A third way to pastor

As soon as I posted Two Ways to Pastor I thought – I’m missing a third way.
And I can do no better in describing it than to show you this clip from the film “Friends with Money.”  The movie feels like it was written by a 1st year psychology student.  And while there are a [...]

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Two Ways to Pastor

In the last post I thought a bit about the dangers of Pharasaism re-producing itself.
If you pastor out of the Pharisee’s mindset, here is how you will conceive the Christian life.

Here the Christian life is about minimizing sins and maximizing performance.  You will keep your sins private and your righteousness public.  Of course Jesus tells [...]

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Self-giving is absolute reality

[I]n self-giving, if anywhere, we touch a rhythm of all creation and of all being. For the Eternal Word gives Himself in mortal sacrifice; and that not only on Calvary. For when He was crucified on Calvary He did that in the wild weather of His outlying provinces what He had done at home in [...]

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Jesus is God-sized – God is Jesus-shaped

Preached on John 1:1-2 this morning (audio here).
My last two points were this:
Jesus is God-sized
and
God is Jesus-shaped
 
I wonder whether much of our evangelism is aimed at persuading people of point number one.  And I wonder whether that emphasis, if divorced from the second point, is quite dangerous.
Here’s what I mean – when we tell an [...]

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Are we afraid of preaching news that’s too good?

I dunno, this isn’t based on anything but a vague gut feeling (yeah, yeah, as opposed to my usually well-researched and even-handed analysis!)  but…
Are we afraid of preaching news that’s too good?
I just wonder whether that ‘honey mouthed’ Puritan preacher, the ’sweet-dropper’, Richard Sibbes was surrounded by a more bitter fraternity of preachers.  You can [...]

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Thank you preacher- that was boring, uninspired, obscure and moralistic

Of course the words they use are ‘faithful’, ‘clear’, ‘helpful’ and ‘challenging’.
But we all know what they mean.
By the way – when did ‘faithful’ become a synonym for boring? 
I want to be understood on this point – when I advocate gospel-alone evangelism - that is not a licence for boring preaching.  There are illegitimate solutions to boring [...]

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The Truth that is in Jesus [Thawed out Thursday]

Given our current discussion about apologetics, thought I’d thaw out this post…
 
We’ve noted the danger of fiting Jesus into a pre-fab system of truth. We don’t want to do that.  But Missy has asked the $64 000 question.  It’s basically this: What do we do when speaking to a non-Christian - isn’t it desirable at least sometimes to bring Christ [...]

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He loves us because He loves us

I wasn’t a huge fan of this paragraph quoted on Tony’s blog (as my comment makes clear).
But I love this one:
Thomas Manton, from a sermon on John 3:16
“Love is at the bottom of all. We may give a reason of other things, but we cannot give a reason of his love, God showed his wisdom, [...]

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I in Christ, Christ in me

You who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ  (Gal 3:27)
I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you  (Gal 4:19)
Christ put on me
Christ formed in me
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Christ surrounding me
Christ birthed in me
.
Christ already
Christ progressing
.
Christ: My status
Christ: My stature
.
I in Christ
Christ in me
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No merit in man’s receiving – only in God’s giving

“To be bursting with thanksgiving is a true witness of the Spirit within us. For the voice of thanksgiving speaks without ceasing of the goodness of God. It claims nothing. It sees no merit in man’s receiving but only in God’s giving. It marvels at his mercy. It is the language of joy because it [...]

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Whitefield on The LORD our Righteousness

Lex Loizides quotes Whitefield’s oft repeated sermon: The LORD our righteousness.
‘Alas, my heart almost bleeds! What a multitude of precious souls are now before me! How shortly must all be ushered into eternity! And yet, O cutting thought! Was God now to require all your souls, how few, comparatively speaking, could really say, ‘the Lord [...]

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Christianity Explored – week 3 – Why did Jesus come?

My talk from last night.  (I’ll publish text and other talks later)
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We make God look like a jerk, He makes looking like a jerk truly glorious

A further thought:
What do you look like when you hold out your arms to obstinate people?  (Rom 10:21)  You look like a jerk.  You look completely foolish.
But God makes this arms-outstretched, suffering love His glory.  In spite, not because of us.
If we’re going to oppose synergism (and we should) let’s be thorough-going about it.  Just [...]

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Justified in union with Christ

Having just thought about Calvin and union with Christ – here is Mike’s second talk on justification.  We receive His righteousness in Jesus.
Do give some time to these talks.  It’s a chance to be refreshed and liberated by gospel truth.
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Why should I let you into my heaven?

From Doug Wilson:
I was talking to a woman one time… and she told me sheepishly about her first reaction to that great grace question hypothetically presented at the pearly gates — “why should I let you into heaven?” The right answer of course is a variant of “because of the blood of Jesus Christ, plus [...]

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Mike Reeves on Justification part 1

Hour long talk.  Mike opens with the story of justification. Really, really good.
Here’s an early stop along the road.  The Epistle to Diognetus:
He himself took on Him the burden of our iniquities, He gave His own Son as a ransom for us, the holy One for transgressors, the blameless One for the wicked, the righteous [...]

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Thawed out Thursday – The Way of the LORD

A re-post
From Genesis 1, the way of the LORD has always been forming, then filling.
The filled-out reality is there by anticipation even in the forming. The intention for filling is included in the forming. But still the order is ‘form, then fill.’:

In Gen 1:2 – a formless and empty creation is then formed (days 1-3) [...]

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Christ our Substitute

My first effort at a video.
The making of it was very fiddly – Powerpoint slides then Windows Movie Maker.  There’s things I’d like to change but alterations are a bit too time consuming I’m afraid.
Hope it’s an encouragement to some…

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He rescued me because He delighted in me

I preached that verse about a month ago (Ps 18:19).  And you know my first reaction as I was preparing?
Hmmm, tricky, how on earth should we understand this…?
I hope you’re all saying: But why Glen – it seems perfectly straightforward.
Well, there’s the slightly tricky part about how we take the verse on our own lips.  [...]

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Christ our Fountain of Blessing

“We see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ (Acts 4:12). We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is of him (1 Corinthians 1:30). If we [...]

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Calvin on the proper and the accidental office of the gospel

Last week Dave Kirkman helped me to distinguish between what Luther called God’s ‘alien work’ and His ‘proper work’.
Death is the alien work.  Life through death is gospel and God’s proper work.  But it’s extremely important not to view death and life as equivalents in God’s eyes.  One is the alien work, transformed by the [...]

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Not just sheltered – BROUGHT OUT

Not just Passover, but Red Sea crossing.
Not just saved by the blood, but delivered over to new life.
Not just baptised into His death, but sharing in His resurrection
That’s the gist of this sermon on Exodus 13 and 14 – preached last night.
We looked at Passover last week.  We rejoiced in the fact that we are [...]

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Anthropogenic?

There’s a mouthful of a word.
Perhaps we’re aware of the term ‘anthropogenic’ to describe climate change?  The climate is changing – climate always does – the question remains, is man (anthropos) the cause (genesis)?
A lot of people say yes.  Some say no.
This guy says “maybe… some… but that’s not really the issue.”
[...]

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What’s the Problem?

This is a Thawed-out Thursday Re-post.  There a reason why I’ve chosen this one, but I’ll let you in on it later…
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Once I was in a preaching seminar with 15 other young guns.  We were being taught by someone you might call a living legend.  One session was on how to preach Romans 3:21-30.  The point [...]

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Christ Alone, Grace Alone, Revelation Alone

I’m halfway through Mike Reeves’ excellent lectures on a theology of revelation.  Go and listen now if you haven’t done already.
Maybe I should put them somewhere prominently and permanently on the blog because they explain much better than I can the thinking behind ‘Christ the Truth’. 
To be an evangelical theologian is to have your method [...]

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Time for a Spring Clean

… in the southern hemisphere anyway.
But as the weather turns decidedly Fall-en here, I’m still thinking about Spring cleaning.  The reason being – I’ve just preached on Exodus 12 tonight.  In preparation I was thinking about the Feast of Unleavened Bread (I speak about it some more in my 1 Corinthians 5 sermon).
Basically the Feast of [...]

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Come as you are

From Spurgeon’s book: All of Grace
Do not attempt to touch yourself up and make yourself something other than you really are, but come as you are to Him who justifies the ungodly. …The Gospel will receive you into its halls if you come as a sinner, not otherwise. Wait not for reformation, but come at [...]

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In other words…

Always given to verbosity, here’s what I meant in my previous post:
‘I have been crucified with Christ’ is profoundly ethical
‘Take up your cross’ is profoundly mystical
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Dying with Jesus

How do you think of judgement and salvation?
If you ask me – you shouldn’t think like this:
 
Instead think like this:
 
Or to be a bit more nuanced – like this.
Now I could take this observation in many directions.
Perhaps we could explore its significance for an infra versus supra-lapsarian debate.
Perhaps we could discuss the strong link that [...]

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Some thoughts on your ‘personal problems’

This is a long one but I won’t be posting for a while so read at your leisure…
 
1) This is the occasion for change not the reason for change.
It’s great if you’ve come to some sort of crisis moment.  It’s good that you want to change.  But you ought to know that this is the [...]

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