Come Weary Saints- Sovereign Grace Music

If you are a Facebook member, you can become a fan of Sovereign Grace Music and get a free download of their excellent new album Come Weary Saints. The offer is good until 8 pm (Eastern time) tomorrow (Friday).

If you aren't a Facebook person, you can visit Sovereign Grace Music and check out the Come Weary Saints page and hear samples of all the songs.

Come Weary Saints tracklist:

• Hide Away in the Love of Jesus
• So I Will Trust You
• As Long as You Are Glorified
• Oh the Deep, Deep Love
• Every Day
• Through the Precious Blood
• You Have Always Been Faithful
• Healing In Your Wings
• Joy in My Morning
• Glorious
• I Have a Shelter
• It Is Not Death to Die

From Sovereign Grace:
Come Weary Saints is an invitation to redirect your focus to the God whose love has been forever demonstrated at the cross of Calvary. As you listen to these songs, may your faith and joy in the Savior be strengthened for the challenges you face, now or in the future.

"Shake the world again" -Francis Schaeffer

The Bible reading plan that my wife and I are using this year has us currently in the Apostle Paul's majestic Epistle to the Romans. For supplemental reading today, I picked up Raymond Ortlund Jr.'s excellent book A Passion For God: Prayers and Meditations on the Book of Romans. Ortlund uses his own paraphrase for the whole book, writes down some very heartfelt and doctrinally sound prayers, and also includes loads of quotes that fit very well with the section he is highlighting.

Today I read his meditation on Romans 1:11-15 and it included an amazing poem written by Francis Schaeffer:

To eat, to breathe

to beget

Is this all there is

Chance configuration of atom against atom

    of god against god

I cannot believe it.

Come, Christian Triune God who lives,

Here am I

Shake the world again.

                                               Francis Schaeffer, 1960

The poem is originally from a 1960 issue of Christianity Today.

francis schaeffer ray ortlund jr. epistle to the romans

Meditations on Psalm 27- Safe

Author Paul Tripp (who penned the wonderfully helpful and encouraging book Instruments in the Redeemers Hands) has been sharing his meditations on Psalm 27 since mid August (this is the first post).

He says:

Psalm 27 really is an amazing psalm. There are moments when it soars with the thoughts of what it means to be a child of the Lord. There are places where it reaches into the harshest realities of life in a very broken world. There are times when this psalm is a scalpel, cutting through the layers and exposing the heart. It is a psalm of worship, commitment, trouble, beauty, and patience. There's a way in which Psalm 27 is a biblical worldview done as a podcast. There simply is much more there than you think there is after your first reading.

Today he shares a wonderful meditation entitled "Safe." Here is the conclusion:

I am safe
from my evil heart
and this shattered world,
not because I can escape
them both,
but because in the middle of
temptation and trial,
danger and disappointment
sickness and want,
You give me everything
I need to
fight temptation
and avoid defeat
and to point others
to the safety
that can only be found
in You.
So, I will wake up tomorrow
and face the anxiety
of not knowing,
the fear of my own weakness,
and the reality of the fall.
I will live with
faith,
courage,
perseverance,
and hope.
And when danger comes,
and it will,
I will whisper to
my weakening heart,
"Emmanuel is your shelter,
You are safe."

psalm 27 paul tripp

Johnny Cash- Temptation and Redemption

Here's a great video from Mars Hill Church about the temptation and redemption of Johnny Cash.





You can view more biographical videos of saintly songwriters here.

johnny cash mars hill church seattle

Moving Forward in Grace- Jonah 3:1-5

I preached from Jonah 3:1-5 this morning at church.

Here's an excerpt from my notes:

Think about this: as a prophet of God, Jonah was God’s mouthpiece, God’s messenger. It was his responsibility to communicate God’s will to people. And Jonah outright disobeyed what God had told him to say. He abandoned his calling to run away. He ignored God, he disobeyed God, and he forsook God.

It was in the depths of the sea that he realized his sin, and I believe he repented. He was in the dark, in the pit, and he knew that he had failed. He does what we often do in that situation. He calls out to God and says “I know I messed up. I’m sorry that I rebelled against You. I still need You. You’re all I’ve got.” And what does God say to Jonah?

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you. (Jonah 3:1-2)

God says nothing about Jonah’s sin again. He just says I have a plan for you and I want you to keep moving. You’re feet are back on the ground again and I want you to walk. I want you to move forward again.

This has tremendous implications for us. We are often so crippled by guilt and condemnation that we don’t feel like we can do anything for God. We say “I have failed, I have let God down, I’m no good. I can’t do anything for Him because He is angry with me.” But we see with Jonah that this just isn’t the case. God says “Keep going! I’ve still got something for you to do. My grace is greater than all your sins!”

Because the thing we need to remember when we sin is that Jesus has paid for it. Yes, we need to be sorrowful when we sin, we need to repent when we sin, but we also need to look to Jesus, look to the Cross and walk forward in the victory won for us at the place where Jesus died and paid for our rebellion against God.

You can see the rest of my notes here.

jonah bible jesus

Rob Bell in San Francisco- the gods aren't angry

Justin Buzzard shares some good thoughts on Rob Bell's latest speaking tour.

rob bell the gods aren't angry tour

More on Idolatry

My friend BJ shares some additional thoughts on idolatry and also points to a 3 sermon series on idolatry preached by CJ Mahaney (download the sermons and outline here for free).

Kenneth Maresco also preached a sermon called "Identifying and Tearing Down Idols of the Heart." I've not yet listened to it, but it looks to be another useful tool for sanctification.

cj mahaney idolatry kenneth maresco

The Idol of Approval

Darrin Patrick recently gave an excellent talk entitled "Dealing With Personal Idols" (audio stream/download here). In that talk he gently but piercingly helps the listener to evaluate the things in our lives, general or specific, that can take the place of Jesus as the Lord of our hearts and desires.

I freely confess that I often place the approval of others in a place of greater importance than recognizing the approval that I already have in Jesus. This sin plays itself out in every area of my life, whether it's my marriage or getting a cup of coffee at Starbucks. God help me as I seek to honor Him in every area of my heart and life.

Also see another great talk on idolatry (download) by Mark Driscoll at the Continuous Worship conference back in September.

mark driscoll darrin patrick idolatry

The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

I was privileged to attend the 2006 Desiring God National Conference entitled "The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World." It was a great weekend of learning from God's Word, singing with God's people, and meeting lots of new friends.

In recent years, Desiring God has partnered with Crossway to publish the talks from each of their national conferences in book form. Crossway has just released the new book entitled (surprisingly) "The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World."

Here are the chapter titles:

Introduction- Justin Taylor

Part 1. Culture and Truth

1. The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World- David Wells

2. Truth and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World- Voddie Baucham Jr.

Part 2. Joy and Love

3. Joy and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World- John Piper

4. Love and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World- D. A. Carson

Part 2. Gospel Theologizing and Contextualizing

5. The Gospel and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World- Tim Keller

6. The Church and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World- Mark Driscoll

Conversations with the Contributors

You can find the book here at WTS Books.

Desiring God has also released the entire book in pdf for free. You can find that here.

As always, you can find the audio for the entire conference at DG's site (there is also video). I highly recommend Baucham's and Keller's talks, but they are all wonderful.

john piper mark driscoll tim keller d. a. carson voddie baucham david wells justin taylor desiring god The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

Mark Driscoll- Preaching to himself

Mark Driscoll is a well known pastor who in his sermon last week did something that well known pastors often don't do: he repented of pride. Not only did he repent, he addressed specific issues and did it with much grace. As my friend BJ mentioned earlier, this could become Driscoll's most influential moment. I praise God for the good work being done in and through Mark Driscoll.

The sermon was entitled "The Rebels Guide to Joy in Humility." You can listen to it (download) or watch it (download) here.

Here is an excerpt from that sermon:

I believe that humility is the great omission and failure in my eleven years of preaching. I believe that this is my greatest oversight both in my example and in my instruction.

I therefore do not claim to be humble. I do not claim to have been humble. I am convicted of my pride, and I am a man who is by God’s grace pursuing humility.

So in many ways this is a sermon that I’m preaching at myself, this is a sermon you are welcomed to listen in on as I preach to myself.

But I truly believe that were there one thing I could do over in the history of Mars Hill it would be in my attitude and in my actions and in my words to not only emphasize sound doctrine, encourage in strength and commitment and conviction but, to add in addition to that, humility as a virtue.

And so I’ll start by asking your forgiveness and sincerely acknowledging that this has been a great failure.

And I believe that it is showing up in our church in the lives of men and women who have sound doctrine but not sound attitude. They may contend for good things but their motives are bad and their methods are bad and their tone is bad and their tactics are bad and their actions are bad because their attitudes are bad even though their objective is sometimes good. I see this in particular with the men. I see this with men young and old, men who have known Jesus for a long time and should know better, and men who are new to Jesus and are learning sometimes the hard way.

I will take some responsibility for this. Luke 6:40 says that when fully trained, disciples are like their teacher, and I am primary teaching pastor of this church and I can’t simply look at the pride in some of our people and say that I am in no way responsible or complicit.

I’m a guy who is pretty busted up over this personally and it really came to my attention last December just in time for Christmas. The critics really brought me a lot of kind gifts of opposition and hatred and animosity. Merry Christmas. And some of those most vocal and nasty critics were Christians – some of them prominent Christians. So I was getting ready to fire back (my usual tactics). They hit you, you hit them twice and then blog about your victory. Which I don’t have any verses for and don’t say it was a good idea. But it had been a pattern in my life until a man named C.J. Mahaney called.

I’d always considered humility to be cowardice and a compromise. In the name of humility you give up biblical conviction and passion and the willingness to contend for the faith (Jude 3) and to fight false teaching. What he was describing was orthodoxy in belief and humility in attitude and that those two together are really what God desires. And so it got me thinking and studying and praying through pride and humility and repenting and learning and growing. So I would start by saying that I thank my dear friend C.J. Mahaney for his ongoing friendship and the kindness he has extended to me and the things I’ve been able to learn through his instruction.

Furthermore, I apologize and repent publicly to you, the church for whom I am responsible, for much pride in the history of my ministry that some of you have poorly imitated and for that I am deeply sorry.

And thirdly, to say that I’m not a humble man but as result of study I’m a man who is acknowledging his pride and pursuing humility by God’s grace.

-- Mark Driscoll, sermon on Philippians 2:1-11 (November 4, 2007), part 5 in The Rebel's Guide to Joy in Humility (3:16-8:40)

HT:Justin Taylor

mark driscoll humility cj mahaney

John Bunyan- God's Tinker

I once heard someone (sadly, I can't remember who) say that every Christian should pick a "Christian giant" from the past and learn about that person, read everything that person had written, and essentially become a student of that faithful Christian.

I think that person for me is going to be John Bunyan.

John Bunyan was born in 1628, near Bedford, England. He's best known for writing Pilgrim's Progress, an allegory about the Christian life that he authored while in prison for preaching about Jesus. It has been suggested that Pilgrim's Progress is the world's greatest selling book aside from the Bible and it has been translated into over 200 languages!

But Mr. Bunyan was no one hit wonder; he was in fact a prolific author who wrote 58 books, ranging from allegory to exposition to poetry to polemic.

I first read Pilgrim's Progress as a kid, probably around 11 or 12. Bunyan's vivid images made a deep imprint that have stayed with me to this day. But it wasn't until I read Bunyan's autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, that I truly began to appreciate what a testimony of God's grace he was.

Since then, I have been saving my pennies and last week I bought Banner of Truth's 3 volume set of the Complete Works of John Bunyan. It arrived Tuesday and from my cursory perusal, it seems that picking Bunyan is a good idea. John Bunyan is a man I want to be like. His passion for Jesus and his enduring trust in God, even in the midst of tremendous trial and fearful circumstances, are both a radical challenge and a helpful example to me.

I encourage everyone to find a copy of anything that Bunyan has written and follow his gaze as he points to Jesus.

See the works of Bunyan at Project Gutenberg.

Get the works of Bunyan in txt, rtf or pdf.

Read, download, or listen to John Piper's biographical sketch of John Bunyan.

A great Bunyan resource.

Get a free audiobook of Pilgrim's Progress.

See WTS Books page of Bunyan's books.

john bunyan

Happy Reformation Day

On this day back in 1517, Martin Luther changed the world (and that's not an exaggeration) by tacking up 95 objections to the Roman Catholic church. Tony at the Shepherd's Scrapbook has a good quote regarding the Reformation:

“… we need to realize that the Reformers saw nothing less than the gospel at stake. We sometimes forget what Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others risked in taking a stand for the gospel. They risked their very lives. Regarding the Reformers’ work as nothing more than sowing seeds of unfortunate division shows both little knowledge of and little respect for what they did. They were human, and they had their faults and shortcomings. They sinned, sometimes greatly. But they also, like the imperfect characters of the Bible, were used greatly by God. In other words, the church should be grateful for the Reformation. And in this age of religious pluralism, theological laxity, and biblical illiteracy, perhaps the Reformation is needed more than ever before.” - Stephen J. Nichols, The Reformation: How a monk and a mallet changed the world (Crossway: 2007) p. 21

Sam Storms has a great post entitled "Celebrating the Reformation: A Lesson on God's Sovereignty over Human Sin"

In his post, he shares some great thoughts about Thomas Cranmer and it piqued my interest. I found a great audio biography of Cranmer presented by Jim Hamilton at the 2007 Bunyan Conference.

You can listen to that biography here.

As always, Tim Challies has his Reformation Day Symposium up.

*Added on 11/01/07- Read or listen to John Piper's biographical message on Martin Luther.

We ended the day by taking the kids (dressed as adorable CareBears) out for some treats and hanging with some friends. On to November!

reformation day thomas cranmer church history
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Now playing: Radiohead - House Of Cards

O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing...or an earpiece to understand Russian

This past weekend Dallass and I, along with many friends from our church, attended the Desiring God regional conference "The Pleasures of God."

John Piper has been a significant influence in my life and it was a pleasure to see him preach/teach in person again. Dallass had only heard recordings of his preaching, so I think she particularly enjoyed seeing him in person.

The conference was held at the Bryte Russian Baptist Church in West Sacramento, just down the street from my beloved-in-laws. It was great to attend the conference and hang out with family on the same weekend. When I have gone to conferences in the past it's always in some city that I don't know and I end up only seeing the airport, where I am staying, the conference venue, a coffee shop, and some kind of restaurant/pub for meals. I guess I'm not the most adventurous cat in the world.

As you may have noticed, I mentioned that the conference was in a Russian church. We have driven by BRBC so many times and I've always wanted to go, but I have been intimidated by the whole I-don't-speak-Russian thing. The conference itself was in English, but the church had Russian signage all over, the song leader (Brother Nicoly) had a pleasantly heavy Russian accent (I would have loved to hear him say "I will break you" Rocky IV style), and many attendees had the earpieces in that magically translate words like "intra-trinitarian" into their appropriate Russian counterpart, which sounds something like "bob."

Encouraged by the multilingual fun (there were also American Sign Language interpreters for the deaf- yes!) of Friday and Saturday, we decided to attend the church on Sunday morning since Piper would be preaching there on Sunday morning. I spoke to one of the youth kids who were helping out with the conference and he kindly told me that "Ah...yes. You can come toomoorow and you will...ahhh...be able to get earpiece and understand...ahhhh...yes. No problem for you!"

We arrived on Sunday morning at the church ready to rock, Russian style. As we walked through the parking lot, we noticed that we were severely under dressed. As in, we looked like a family of homeless vagrants who decided to go to church and threw on whatever clothing was closest to the top of the shopping cart. Our church is quite casual when it comes to dress and...well, let's just say the folks of BRBC know how put on their Sunday best.

When we got inside we were escorted into the sanctuary. Unfortunately they didn't have any more KGB ear pieces so we had to guess what was happening during the speaking portions of the worship time. They had a great choir (and I am a sucker for lovely Russian church singing- Rachmaninoff's Vespers is one of my favorite pieces to listen to), a barbershop quartet singing in English (heavily accented English), a youth band, and combinations of soloists and the choir. Piper preached a great sermon and then we sang together with the church of Jesus as we closed the morning worship. Once again, I marveled at the beauty of diversity within the church that Jesus is growing for the sake of His name.

You can listen to the conference messages here.

You can visit BRBC's website here. It's all in Russian!

Listen to Rachmaninoff's Vespers.

john piper

Headin' out...

We're leaving today for Seattle. The blog will be on temporary hiatus, unless I can find a computer somewhere to use.

I will be attending the Resurgence conference titled "Continuous Worship" on Monday and Tuesday. We'll also be visiting friends at Mars Hill Church (and elsewhere) and hopefully making new ones. We'll also be enjoying hanging out in the beautiful city of Seattle

The conference will feature Harold M. Best, author of Unceasing Worship and Music through the Eyes of Faith, pastor Mark Driscoll, author of Radical Reformission and Confessions of a Reformission Rev from Mars Hill Church and worship pastor Tim Smith from Mars Hill Church.


You can read more about the conference here.

Above average...and still in need of grace

CNN has an article on the reading habits of Americans (shouldn't we be called something that doesn't imply we own the entire continent?), based on an AP-Ipsos poll.

Here are some of the poll numbers and observations:

• One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year.

• The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year.

• Among those who said they had read books, the median figure -- with half reading more, half fewer -- was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger.

• The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories.

• Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels.

• More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography. Industry experts said that confirms their observation that men tend to prefer nonfiction.

As a lifelong lover of books, it's easy for me to become prideful about my passion for books, how many I've read and how many I look forward to reading. I'm on pace to read something like 30 books this year, in addition to my regular Bible reading, well above the average.

As a lover of books, it's easy for me to look down on people who don't read as shallow people who prefer watching reruns of Seinfeld or some banal teen comedy to reading a book about the exploration of Lewis and Clark, or a novel that deals with race, politics and religion, or a study on the holiness of God, or the mysterious and beautiful truth of the gift of Jesus' death on the Cross, or the role of men and women with the church and the home. I can think of myself as better than others because I read lots of books, especially books that increase my knowledge of who God is and what He has done through the work of His Son Jesus.

Sometimes, it's this same pride that wells up in me when people look at my bookshelves and tell me how many books I have. Sometimes, it's this same pride that motivates me to religiously update my goodreads page. Sometimes, it's this same pride that causes me to think it's more important to own a book or read a book than it is to learn something from that book.

When I read this poll, my first reaction was surprise, and then it moved to pride. But as I reflect on my life, I realize that it's only by God's grace that I love books, that I have the education I do, that I live in a culture that sets aside resources (little though they be!) to establish and maintain libraries, that I was raised in a family that encouraged me to read books.

While I am firmly convinced that people should read more and better books than they do, I am just as firmly convinced that I am as needy for the grace of God in my life as a man who can't read a word.

From doubt to delight

This morning I preached from Psalm 73 at our church.

Here's a portion of my notes:

"One of the greatest lies that the church has struggled with, especially in the West, is that we should expect to have lives of great material abundance, superior physical condition, and a life free of suffering. Many Christians have gotten to this place in their lives where they are so consumed with a desire for the gifts they think they deserve that there is no room left over in their hearts to be consumed with a desire for the Giver. And that is a great tragedy and it does not honor God. It does not honor God when we desire the same things the world desires in the same way that the world desires them."

You can read the whole manuscript here (It's kind of a rough draft, but it's pretty close to what I said this morning.)

Poverty, Prosperity, and Psalm 73

Watch this first:



HT: DG Blog


I didn't put this video up to be controversial but primarily because of the reference to Psalm 73 in the midst of the clip. I've been working on memorizing this psalm over the past couple of days, so it's been on my mind often. I read the psalm in my daily Bible reading a couple weeks ago and I have been longing to get more of the truth of it into my heart since I read it. Memorizing seems to be a good way to do that.

Psalm 73 has a lot of negative thoughts in it, almost to the point of being depressing- except for the last 10 verses. Asaph (the author) spends much of his time lamenting the abundance of injustice in his life and in the world around him. He complains about the wicked, the ones who openly defy justice and in so doing, defy the God of justice. He talks about how easy they have it; pain-free, wealthy, and without the cares of the world.

In many places in the world, this is much more evident than we see in our Western context. It is often the wicked who are the ones with the most money and the most power, but with the least regard for justice. As I was memorizing verses 8 and 9 of Psalm 73 this morning, I thought these probably mean much more to an African family than it does to my family, because we are not in constant fear of rape, mutilation, and disease.

But to some degree, injustice finds its way into our life. And far too often for me, it comes out of my own heart. And that's why I long to see the truth of the words " ...there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You" (v 25) stamp themselves into those unjust places.

Dr. Piper's statements in the video clip above remind me that to withhold the good news of the Gospel of Jesus and replace them with a cheap counterfeit is a form of injustice.

May God help me to live in a way that proclaims that God is truly the "strength of my heart and my portion forever." (v 26).

Text of Psalm 73

A good reminder

"Our religious activities should be so ordered in such a way as to have plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of solitude and silence."

A. W. Tozer

Christian contentment

jeremiah burroughs' "the rare jewel of Christian contentment"

i've been reading this marvelous little book for the past week and it has been quite encouraging. a couple of quotes:

"I have what I have from the love of God, and I have it sanctified to me by God, and I have it free of cost from God by the purchase of the blood of Jesus Christ, and I have it as a forerunner of those eternal mercies that are reserved for me; and in this my soul rejoices." (pg. 59-60)

"The truth is that the afflictions of God's people come from the same eternal love that Jesus Christ came from...all God's ways are mercy and truth, to those that fear him and love him (Psalm 25.10). The ways of God, the ways of affliction, as well as the ways of prosperity, are mercy and love to him. Grace gives man an eye, a piercing eye to pierce into the counsel of God, those eternal counsels of God for good to him, even in his afflictions; he can see the love of God in every affliction as well as in prosperity. Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them and makes them rich, but they think he loves them not when he afflicts them. That is a mystery, but grace instructs men in that mystery, grace enables men to see love in the very frown of God's face, and so comes to receive contentment." (pg. 60)

i pray that i might learn to trust God in such a way and so to honor Him in my contentment.

waiter? can i get a witness?

one of my great pet peeves is seeing Christians leave small tips after treating the waiter like a second-class citizen. this article encourages Christians to treat their dining experience as an opportunity to display the goodness of Christ through generous tipping and genuine care for the server.