Archive for April, 2011

A Taste of Good Preaching

My son is currently hooked on the Pixar film Ratatouille. The story takes place in Paris where a rat named Remy desperately wants to be a cook, and prove that he is not just an ordinary rat. He ends up at Gusteau’s, one of the finest restaurants in Paris, where he secretly cooks by controlling the actions of the garbage boy (who turns out to be Gusteau’s son) by sitting under his togue and pulling at his hair (it is a cartoon after all!). The premier, and toughest, food critic in the city is Anton Ego, who due to his unfavorable review caused Gusteau’s to lose one of its stars. Gusteau himself took this personally resulting in his untimely death.


His son meanwhile is rising to stardom through the cooking of Remy. After many adventures and obstacles the story comes together when Ego finds himself at Gusteau’s one final time, to partake of a meal that will determine his forthcoming review of the restaurant under the young Gusteau’s leadership. Remy chooses to prepare a most humble dish, ratatouille, hence the name of the movie. With his own special ingredients and spices, Remy prepares the dish for Ego and awaits his opinion. I really can’t tell you what happens next, I have to show you, so here it is:


What Does This Have To Do With Preaching?
Everything! The second Anton tasted the ratatouille, he was a different person! Good preaching enables you to taste the goodness and greatness of Christ, and changes you on the spot. The best preaching is not merely, “here’s the information, now go do it.” The best kind of preaching causes you to worship while you are hearing the sermon. It sinks to the core, to the affections (to borrow a word from Edwards), and moves you toward God, causing you trust, worship, and adore Him more. This kind of preaching makes you “hungry for more” of Christ. How do you preach like this? I’ll let you know when I figure it out!

GB
2011
04/29
CATEGORY
preaching
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Idols Part 1

In my sermon on Easter I referred to idols, as I have on many occasions, as something in our life that is non-negotiable, something we value as ultimate. I gave a list of many questions to help you discover what truly is the most important thing in your life. Here is the list, via Greg Wilson’s blog, with a few more questions to help navigate through some of these issues. In my next post I hope to talk about some ways we can deal with the idols in our lives after we identify them. For now, here ya go:


Thirteen Questions on Discerning Idols (from Soul Idolatry Excludes Men Out of Heaven, by Puritan Pastor David Clarkson)
  • What do you most highly value?
  • What do you think about by default?
  • What is your highest goal?
  • To what or whom are you most committed?
  • Who or what do you love the most?
  • Who or what do you trust or depend upon the most?
  • Who or what do you fear the most?
  • Who or what do you hope in and hope for most?
  • Who or what do you desire the most? Or, what desire makes you most angry or makes you despair when it is not satisfied?
  • Who or what do you most delight in, your greatest joy and treasure?
  • Who or what captures your greatest zeal?
  • To whom or for what are you most thankful?
  • For whom or what great purpose do you work?
Fifteen questions from Tim Keller on uncovering idolatry in your life:
  • What are you most afraid of?
  • What do you long for most passionately
  • Where do you run for comfort? Anger?
  • What do you complain about most?
  • What angers you most?
  • What makes you happiest?
  • How do you define yourself to people?
  • What has caused you to be angry with God?
  • What do you brag about?
  • What one thing do you want the most
  • What do you sacrifice for? (sacrifice = worship)
  • If you change one thing in your life, what would it be?
  • Who’s approval are you seeking? Is it anyone other than Jesus?
  • What do you want to control or master?
  • What comfort do you treasure the most?
David Powlison listed a similar set of eleven diagnostic questions in his book Seeing With New Eyes:
  • What do I worry about most?
  • What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live?
  • What do I use to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?
  • What do I do to cope? What are my release valves? What do I do to feel better?
  • What preoccupies me? What do I daydream about?
  • What makes me feel the most self-worth? Of what am I the proudest? For what do I want to be known?
  • What do I lead with in conversations?
  • Early on what do I want to make sure that people know about me?
  • What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?
  • What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?
  • What is my hope for the future?
To be continued…
2011
04/25
CATEGORY
idolatry
idols
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Men’s Night


Really excited to announce our first MEBC Men’s Night. On Thursday May 5th the men of MEBC will gather for a night of worship, teaching, and discussion. I will be teaching on The Art of Manliness. What it means to be a man in our culture might be one of the most confusing issues we are facing today. I hope to look at some of the models of masculinity that are popular, and then show how radically different the Christian view is. I hope you will make plans to be there. Be sure to invite your friends who might not be Christians. I hope to see you there!


GB
2011
04/23
CATEGORY
Men
Mens night
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When You Fast Part 2

For those of you who are planning on fasting tomorrow and taking part in 627, here are the ways I recommended you do it. If you have other ideas I’d love to hear them.

Fasting Ideas
For all the ideas below, I’d suggest eating no food and drinking only water or juice. I recommend that you drink more water or juice than normal during the fast. If you are unable to go without food, try going on one small meal for the day, rather than what you normally would eat. When you break the fast, be sure to eat something light and healthy at first before moving on to normal size meals.

If you are physically unable to fast from food due to health reasons, fast from something food-like, such as TV, Facebook, texting, caffeine, Internet, games, etc. I would recommend parents encouraging the kids to do something along these lines rather than fasting from food.

Lunch to Lunch: Eat breakfast and lunch on Wednesday, skip supper Wednesday night and breakfast Thursday morning, drink water or juice. Break the fast with a light lunch on Thursday.

Sun Up To Sun Down: On Wednesday, as long as the sun is up, fast from food, drink only water or juice. You may have an early breakfast and/or a late supper, just as long as its dark outside! This one seems to be the most popular.

No Food Wednesday: Skip meals altogether on Wednesday drinking only water or juice.

Happy fasting,

GB
2011
04/19
CATEGORY
fasting
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When You Fast


After yesterday’s sermon, I realized that fasting is somewhat foreign to many of our people. Someone approached me after the sermon and said they had never heard a sermon on fasting in the 23 years they’ve been a Christian. Wow! If something like that is true for you, don’t despair, you are not alone. For whatever reason, I was exposed to fasting early in my Christian life through the writings of Dallas Willard and Richard Foster. Being a little more familiar with it, I think I assumed too much in my sermon Sunday. I realized I may have failed to explain exactly what you are to be doing when you are actually fasting. What takes the place of food?


As I said in the sermon, fasting is feasting on God alone. He becomes our food in fasting. However, there are some practical things you can do when the hunger pangs hit, or when the lunch break starts. What we mainly should be attempting to do is meditate and pray. Here are some ways you may want to do that throughout the day and when you have some down time:

Rapid Reading
Attempt to read 2-4 chapters in a small amount of time. Don’t skim and don’t rush. But set a good pace, think through each sentence, and absorb several chapters within 10-15 minutes. I would suggest Romans 5-8, Psalm 1-10, entire letters of Philippians, Colossians, or 1Peter, Isaiah 53-55, Ruth, or Revelation 2-3. Once you have read, write down few things that stuck out to you, and turn them into prayers of worship, praise, confession, or thanksgiving. Here are some questions you may want to ask:
  • What does this text tell me about God that I can praise Him for?
  • What does this text tell me about myself that I can confess?
  • How does Jesus ultimately fulfill this text and answer this sin?
  • What does God want me to ask of Him based on this text?
Thank Him that you are saved through the grace of Christ, not through your performance, therefore you can believe/obey/embrace the truth of this text.

Meditative Reading
Take one small passage like Psalm 23:1, Romans 8:1, Philippians 2:5-11, Colossians 3:1-4, John 6:27, or some other passage that you’ve come across lately in your reading, and pore over the passage. Read it several times; to yourself and aloud. Read slowly, pausing over each word, thinking deeply about it. As you read, emphasize a different word each time through. Ask why that word was used rather than another. Think how the text would be different if a certain word were left out. Then answer these questions about the text:
  • What is the basic truth of this text?
  • What can I adore God for this?
  • What sins occur when I forget the truth of this text? What do I hope in/rely on/trust more than Jesus that causes this sin?
  • How is Jesus the ultimate fulfiller of this text or answer to this sin?
  • What do I need from God to realize this truth in my life?
  • Why is God showing me this truth today?
  • What would my life look like if this truth became explosively true in my inner being?
Thank Him that you are saved through the grace of Christ, not your performance, therefore you can believe/obey/embrace the truth of this text.

Specific Prayer
During times when you would normally be eating, use the time to “scope in” some specific prayers. Make a list of a few prayers you want to see God visibly answer over the next few days, weeks, or months.

Chew On One Verse or Truth
Another option is to take one verse or one attribute of God, and chew on it all day. As many times as you can, think through it, pray through it, ponder it, say it to yourself, and let it become alive to you.

These are just some suggestions, you may want to use some of your own methods. The point is simply for us to commune with God and allow Him to be our food. I hope you will try this as well as be present for our 627 Prayer Service.

Praying and Fasting,
GB



2011
04/18
CATEGORY
fasting
meditation
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Holy Week Plan

If you need a good reading plan for Holy Week I recommend The Book of Common Prayer Daily Office Lectionary.


GB
2011
04/18
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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Crazy Weeks and Other Stuff

The next two weeks are going to be crazy! Here is the breakdown:


The Gospel Coalition
Heather and I are leaving in the morning for The Gospel Coalition Conference in Chicago, and returning Friday. There is a packed schedule from the time we arrive, until the time we leave. On top of that I have to find time for some sermon prep.

Baptism Sunday
The way it looks right now we will be baptizing around 15 people this Sunday, mostly during our 10:45 service! I am super excited to see this.

Member Meeting
This Sunday night is our member quarterly meeting at 7PM. Be sure to be there if you are a Metro East member.

Study Week
Starting Monday April 18th I will be out on study leave during the week until Friday morning. My plan is to get my sermons planned out for the remainder of the year as well as prep for a few events coming up. Please pray that this will be a productive time.

627
On April 20th is our 627 Prayer and Fasting Service. I will be explaining more about fasting this Sunday.

Good Friday Service
April 22 we are doing one Good Friday service. We will partake of the Lord’s Supper and look at the meaning of the Cross.

Easter
3 services are planned for Easter Sunday. I can’t wait!

OTHER STUFF
Two other things that might be of interest to you.

1Timothy Series Completed
The 1 Timothy Sermon Series is complete. All of the sermons are online for free and can be accessed HERE. I’d love to hear your feedback about it.

3 Ways To Live
I did a short blog series called 3 Ways To Live. I mentioned something about that in the sermon yesterday. You might want to check it out if you are interested. HERE it is.

GB

2011
04/12
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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Baptism Sunday


If you are a part of Metro East, check out the details for our Baptism Sunday HERE.


GB
2011
04/08
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
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I Need Your Help!

Please help me with some research I am doing and name 2-4 magazines that you read or have read in the past. You can comment on this blog post, or you can comment on Facebook. This would be really helpful for me!


GB
2011
04/05
CATEGORY
magazines
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Book Log Thus Far


Here is a list of books I’ve read this year so far. My goal is somewhere between 50-60 per year. As of now, I am somewhat near that goal, but hope to catch up in the summer.


1. 40 Questions About The Bible by Robert Plummer

2. Overcoming Barriers To Church Growth by Michael Fletcher

3. Letters To Malcolm by C. S. Lewis

4. How To Break Growth Barriers by Carl F. George

5. 40 Questions About Elders and Deacons by Benjamin L. Merkle

6. Reading The Bible and Prayer In Public by Stuart Olyott

7. The Supremacy of God In Preaching by John Piper

8. Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites by Bradley Wright

9. Not God’s Type by Holly Ordway

10. What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Sex by Ryan Howes, Richard Rupp, and Stephen W. Simpson

11. The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer

12. A God-Sized Vision by Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge

13. King’s Cross by Tim Keller

14. Preaching Christ From The Old Testament by Sidney Greidanus

GB
2011
04/05
CATEGORY
Books
reading list
1 comment
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