Together for the Gospel Live

One of the best times of worship is now available on CD, "Together for the Gospel Live." The singing from the 2008 Together for the Gospel conference was recorded by Sovereign Grace Music.

I just purchased the CD about a week ago and it is one of the best that I own. Not only is it a great line up of worship songs but you get to hear the voices of 6,000 godly men sing praises to the King of kings. I highly recommend it!

(If you can't buy the CD just yet you can still download the three songs that did not fit on the CD for free.)

C. J. Mahaney: Philippians 1:3-9

Pastor ministry not only about doctrinal knowledge, but Godliness.

Ministry is a carousel of victory and defeat.

Paul did all of his responsibility with joy. This set Him apart. Thus we need to consider the joy of Paul. There is no doubt that most pastors are serving God’s church faithfully, but they are not serving it joyfully. Are you happy pastor? (not speaking of a particular personality)Underlining the grief in your life, is their a joy that characterizes you as a pastor?

Would your wife describe you as glad as a pastor? How would your children describe you? Pastoral team? Members of your congregation? What is your church like? Have you built a culture of joy in your church? It would be right and humble to ask each of these if they see you as a happy pastor?

How did Paul consistently serve God with joy?
The dominate feeling in the letter of Philippians is joy. Remember, it was written in prison.

1.Gratefulness to God (3-5).High priority to gratefulness.
What is it like to encounter you? Is it seen that you assign a high priority to gratefulness.
Paul’s gratefulness was theological inclines.

• Recognize the working of God in the church.
  
• Expressed thanksgiving for God’s work.
  
• When there is the abstinent of joy then there is a lack of seeing God’s
  work.

Study this topic for a season.
Apply this subject to your life.
If you don’t you will be vulnerable to a predicable temptation. (complain)

• Complaining is a daily temptation.
  
• Many are unaware of the seriousness of this sin against God Himself.

You can see the difference in a grateful pastor and a self-righteous pastor.
Protect your wife, children. What do your children hear about the church from you.
Teach your church to see evidences of God’s grace in things. This is a priority!

2. Faith for the Future. (6).
Faith inform Paul’s labors for this church.

Our confidence is based on the fact that God will see them to the end.

You can be certain about God’s work in your church’s life.

This will make all the difference. (Heb 11:6) To have faith in God’s work in your church.

Set aside time to study faith.

Charles Bridges, all our failures lay in our lack of faith. The main difficulty is in ourselves, in conflict with our own unbelief. It is faith that enlightens our work with perpetual cheerfulness.

Where is your confidence when you stand behind the sacred desk? In the one that will keep his ones to the end. In the gospel of salvation.

If you are discouraged by the intelligence of other, then your confidence is in the wrong place.

We need confidence in God and in the gospel. And in the promises of God.

Be cheerful in your private seeking to please God.

3. Affection for others (7-8).
Do you yearn for your church?

We are to reflect the affection Christ has for the church. (It was a theologically informed affection)

Could you write the same thing to your church?

Contemplate the love of Christ for that individual if you don’t have that affection.
See the cross and contemplate the love of the Savior.


The challenge is maintaining joy over the long run. We have every reason to be joyful pastors.

John Piper: How does the Supremacy of Christ Create Radical Christian Sacrifice

What is the great reward? What is the joy set before us?
All of those ultimately refer to the supremacy experienced as the all satisfying to your life.

Hebrews 10:32-35, 11:6, 11: 24-26, 12:2, 13:12-14.

Wider context. That my ministry would have radical flavor, a gusts, counter culture flavor. It makes people uneasy because you are pursuing Christ. You live and preach in such a way that your church becomes salty. Crazy people that meet cancer and death with trust in Christ and treasure Him above all else.

The world is not going to glorify Christ because they see that Christians are wealthy and healthy and prosperous. For that is what they live for! Don’t build a church on being safe, middle class. Have a radical flavor! It will cost your life to build a church that is radical for Christ.
Where are the pastors that say with Paul, “my life is not any worth at all, but to proclaim the gospel.” The world needs to see that type of pastorThe only authentic ministry is one that will suffer. Jesus says that all Christians will suffer.

2 Tim 3, Rom 8,
Do not think it strange when you have come in to various trails thinking that something unusually is happing to you .How can you ever want to get through the world safe!?


What creates such a ministry?
Hebrews is a sermon to believers (13:22). The sermon was given to call Christians to radical services of sacrificial love.
10:32-35. What cause these people to accept the plundering was their persuasion of the value of the reward that they would receive. What created this sacrificial service was heavenly minded us.
11:24-26. Present sacrifice is sustained by the hope of eternal reward.
12:2. Jesus looked to the reward.
13:12-14.

In all these texts, the arguments are the same. We are treasure our eternal world vastly more than we treasure this world.


Christ is that reward.
The book seems to show Christ as a means to the reward.
Clearly, from the Bible, Christ and His work are a means to something. In the very moment of his means work he became and displayed the supreme beauty of the glory of the grace God. So Christ in His means works becomes at the moment the clearest focus of the purpose for which we are made. We are made to praise the grace of the glory of God. In His means work, He becomes my end.


Conclusion
Everything in the book that it says intensifies our love for him and our desire for him to be our final reward. This supremacy of Christ is poured into the pronoun “him” in 13:13. The sweetest fellowship that you will ever know with the Savior is the fellowship of His suffering.
The Supremacy of Christ is present, personal, precious treasure.

Albert Mohler: Why They Hate It So: The Doctrine of Penal Substitution.

There are some that hate the idea of substitution. Any reference to penal substitution, wrath, meets resistance. The question is not why the unbelievers hate it so, it is why some that call themselves Christians hate it so.

Antipathy is sometimes showed so clearly against substitution that you cannot miss it.



Atonement, Objective, Subjective
Objective: Centered in the fact that God’s disposition towards sinners must change
Subjective: The key issue is the sinners disposition to God. Something inside the sinner must change toward God.

If we hold to the objective we will see the subjective. The subjective is always determined by the objective.

The dividing line is clear, That a holy God who must demand a penalty for sin and provides a penalty through His Son who meets the full righteous demands of the Father and satisfied the wrath of God. If not we change the atonement.

This truth is reaffirmed in the reformation and growing Protestantism.

There is a growing rejection of a need for an objective atonement



Theories of the atonement: (J I Packer)
1. The cross has it effect on humanity
2. On hostile spiritual forces
3. For God’s hostility towards sin.

Number three contains one and two.

Refer to three different problems
1. Humans problem is that they are trapped by hostile spiritual forces
2. Humans need to know that God loves us.
3. God’s righteous wrath against sin.

Penal substitution is a belief for all evangelicals.



A denial of a penal understanding is never alone. It has a system of ramifications in all fields of theology.

This controversy is across the Christian world. But it is more focused in those that want to change the whole of theology.



Four lager groups of objections to substitution,
1. Biblical:
We have misunderstood the scripture in whole or part. We have the whole bible story line wrong:
(1) It is a misconstrue of sin. It is a self induced pain Wrath.
(2)Where ever wrath is mentioned it is the natural out working of sin. It comes with its own consequences.
(3)Sacrifice. The animal was not being punished. It is a model but was not a objective. The Bible did not require sacrifice. Disobedience brings about alienation.
(4)Is. 53. The language has to been properly understood. Suffering alongside us, not for use.
Prophetic expectation. Isaiah was not looking for one that would pay for sin but one that would free.
(5)NT, OT. Reading categories in the OT text from the NT.
(6)Words of Jesus. In the NT we have no direct access because he never wrote anything. (denial is always connected to other doctrine)
(7)We miss the message of Jesus which is non-violence.

Some say, the Bible does teach it, but we are not going to believe it.

The central objection is the view of God. His holiness defines his love.

Walter Wink: "The soul message of the cross is the victory is non-violence over violence."

Theological objections
1. Sounds like God wanted Jesus to die.
2. We needed to be changed towards God not God towards us.
3. At the cross we meet, not wrath, love and educational experience.
4. God is not a God who punishes sinners, but a God who is merciful.

We can forgive wrongs against us, but we cannot atone for them.

Moral objections
1. Divine Child abuse.
2. The OT is wrong in the sacrificial system and Christ died to end it.
3. Marital abuse is from penal substitution.

Cultural objection
1. Not compelling to today’s people. People don’t view themselves as sinners.
2. To individualistic.


With the denial rejection of penal you open the gospel up in inclusivism. Under cuts eschatology, no hell. Undercuts the church.

1. The cross is central to Christian preaching
2. There is always more to the cross than one concept can bare.
3. There is no way to modify the gospel with out repudiating the gospel
4. Gospel deals with sin.
5. A therapeutic age demands the therapeutic answer.
6. Penal is the only adequate explanation for God being loving and merciful
7. We have been to individualistic.
8. Sinners need to here the truth and be saved from the wrath to come.

Mark Dever: Gospel

People try to improve the Gospel. But in trying to improve it they lose it. (Cor, Gal, Col,). Do a study through the NT to find what the gospel is.

The gospel according to the Bible: God is fundamental. His creation, our plight, God’s solution by sending his Son. Him redeeming the creation.

Gal 1:4,We must keep the truth of the gospel clear. There are new challenges that rise against the gospel in every culture. They say that the gospel we preach is reductionistic. Just focusing on the message of Christ, they feel, is not giving full weight to what we should preach. However, we are not reducing it, we are is preserving it.

The threats that we face today.
A misunderstanding of what the church’s responsibility and the individual responsibility can reek havoc.

Five cries that people raise.
1. Make the gospel Public:

What is the gospel about? To transform the culture more than individual salvation. We are not instructed to directly instruct the lost on how to do culture. It is the effect of instructing Christians to live out the gospel. Only the return of Christ will bring the kingdom of Christ here on earth.

How much do we see the kingdom here on earth?

Confusion is created when we confuse transforming the culture as the main mission of the church or of the gospel.

Realize that the gospel given to us is a unique message that has been entrusted with us. We must make a distinction between the gospel and other things we hold to be true. Acts 8:12. The result of preaching of the kingdom of God is that people are baptized. Unchristian do not do kingdom work. When you add an “and” to the gospel, then you confuse the gospel. Evangelism is the priority. Works of compassion are part of a Christian’s life but they are not the gospel. Never substitute good works for the preaching the gospel.


2. Make the gospel larger.

Did Jesus come only to save our souls? What is at stake from this question is the core of the gospel. The people who make this cry think through the gospel worldview. However, implication of the gospel are sometimes referred to as part of the gospel. They agree with the gospel but want to add more.

Non-Christians can hold good moral positions but that does not make them Christians. We must not misunderstand what a Christian is. We must not misunderstand what the gospel is and what its implications are. Our good deeds only commend the gospel if the gospel is already there. Should distinguish the between the life produced by the gospel and the gospel itself. 1 Thess 2:8.
If we confuse the gospel with social issues, what do we do with Christians that don’t agree with our social Christians?


3. Make the gospel relevant.

How will people be saved? Some see the gospel as irrelevant to people today; so, we must follow Paul and contextualize the gospel.

Beware, a concern for evangelism with no ties to important theological truth leads to theological liberalism.

Shouldn’t our lives other than our weakly services draw people?

Seeking just one group does not show the uniting power of Christ.

We should contextualize the gospel. There are external ways to preach the gospel. We do this, not for our own comfort or the comfort of the sinner. One way to see if you are reaching people is to see the offense the gospel brings. If human skill can bring people in the church, then greater human skill can take them out.


4. Make the gospel personal.

Are we saved alone? Some people only see salvation as individual and not as part of the church. our participations either validates or falsifies our claim to preach the gospel. What does salvation mean? Are we saved alone or through the local church. People have gifts to serve a local congregation. However, the church is just one means to grow spiritually, but it can be left out if needed.

Some see the church as a plural form of Christianity. It is just made up of individual Christians. Being vague about the church can hurt the gospel.

The audible gospel is to be displayed by the visible church. Our life is to be live congregationally. The church is a furnace that produces more light. The very reason the world exist is that Christ may have a bride and show His glory to her.


5. Make the gospel kinder.

This people say, the ultimate goal of the gospel is the greatest good for the most people. So God wants to save the most people that he can. Reaching is not seen as them hearing the gospel but making people saved.

This is a root of the other problems. This tries to justifies God before the eyes of lost people as a kind. God is about the most glory of Himself. All that exist, exist for His pleasure.
Rom 9. God does what he does to make Himself known. Eph 3:10. We should want to see people saved, for there good, but more so for God’s glory.


Defend the gospel! The gospel is not merely about social issues but about eternal issues. Keep the gospel clear! Free from distortions. Don’t try to improve it!

John MacArthur: The Doctrine of Total Inability

John 5:39-40. Those who search the scripture with a goal to attain eternal life will not turn to Jesus. John 6:44
The doctrine of inability is the most attacked doctrine. It is the most attacked because it is the most despised.

It is the most distinctive Christian doctrine.

Because good works are the foundation for all other religions, Total inability is the most attacked.

People know that they are evil but will not see the evil in there good works.

Man is so sinful that he makes other religion.

There are so many evangelical spokes people hate the doctrine of Total depravity.

Church growth strategies are against this doctrine.

Every group that minimized this truth has strayed.

Total depravity is the historical doctrine of the church.
If you drop into the world today you would think that it is new because of the prevalent view of “free-will.”

What is the Bible’s teaching on this doctrine?
Usually in the language of death.
This is a condition that effects everything in the person.
So powerful that no sinner, unaided by God, can over come it.

Preachers don’t realize that what the sinner wants is the last thing God wants to give them

Eph. 2: 1-3. We have inherited a corrupt nature from Adam (Rom, 1 Cor). Sinners by birth.
Eph. 4:18.
Col 2:13. God commands and life comes.
John 1:12-13. Salvation is the work of God.
John 3:3-8 (8, it is up to the Holy Sprit. He moves when he wills)
John 5:21.
John 6:34.
John 8:36.
(In none of these texts Jesus never defends the sinner’s will.)
Rom. 8:7-8. The sinners is unwilling to come to Christ.
1 Cor 2:14.
2 Cor 4:4-6. (4)It is a compounded blindness: flesh, world, Satan. (6) it is the divine miracle to give light to the blind.
Rom 3:10-12.

Total Depravity: You can only sin. You cannot please God savingly. It affects you totally.
The contemporary idea is that there is some residual goodness in sinners.
Arminian Theology: The sinner must make the first move. Then God will move.
Depravity: The sinner can’t and won’t move.

In regeneration we neither move or cooperate.
2 tim. 2:25.
Titus 3:3-7.

Implications:
Historical of rejecting this truth:
The heart of old liberalism.
Don’t want to be about doctrine
Want to just live like Jesus.
Destroyed the church.
Church Growth movement.
(never present Jesus as the one who will meet the fallen sinner’s wants)
A Biblical approach destroys the sinner’s self-centeredness.
Never appeal to what enslaves the sinner to try and save him.
“Soft preaching makes hard people”

Never change the message according to cultural conditions.

The hearts of sinners are always the same. All need the same message.

Be Meek, be humble.
So, one should be as humble as those who preach the gospel. We are the only group that can take absolutely no credit for what we do. We can only take credit for what we fail at. We are only clay pots.

Be faithful to understand that the condition of the sinner is one that you can never change by anything you do.

The heart of the sinner never changes. The means of God changing the heart has never changed.

Ligon Duncan

Sound Doctrine Essential to Faithful Pastoral Ministry:
John 17:13-17

We live and minister in a an age that thinks that it is anti-theological.

Doctrine is for delight.

Truth is for Growth (Matt. 28:19-20) Jesus says to teach them everything that he ever taught them. Teach them to live it out.
1 Tim. 1:3-5. The first thing in the greatest pastoral work is this: not letting people teach or listen to false doctrine. Because our charge is from faith. Good theology worked deep into our heart by the Holy Spirit produces a life of love.
1:8-11. Life is explicitly tied to doctrine. The true life is to be in accordance with the gospel. The gospel is tied to the life of the believer.
Titus 1:1. Your knowledge of truth is vital to your holiness.

Truth Matters. We must meet this Port-modern reversion petition by celebrating doctrine. We must bring the substance with the Bible theology We ought to out live and out die the critics of theology.

1.The very ideas of theology are under dourest in our time. There are many evangelical that would call into question the need of theology.
All around us we hear, “deeds not creeds.” “We need a to be more concerned with narratives.” People dislike theology because theology can kill. Six million Jews died because of bad theology. The basis for Tolerance is that theology can kill you. Scott McKnight: (1) the Bible is a story. (2) language cannot contain God. The Bible is not a story narrative. We must put the story together. The objection that language cannot contain God cannot be found in Scripture. It is found in an alien philosophy.

Biblical theology: looks through the Bible and sees the development of theology.
Systematic theology: what the Bible says on a specific issue. We do it when someone ask the question, “what does the Bible say about this.”


2.Show you from Scripture that systematic theology is necessary, important and unavoidable.
We cannot escape doing theology. Everyone is a theologian, the only question is, “are you a good theologian or a bad theologian.”
Luke 24:24-27. “the things concerning himself.” Jesus did a topically and systematic study of the Messiah.
Acts 18:27-28. “showing by the Scriptures that the Christ was Jesus.”
Acts 17: 2-3. Paul doing the same thing.
Romans is divided systematically.
Systematic theology is not the produce of alien philosophy.

3.What doctrine is important for.
Doctrine is for God’s glory. Romans 11:32-36.
For our assurance. John 15:15. Why was it important for Jesus to teach election. After disciples forsake the Messiah the only assurance that they will have is when they remember the fact that Jesus, seeing all there faults and knowing what they would do, chosen them.
For Marriage. Eph. 5:25. The NT will point us to the cross and will give us commands because of it. The Atonement informs your love for your wife.
For Joy. Phil 3:1.

Theology is for life!

The End of T4G (At least until 2010)

T4G is over. It was a blessed time of challenge and encouragement. The messages ranged from great to phenomenal. The giving of books was overly generous. It was, all in all, a great time.

It was very nice to see Agent Tim for the little time that I did. But with Tim coming to Boyce in the fall I know that I will see more of Him. I was disappointed that I did not get to see Aspiring Theologian there, but I do eagerly a wait to read his takings from the conference if he posts them.

I have class in about 15 minutes, so I do not have much time. I will be posting the notes from most of the messages. Because the battery life of my laptop is not the greatest I took meager notes on Thabiti and R. C.'s messages on paper. Which, of course, are some of the best messages of the conference...(That would have to be the case right!)...But I do apologize for that.

You can, actually, download all the messages from the conference for free from here.

Band of Bloggers

Okay, I know that I am slow! But here is the first for all that I have received from the conference…

First off is the Band of Bloggers. Three hours before the main conference started there was a gathering of bloggers at the Galt Hotel (the site of the first T4G). There we had lunch and listened to a panel made up of well known bloggers. It was a question and answer format where a moderator ask the panel questions then let each one give an answer. Then, after that, people in the audience were able to ask the panel questions. On the panel was Abraham Piper, Thabiti Anyabwile, Phil Johnson, and Tim Challies.

(Note: These are not direct quotes (I cannot take notes that fast!) but the general ideas that they were getting across. If it is a direct quote it will be in parenthesis.

Also, Two things other things: (1)These are not all the questions either, just the ones I was able to make good note of. (2)Some answers are not in full. Meanings that I would miss a point here a there in the whole discussion. But what I do post reflects what the person does say.)


The first set of questions were asked by a moderator,

Q: What does it mean to blog as one that has been redeemed?


Piper. He was reminded of the parable of the talents and ties it in that he has been given a stewardship with his blog. Specifically, what he as a blogger has been entrusted with is the gospel. In our posting we are not to bury the gospel. In fact our blogs should be gospel flavored.

Anyabwile. What we discuss on our blogs should be saturated by the gospel. In our blogging,“the blood should leave its stain.”

Johnson. Echoed Piper in that blogging is a stewardship.

Challies. The shadow of the cross should be over everything.


Q: (1)How does your salvation shape your blogs? (2)Why do you do what you do?


Challies. (1)Saved is who he is, so he likes to talk about it. (2) Book reviews. No one else was reviewing books for the purpose of testing its soundness theologically.

Johnson. (1)Salvation shapes his thinking so everything has a connection to the gospel.(2)What he does on his blog just depends what is going on in the week.

Anyabwile. Love and burden for the church. Yet, he tries not blog about issues that pertain to his local church.


Q: Controversy on the bloggersphere. (1)How do, or should, we handle this and (2)the temptation to use it to increase readership at your blog?

Challies. (2)Just like more money will not satisfy, more readers will not satisfy. (1) Always check your heart. It is a good idea to sit on a post for a day if it is controversial.

Johnson. The dominate issue is not controversy. We need to discuss hot button issues to think through things. But we need to be balanced and not just focus on stirring or getting into controversial subjects.

Anyabwile. (1) There are two things to keep in mind on this issue. First, we need to keep the main thing the main thing. Yes, there are hills to die on, thus we get into controversy. Number two, we do not to seek controversy on secondary issues.

Piper. We need to think about the way we go about doing controversy. Are our arguments actually causing those we disagree with to think and notice the soundness of our arguments? Or are we just being congratulated by our own circle of friends when we make a point on a comment?


Q: What do you do to hold yourself accountable?

Johnson. He has accountability with other bloggers. If he gets a email from a well respected person that he should not have posted such and such then the post probably should not have been posted. His wife, also, reads over all his
posts.

Challies. The members of his local church continually talk to him about his blog.


Question from the audience:
As pastors that are mainly responsible for the flock entrusted to you, how you manage that task and blogging?

Anyabwile. Blogging is completely unnecessary. If need be it could be dropped instantly.

Johnson. Your calling as pastor is your main responsibility. Blogging should never be a threat to that responsibility.

Start of T4G and Band Of Bloggers

Together for the Gospel starts today!

I got early with Alex to help setup for the Band of Bloggers. Stuffing bags with the books that differnt publishers are giving away. They have the list at the Band of Bloggers Website if you want to see what I am getting :)

We get a lunch at the Band of Bloggers meeting and get to hear a panel discussion from some well known bloggers. I will post the notes sometime. (I don't know when I will find the time during the conference, so it may be up after it finishes)

The first T4G session does not start until 2:00.

T4G 06 Messages

For all those who are interested, you can download the messages from the 2006 conference for free. You will find them here.

Ligon Duncan at T4G 2006

T4G

(I am sorry that the audio is off on these videos. Try to bear though it the best that you can. Thanks)

Together for the Gospel: Mark Dever

Together for the Gospel

XI Marks