity to raise questions they'd like to see Mark Driscoll deal with in a sermon series in the New Year. This series will also be followed by a book published by Crossway. As expected, Ecclesiology (Doctrine relating to the Church) is very much at the forefront of what is being discussed there. And to be perfectly honest, I'm feeling like I've spent too much time thinking about that recently. I need to focus on Scripture, not with the purpose of proving something to be 'Doctrinally Sound' but to hear God speak. So, I'm going to work through Philippians (with the help of the good people at Mars Hill Seattle), grab a few commentaries on it, and simply let God minister to me through it.

At the moment I think I'll begin blogs by posting the video, picking out some interesting points, and discuss them with you. I'm going to go watch the first sermon...

Unlikely Bed-fellows and Tolerance Today

In an interesting paper D.A. Carson suggests that Science and Christianity are rapidly finding themselves with unlikely bed-fellows... each other! I would like to pluck a handful of interesting insights from the article, in particular relating to the topic of 'tolerance'.

"It used to be that tolerance was the virtue of the person who held strong views about something or other, but who insisted that those who disagreed had an equal right to defend their views – the sort of stance picked up in the slogan, 'I may detest your opinions, but I shall defend to the death your right to speak them.' Today, however, tolerance is the virtue of the person who holds no strong views, except for the strongly held view that it is wrong to hold strong views, or to indicate that someone else might be wrong." - D.A. Carson, 'Maintaining Scientific and Christian Truths in a Postmodern World.'

This is an outrageously insightful observation of postmodernism. The only 'sin' in today's western culture is almost certainly the suggestion that another person is 'wrong'. As Carson supports later in the article;

"In the domain of evangelism, not least university evangelism, the hardest thing to get across these days is the notion of sin. To talk about sin is to say that certain behaviour and attitudes and beliefs are wrong, and that is the one thing postmodernism does not permit us to do. The one heresy postmodernism condemns is the belief that there is heresy; the one immoral act is the articulation of the view that there are immoral acts. But unless people adopt biblical views on sin, transgression, rebellion, trespass, guilt, and shame, it is virtually impossible to articulate faithfully the good news of Jesus Christ. If we cannot agree on what the problem is, we most certainly cannot agree on what the solution is." - D.A. Carson, 'Maintaining Scientific and Christian Truths in a Postmodern World.'

This is one of the primary reasons that I am dedicated to preaching God as both full of wrath and love. If we do not accept what more reformed thinkers would call 'our total depravity' we cannot understand why God should justly destroy us. And without an understanding of our deserved fate we cannot be stuck as deeply by the beauty of the Grace described in the Gospel that we must proclaim as truth.

"Christians who have prematurely declared victory over modernity are in for a cruel disillusionment. . . . It is true that modernism was openly hostile to religion and that postmodernism is much more sympathetic on the surface. But it is naive to ignore the price tag. Postmodern openness allows all religions and beliefs to present and practise their claims. But it demands the relinquishing of any claims to unique, absolute, and transcendent truth. For the Christian the cost is too high." - Os Guinness, 'Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What To Do About It'

It certainly can be exciting for a Christian when they are amazed they are allowed the freedom to 'evangelize' his or her friends and family in this 'postmodern' west. This excitement is often eclipsed by hopelessness as said Christian slowly comes to the realization that their friend listened to everything they said and decided to put it on the shelf alongside all of the other 'truths' they heard that day. We must be at the table. However, we must not drop our claim to THE Truth for the sake of being invited back to a table of 'people [that] will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths' (2 Tim 4:3-4, ESV).

"It is a great help to acknowledge that no truth which human beings may articulate can ever be articulated in a culture -transcending way – but that does not mean that the truth thus articulated does not transcend culture. This point is extraordinarily important, and often overlooked. If we articulate a truth in English, since all language is a cultural artifact our articulation of the the truth is culturally constrained. But that does not mean that the same truth cannot be articulated in another culture, often in another way." - D.A. Carson, 'Maintaining Scientific and Christian Truths in a Postmodern World.'

What a quotation. Does this not demand of today's Church the necessity of a missional mindset? We may have an excellent grasp of THE Truth; but without an understanding of our cultures this Truth lies in the hands of the comfortables, in the words of Christianese, and in the walls of our clinical sanctuaries.

The full article by Carson can be found here

We're Engaged! Facebook Says So!

Jokingly after my proposal I looked at my fiance with a very serious look on my face and said, 'Do you know what this means?' and she was gripped with suspense.

I put her out of her misery by revealing the incredible truth. I replied, 'we can change our facebook status...'

That's a pretty big deal if you ask me.