We give this book away to first-time visitors at our church, but now you can get it for free even if you never darken our doorway. Or if you just hate to read.

Use coupon code JUL2009 here:  Free Downloads - christianaudio.com

(via JT)

My friend David passed along this great insight from Tim Keller, revealing why so many of us believe in religion more than we believe in Christ:

The gospel is “I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey” while every other religion operates on the principle of “I obey, therefore I am accepted.” Martin Luther’s fundamental insight was that this latter principle, the principle of ‘religion’ is the deep default mode of the human heart.

The heart continues to work in that way even after conversion to Christ. Though we recognize and embrace the principle of the gospel, our hearts will always be trying to return to the mode of self-salvation, which leads to spiritual deadness, pride and strife and ministry ineffectiveness.

He uses the example of honesty to show us how this works in everyday life:

What if you find that you have a habit of lying? What do you do about it?

Moralistic ways to stop lying: Fear: “I must stop doing this because God will punish me, he won’t bless me.” Pride: “I must stop doing this, because I’m a good Christian. I don’t want to be like the kind of person who lies.”

The gospel way to stop lying: First, ask the question: “why am I lying in this particular situation?” The reason we lie (or ever do any sin) is because at that moment there is something we feel that we simply must have–and so we lie. One typical reason that we lie (though it is by no means the only one) is because we are deeply fearful of losing face or someone’s approval.

That means, that the ’sin under the sin’ of lying is the idolatry of (at that moment) of human approval. If we break the commandment against false witness it is because we are breaking the first commandment against idolatry. We are looking more to human approval than to Jesus as a source of worth, meaning, and happiness.

Here’s the gospel root of honesty (and every other thing we strive for):

What is true virtue? It is when you are honest not because it profits you or makes feel better, but only when you are smitten with the beauty of the God who is truth and sincerity and faithfulness! It is when you come to love truth-telling not for your sake but for God’s sake and its own sake. But it particularly grows by a faith-sight of the glory of Christ and his salvation.

For more on this topic, check out Mark Driscoll’s new book Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions

John Piper:

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.

I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).

Brothers, that is serious. Really serious. Jesus is violent about this. What we do with our eyes can damn us. One reason is that it is virtually impossible to transition from being entertained by nudity to an act of “beholding the glory of the Lord.” But this means the entire Christian life is threatened by the deadening effects of sexual titillation.

“Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:3-4).

Read: Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies :: Desiring God

I’ve never been too much of an environmentalist, but Whale Wars is my new TV addiction. It’s about a group of enviro-revolutionaries who left Greenpeace because Greenpeace was a bunch of panty-waists, and formed their own organization: The Sea Shepherds. I think I’m ready to enlist.

Here’s the average episode plotline:

1. Prepare intensely putrid Molotov Cocktail stink bombs.
2. Cruise through pounding 20-foot Antarctic swells, hunting for whaling ships.
3. Break through monster icebergs in a boat that has an ice rating of ZERO.
4. Launch zodiac boats to swarm around enemy whaling ship.
5. Brave 35-degree water being shot at them through fire-hoses by cowardly whalers.
6. Throw dozens of stink-bombs at the ship to stop its harpooning and whale-meat processing operations.

They had me at Molotov.

In the latest episode, they’re considering whether or not to attack a whaling ship that’s searching for the body of a man who’s fallen overboard. Against the opinions of his crew, the captain decides to attack. “I don’t care what people think,” he growls, “my clients are the whales.”

Radically insensitive and extreme? Yeah. But it got me thinking.

What if we didn’t care what people thought because our only client was God? How would that change the course of our daily lives? My thoughts drifted to the passage in Ephesians I preached on last Sunday, where we’re called to be imitators of God:

• Would we give up our self-gratifying desires (Eph 5:3) rather than going along with what people tell us we deserve?
• Would we go beyond our silliness and foolish talk (Eph 5:4) rather than talking about politics and sports and celebrity gossip and all the other superficial stuff people expect us to talk about?
• Would we refuse to be partners in evil (Eph 5:6-7) rather than going along with the number-fudging and underhanded tactics people engage in at work?
• Would we find loving ways to expose sin in ourselves and the people around us (Eph. 5:11-13) rather than silently giving it our implicit approval?

The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.
- Proverbs 29:25

From a post by Andrew Peach:

Most fathers-to-be suppose that their old ego-centered lives will continue more or less unabated after the child arrives. With the exception of a few more obstacles and demands on their time, their involvement with their children is envisioned as being something manageable and marginal. Nothing like a complete transformation—an abrupt end to their former life—really enters men’s minds.

But then the onslaught begins, and a man begins to realize that these people, his wife and children, are literally and perhaps even intentionally killing his old self. All around him everything is changing, without any signs of ever reverting back to the way they used to be. Into the indefinite future, nearly every hour of his days threatens to be filled with activities that, as a single-person or even a childless husband, he never would have chosen. Due to the continual interruptions of sleep, he is always mildly fatigued; due to long-term financial concerns, he is cautious in spending, forsaking old consumer habits and personal indulgences; he finds his wife equally exhausted and preoccupied with the children; connections with former friends start to slip away; traveling with his children is like traveling third class in Bulgaria, to quote H.L. Mencken; and the changes go on and on. In short, he discovers, in a terrifying realization, what Dostoevsky proclaimed long ago: “[A]ctive love is a harsh and fearful reality compared with love in dreams.” Fatherhood is just not what he bargained for.

Yet, through the exhaustion, financial stress, screaming, and general chaos, there enters in at times, mysteriously and unexpectedly, deep contentment and gratitude. It is not the pleasure or amusement of high school or college but rather the honor and nobility of sacrifice and commitment, like that felt by a soldier. What happens to his children now happens to him; his life, though awhirl with the trivial concerns of children, is more serious than it ever was before. Everything he does, from bringing home a paycheck to painting a bedroom, has a new end and, hence, a greater significance. The joys and sorrows of his children are now his joys and sorrows; the stakes of his life have risen. And if he is faithful to his calling, he might come to find that, against nearly all prior expectations, he never wants to return to the way things used to be.

(via JT)

I’ve been feasting on seven free books by D.A. Carson. One of them, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (PDF), is directly aimed at the sentimental view of God’s love that most of us have:

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereignty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God-to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity.

The result, of course, is that the love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized. This process has been going on for some time. My generation was taught to sing, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” in which we robustly instruct the Almighty that we do not need another mountain (we have enough of them), but we could do with some more love. The hubris is staggering.

It has not always been so. In generations when almost everyone believed in the justice of God, people sometimes found it difficult to believe in the love of God. The preaching of the love of God came as wonderful good news. Nowadays if you tell people that God loves them, they are unlikely to be surprised. Of course God loves me; he’s like that, isn’t he? Besides, why shouldn’t he love me? I’m kind of cute, or at least as nice as the next person.

Ouch.

D.A. Carson is considered to be one of the finest New Testament scholars alive. But he’s not just writing dry academic articles for theological journals… he has the heart of a pastor, and many of his books reflect it.

Here are seven excellent books you can now download for free (PDF) from the Gospel Coalition:

• Letters Along the Way: A Novel of the Christian Life (Crossway, 1993)

• Holy Sonnets of the Twentieth Century (Baker, 1994)

• For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word, Vol. 1. (Crossway, 1998)

• For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God’s Word, Vol. 2. (Crossway, 1999)

• The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Crossway, 2000)

• Love in Hard Places (Crossway, 2002)

• Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson (Crossway, 2008)

(posted by Andy Naselli, link via Transforming Sermons)

From The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright:

Look to the world that gave us the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament) and the Koran… there we’ll see how consequential God’s mood changes could be - how, indeed, a burst of vengeful intolerance helped give us monotheism itself; we’ll see that the birth of monotheism left us with what you might call a bad God.

But we’ll also see that this this God then had bursts of moral growth - within both Judaism and Islam - and that the proven ingredients of that growth are around today, just when another such burst is needed.

(excerpted in Time)

From Systematic Theology, by Wayne Grudem:

If God could change… then any change would be either for the better or for the worse. But if God changed for the better, then he was not the best possible being when we first trusted him. And how could we be sure that he is the best possible being now?

But if God could change for the worse (in his very being), then what kind of God might he become? Might he become, for instance, a little bit evil rather than wholly good? And if he could become a little bit evil, then how do we know he could not change to become largely evil - or wholly evil?

… The idea that God could change leads to the horrible possibility that thousands of years from now we might come to live forever in a universe dominated by a wholly evil, omnipotent God. It is hard to imagine any thought more terrifying.

While momma was away, I took the kids to see Up. The whole movie is great, but the first four minutes are the best.

It’s a silent montage depicting the entire relationship of Carl and his wife Ellie, from childhood to old age. I had just plopped down with a big tub of popcorn, but I sat there motionless, transfixed by the depth of emotion portrayed without a single spoken word.

How many movies have ever dealt with the pain of miscarriage and childlessness… the slowly creeping approach of old age… the sting of giving up a long-held dream… the heartache of losing a long-loved spouse… and all in four minutes? In a cartoon?

If you haven’t seen this movie, go now.

As John Dyer, a seminary-trained web developer, said a few months ago, “Technology is not neutral.” It either helps or hinders your walk with God. Some technologies do both at the same time. Which is why we need to think carefully about every new technology that comes along.

A few months ago I loudly said I wasn’t joining Facebook. I had a few good reasons:

• Most of my workday is spent in front of my laptop. When I’m not meeting with people or on the phone with people, I’m staring at a computer screen. I really like my Macbook, but not enough to spend another 30 minutes a day with it on Facebook.
• My ADD-like attention span is short enough already. I don’t think I would have the discipline to avoid stopping my work every 10 minutes to see if there’s anything new on any of my friends’ Facebook feeds.
• I have trouble finding the time to invest in the friendships I currently have. Do I really want to restart a friendship with someone I happened to sit next to for a year in 7th-grade math?
• The way Facebook is currently set up, it encourages lots of virtual shallow relationships rather than meaningful real ones. The kind of superficial small-talk that reigns on social networks like Facebook is necessary to initiate friendships, but real relationships can’t survive on superficiality for long.

The last one was the most crucial to me. But Facebook developers are now releasing tools that foster flesh-and-blood relationships. We’re testing one of them (a tool for small-groups and ministry teams to stay connected) on our church website right now, which is why I finally caved in and joined Facebook.

At first I didn’t post any personal information, so I was able to stay under the Facebook radar for a few weeks. But somehow people started finding me and sending me friend requests. So I decided to go all-in. I clicked “accept” on all the invitations. I imported my address book so Facebook could carpet-bomb my contacts with friend requests. But I’ve still got the same reservations I had before.

So I’m starting a 30-day trial with Facebook, limiting myself to one 5-minute session a day. Plenty of time to see what my friends are up to and post a few pithy comments on their walls. At the end of the month, I’ll ask myself (and my wife!) the questions below. Too many wrong answers, and I’m pulling the plug.

• Am I able to limit my Facebook time to 5 minutes a day, or am I spending too much time on the computer?
• Am I able to contain my ADD, or am I obsessively logging in to see if there’s anything new?
• Am I strengthening my flesh-and-blood relationships, or am I harming them (especially my family)? 
• Am I finding ways to go beyond the superficiality that Facebook promotes, or am I spending all my time on silliness?
• Am I able to resist the temptation toward narcissism, or am I constantly tweaking my profile and pictures to impress people?

I’ll let you know the results in a month.

Like your worship music a little more on the emo side?

Head over to ReSound, the new record label of the Resurgence, to download a free sampler album of “theologically unified, stylistically diverse, musically excellent” songs (sample below). It’s only available for 7 days, so hurry.

“Shine Jesus Shine” fans, move along. Nothing to see here.

.

 

 Doxology [4:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I check in on a few Twitterers every month or so. After reading a few “Eating loco moco - SO ONO!” posts, that’s enough for me. But at long last, we have a Twitter feed worth following every day: John Piper.

His M.O. is to post provocative verses from Scripture with the most important words blanked out, forcing you to scramble for your Bible to find the answer. Examples from the last few days:

• Safe. So risk. “We have been predestined according to the purpose of him who works __ ____ according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11).
• Raising a hellion. “Adonijah exalted himself: I will be king.” His father had never ___ him asking, “Why have you done this?” (1Kings 1:5f).
• The beginning of each letter of Paul includes, “Grace __ you.” But the end of every letter includes, “Grace be ___ you.” Why the difference?

Follow him here: JohnPiper on Twitter