Power Point

Sweet & Awful

We sang this song at my church on Sunday Evening. The words really ministered to my heart.

How sweet and awful is the place
With Christ within the doors,
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
"Lord, why was I a guest?"

"Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there's room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?"

'Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, O our God,
Constrain the earth to come;
Send Thy victorious Word abroad,
And bring the strangers home.

We long to see Thy churches full,
That all the chosen race
May, with one voice and heart and soul,
Sing Thy redeeming grace.

--Isaac Watts

it's a girl!

I know that I haven't posted anything in a long time, but this is definitely worth the wait. We had another ultra sound today, and we are going to have a little girl!

We got a bunch of 2D pictures as well as some 3D images. Here they are:

C.J. Mahaney on Humility

I was excited about the opportunity to hear John Piper speak. He is one of the foremost expositors of evangelicalism and one of its most recognizable names. Unfortunately God saw fit to take his father home to glory on Tuesday night. You can read about it here (grab a hankey--it is very moving to see God's grace to the Piper family).

Although disappointed about not hearing Piper, we were blessed last night with the wonderful exposition of C.J. Mahaney. If you want a more thorough presentation of his sermon, check out Tim Challies's post on the session. In fact, he is live blogging the whole conference at his website.

Here is a summary of my sermon notes. It was one of the best sermons I have ever heard.

Isaiah 66:1-2 was his text. He made two points during his exposition of the passage:

1. The Perils of Pride (66:1).
• Pride was the first sin, and is the source of all sin.
  
• God hates pride (Prov. 16:5)
• "Pride has many forms but only one end--self glorification."
• It is not a question of if pride exists only where it is hiding.
2. The Promise of Humility (66:2)
• Humility captures the attention of God: "the one to whom I will look..."
• Humility is divinely attractive.

He went on to list several specific methods for eliminating pride (our greatest enemy) and promoting humility (our greatest friend). I will list them without much comment:

1. Study the Attributes of God.
2. Survey the Cross of Christ.
   
3. Study the Doctrines of Grace.
4. Study the Doctrine of Sin.
• Learn about your depravity.
  
5. Apply the Doctrine of Sin.
• Confess specific areas of your depravity.
  
6. Invite and Pursue Correction.
• He especially encouraged us to pursue correction from our wives who know us best and love us most.

He then listed several areas specific to pastors:

1. Seize the humbling potential of the preaching task.
2. Use unflattering illustrations of yourself.
3. Recognize your theological limitations.
4. Prepare to be replaced.
5. Recognize your relative unimportance.
6. Play golf often
• He views this as a definite means of humility =).
  

As if this wasn't convicting enough, he gave us several daily tasks he does to promote humility:

1. As soon as you wake, acknowledge your dependence on God.
2. Incorporate in your devotions specific times of thankfulness.
• "Thankfulness is not a soil in which pride easily grows." --John Stott
3. Practice the spiritual disciplines (prayer, study and worship) as a means of admitting dependence on God.
4. Seize your commute as a time for meditation and Scripture memory.
5. Cast your cares on the God who cares for you.
• Trying to solve our problems on our own is an exercise in self-dependence and pride.
6. At the end of the day, transfer all glory for what you have accomplished to God.
7. Before falling asleep, acknowledge your insufficiency that is manifested in your need for sleep. Thank God for the gift of sleep.

I wish I had more time to write my further reflections. Just writing this post has fed my soul again from this passage. I will try to write more as the day progresses.

Grace to you,
Christopher

Shepherd's Update

We have heard two wonderful sermons (Dr. John MacArthur and Dr. Steve Lawson) as well as a very insightful seminar (Phil Johnson).

• Here are my notes from Dr. MacArthur's Sermon on Why Every Self-Respecting Calvinist is a Premillennialist.
• I took notes on Phil Johnson's seminar and Steve Lawson's Sermon, but my laptop ran out of juice so I will have to type them out and post them later. Phil Johnson's session was entitled The Theory of Relativity and dealt with the pressing issue of Post Modernism. Steve Lawson's sermon on Apostolic Preaching was worth the price of admission.

Here is my new desktop background if you are interested (this is for all of you poor non-widescreen folks).

Ultrasound #2

Tiffany and I went for her second ultrasound yesterday morning. By God's grace, everything seemed to be going just fine. He [or She] was jumping around inside like he [or she] was on a trampoline. It was so cool to watch. Here are some pictures:

Update: I am at the Shepherd's Conference this week. I will be posting regular updates on the week. Stay tuned.

The Big Announcement:

I am going to be a daddy!

I wanted to let you know that, as long as the Lord continues to give my wife and child health, we will be parents on September 15th. We found out on January 31st that my wife was 7 weeks and 4 days along. Tiffany went in for an ultrasound on the 31st to check on some possible complications. We were able to see our little ween (Irish: "we one") and hear his (generic masculine pronoun) heartbeat. We cried. It was amazing. When God grants new life, it is truly a miracle. Enjoy a few pictures. There will be many more to come, I'm sure.

p.s. I just wanted to add that birth control is not as effective as they say it is. But we are kinda glad it wasn't.

I can't tell you how excited I am...

I just booked my plane ticket today for what promises to be an incredible week (March 6-12). I am going to the Shepherd's Conference in beautiful Sun Valley California. Shepherd's Conference is a ministry of Grace Community Church which is pastored by renown expositor and defender of the faith, John MacArthur. I am going to be enjoying helpful seminars from gifted teachers as well as wonderful expository sermons from some of the foremost expositors in evangelicalism. And if that weren't enough, I am going to be staying with one of my best buddies, Nate Williams, for the week. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about the week. I can't promise anything because I don't know what my internet access will be, but I will strive to post regular updates about the conference. Stay tuned for at least one more post before I leave...it may be my best yet.

snow thoughts

For those of you who read this blog from outside of the Greenville area, we got some snow today. Now, in typical Greenville fashion, it came early in the morning and turned into slush by 10am. But for a few fleeting moments we had some pretty white stuff on the ground. I did managed to get a couple of decent pictures of our church before it all turned to slush.

As I was walking around my cul-de-sac this morning, my mind was drawn to certain passages of Scripture that use a snow imagery to convey God's truth. Here are a couple of things to consider as you are thawing out after one-too-many snow angels.

• Psalm 51:7 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow."
  This is part of David's prayer to God after being completely told by the prophet Nathan. He comes to God in repentance and asks for cleansing from his sin. He knows that through His wonderful grace God can purge him to be cleaner than the purest snow (see also: Isaiah 1:18)
  
• Job 38:22 "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail..." This is perhaps one of the lesser known references to snow in the Scriptures. This makes up part of God's response to Job's inquiries. He asks Job if he has ever visited the heavenly storehouses which hold the snow that God sends on the earth. What a neat picture of God's provision for us and a great place to build a snowman!
• Isaiah 55:10-11 "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." Isaiah uses the imagery of snow to portray the extent to which God's Word will impact its hearers. When you look outside in the early morning after a good snow, you see every surface covered in a blanket of white. In the same way, God's Word is pervasive in the extent to which it covers. Not only does it cover but it also is promised to accomplish the purposes for which it was sent.
• Revelation 1:14 "The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire..." This may be the coolest reference to snow in Scripture. Imagine the awesome brilliance that Christ will exude as He sits on His throne. It is no wonder that we will fall in worship with all creation. I can't wait to be there!

There is much more that could be said, but that is all the time I have for now. My wife and I are going to go home after lunch because the weather is supposed to get nastier this afternoon (sleet, hail, ice...general yuck). I hope all of you stay safe and warm.

Grace and Peace,
CMW

Anybody want in?

Before you read any further: most of my posts thus far have not been interactive. I have written about things and you have read and hopefully been edified. This post is intended to be a discussion and an interaction. If you want to comment but don't have a blogger account, you can get one here. Its easy and painless.

Why do I insist on church membership? It is probably one of the few things I believe strongly in that does not have explicit Scriptural support. That's right. I admit that there is no explicit Scriptural evidence for church membership. There are some related passages we will get to shortly, but nothing explicit. So why do I believe in it so strongly? Well, I can sum it up in one word: accountability. The biblical picture of the New Testament church shows a strong interrelationship between the members of the body of Christ. This bond is intended to create a mutual accountability between believers that will encourage personal holiness (Heb. 10:24). So why the need for church membership? Let's take a look.

Key Passages that seem to indicate church membership:

• 1 Corinthians 5:1-13--this passage speaks of the removal of the incestuous brother from the church. Paul makes some interesting statements that give us the impression that the church in Corinth had a specific list of members.
  
• "Let him who has done this be removed from among you" (5:2)
• "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?" (5:12)
• "God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." (5:13)
• 2 Corinthians 2:6-7--this passage speaks of the comfort that comes from the majority of the church. This would imply that there was a way of determining a majority in the congregation.
• 1 John 2:18-19 -- the Apostle John mentions those who have "gone out from us" because they "were not of us" this implies that there was a clearly definable group that John could refer to as "us."
• 1 Timothy 5:9 -- Paul instructs Timothy to enroll widows who were indeed widows. The fact that there was a specific list concerning widows gives us some indication that there was a list of the church body at large.

Now you might be thinking, "That's not exactly the strongest biblical basis I've ever seen." To which I would answer, "Yep, it sure isn't." That is why I called them passages that seem to indicate membership not passages that require church membership. So then the question is, "If there is no specific biblical evidence for it, why have church membership at all?" To answer that question, we must consider what it is we are talking about? What is church membership? Or perhaps a better question is, "What is it that we are agreeing to when we become members?" Well, many churches have a covenant that new members must sign or agree to. This is our church covenant. But more generally, what are we agreeing to when we become church members. Let me suggest a couple of things:

• Church membership signifies a church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation. That is when a church places someone in the membership rolls they are testifying to the fact that as far as they can observe from a human perspective, this person is regenerate. This is an important differentiation between the type of church membership that has been practiced at other times in church history. We are talking about striving for a regenerate church membership.
  
• Church membership signifies an individual commitment to grasp hold of one another in mutual love and discipleship. What we are suggesting here is that church membership is more than just a way to keep track of financial records. There is a purposeful accountability that takes place between members. We each promise, or covenant, as a body to help each other grow in Christ-likeness.
  
• Church membership signifies a regular responsibility that involves people in each other's lives for the purposes of the gospel. I think the two key words here are involves. Naturally we do not want other people to be involved in our lives. We'd much rather prefer them to butt out. But church membership makes that different. The other key word here is gospel. Church leadership does not promote membership merely to send themselves on a power trip. They are trying to promote the saving and sanctifying work of the gospel in everyone's lives.
  
• Church membership signifies an inward love for God and His people. Trust me, you won't go through the previous steps if you don't have this inward love for God and His church.
  

So what I am suggesting is not some loose affiliation like you would find at the local rotary club. I am not talking about a social club that meets occasionally for the personal enjoyment of its members. I am talking about fellow believers joining together and covenanting with each other to provide mutual accountability for one another. The encouragement is uplifting, the fellowship is sweet, the accountability is sanctifying, the correction can be painful, but the result, by God's magnificent grace, is transformation into the image of Christ.

Church Membership has a purpose, and it is a good one. Anybody want in?

Note: I must give some other people credit for some of these ideas. They are not all mine. You should check out what Mark Dever has to say about membership at his website. It is dynamite stuff. You will most likely notice some similarities.