Over at Ref21, Carl Trueman posts a couple paragraphs from an address delivered by Geoff Thomas at Westminster.  I especially appreciated this last paragraph:

Let me exhort you to thank God if he has put you in that river of living grace. There is no greater privilege than to be a pastor-preacher. In the para-church there is extraordinary fascination and vitality (but also there can be self-promotion), and you may well be drawn into some of its ministries, but consider the rich diversity and satisfaction of the work of the local minister. He teaches the Bible to all ages and states of men and women, boys and girls. He lives on to see the fruit of his ministry in their lives. He evangelizes, visits the dying, counsels, writes, organizes, goes to people’s homes, inspires, rebukes, stirs things up and cools things down, involves himself with the affairs of his congregation and denomination, attends conferences, assemblies and serves on committees. There is no richer or happier life. Its foundation is the donation of the ascended, reigning Lord who gives some pastors and teachers. Its boundaries and priorities are defined by the apostolic conviction, “We will give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.” Its sustenance is the divine river of grace. God never puts us where he is not present and where his grace cannot keep us. God never gives graces that he does not intend to be used for his glory and the good of his people. There is a need everywhere for sensible, caring, sound and holy ministers of the new covenant. God is their all sufficiency. May you be satisfied with him and be kept by him for long, enriching lives of Christian service. Prepare for the blessedness of such a vocation by daily appropriating your great High Priest.

Reminds me of the sacred writ:

Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.  The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.  (Heb. 7:22-8:2)

Enjoy Jesus your Great High Priest today.

There are tons of worthwhile, high-profile conferences going on all over the place.  And with the plethora of big names and big events, there’s the likelihood that we may overlook and miss out on some smaller events with as much or more punch for our spiritual lives and ministries.  Big isn’t always better.  Faithful is always the measure.  So, it’s a joy to highlight two conferences coming up in the next couple months that feature godly, faithful pastors serving the body of Christ.  If you’re looking for fellowship to go along with the word, check these out:

New Life Bible Conference (Vernon Hills, IL)

One of the high points of my year each year for the past four or five years has been the annual New Life Bible Conference held in Vernon Hills, Ill, just outside of Chicago.  Pastor Louis Love and the saints at New Life are among the most joyful, hospitable, Spirit-filled folks you’ll ever want to fellowship with.  And each year my wife and I look forward to this spiritual shot in the arm.

Truth in advertising: I have the privilege of being one of this year’s speakers.  So, you might think I’m biased.  But here’s another brother’s take on the conference.  Bottom line: Come and you’ll be encouraged.

This year’s theme is “In Christ Alone: The Supremacy of Christ in the Book of Hebrews,” featuring several expositions of the book of Hebrews.  Can’t wait for June 17-19th.  I hope you’ll make plans to meet us there.

You can find audio from the 2009 conference on evangelism in the book Acts  here.

Atlanta Area Pastors’ Conference

If you’re in the Atlanta area, you’ll want to check out this conference!  With the list of faithful pastors and speakers, this should be a great time in the word and practically helpful.

Do you like your shadow? The way it dresses. The way it moves. The way it sometimes exaggerates, stretching and compressing into shapes not quite the real thing.

Sometimes we get glimpses of ourselves in our shadows.  Our shadows reflect things about us, true things, though sometimes distorted things.

That’s why we shouldn’t live in the shadow world.  We shouldn’t hide out in the shadows.  The shadow lands include the realms of almost reality, of almost substance.  But the shadow world does not actually include us.  It can’t exist without us, but it doesn’t really include us.

Imagine standing on a street corner at noon day, when someone comes up and greets your shadow.  They avoid looking at you so they can get a better glimpse of your shadow.  They respect your shadow by not stepping on it, or blocking it from view.  They position themselves so their own shadow doesn’t blend together in a dark blob with your shadow.  But they never acknowledge you.  They never look at you, speak to you, touch you.  They joyfully and vigorously engage with the dark reflection, ignoring the body.

I’ve never had that happen to me.  But I know someone, somebody, who did.  In fact, it still happens to him to this day.  Even those who claim to know him personally often only speak with his shadow.  I remember getting a letter from him wherein he tried to explain these things.

He wrote: “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming–not the reality themselves.” And, “Sacrifice and offering [God] did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.  Then I said, ‘Here I am–it is written about me in the scroll–I have come to do your will, O God.” (Heb. 10:1a, 5-7)

The Old Covenant people of God lived in the shadows, trying to discern the shape of things to come.  Jesus appeared.  The Lord God prepared Him a body.  He came to do God’s will, a will enveloped in darkness and futility in the shadow, but made glorious and bright in the body.  “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus once for all.” (v. 10)  “By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made perfect” (v. 14).

There stands Christ in broad daylight, the embodiment of the law, the substance and reality to which the shadowy law points.   And there streams men to His shadow!  Attempting to observe the law, to establish their own righteousness, to engage Him by speaking to His shadow.  But, “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” (v. 11).

Can you see Jesus, pleading with arms outstretched: “I’m over here guys!  My shadow can’t answer with what you need!  Turn from the shadows and receive the truly good thing, the real thing, Me.  Hey–I promise you two things: I’ll write my law in your heart instead of in the shadows, and I’ll remember your sins and lawless acts no more.” But the priests of Judaism, of Islam, of Buddhism, of self-help, of psychology, of materialism and every other human wisdom and self-made religion continue offering their sacrifices to the shadow, missing the Good One who has come.

A real Savior is better than a shadow savior every time.  We may have the body of Christ instead of the shadow of Christ.  We may be the body of Christ instead of distorted shadows of Christ.  Shadows are not bodies.  Bodies are better–by far.

Here’s how.

God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.  We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.  We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised (Heb. 6:10-12).

Or, said differently:

God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.  In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.  There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives our fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:16b-18).

Words too sublime for blogs.  Please read them again slowly and prayerfully.

These were the passages my girls and I studied this morning.  Seems the Lord desires us to know with certainty our standing in Him and to give confirming evidence through love.

Heb. 6:11 says God will not forget the love we show Him as we help His people.  We love God, in part, by loving and helping His people.  If we’re diligent to love this way–not lazy in love–such love makes our hope sure.  Assurance is held out as motivation for loving God by loving His people.

1 John 4 teaches that if we live in love we live in God and God in us.  God is love.  So, one dominant quality of a genuine Christian life is love for the brethren.  In fact, the church is to be a place of increasing mutual love, where God’s “love is made complete among us.”  The result: “we have confidence on the day of judgment.”  The abounding and maturing love of God in and between us drives out the fear of judgment.  ”There is no fear in love.”  Divine love and fear of judgment cannot co-exist.

If we lack assurance, one remedy is being with and loving God’s people.  It’s another argument for the centrality of the local church and the necessity of our meaningful involvement in her.  As Mark Dever sometimes puts it, “The local church is like an assurance of salvation co-op.”  I think he stole that from the Bible.

Do you lack the assurance of salvation?  Here’s one remedy: Join a church.  Love the people.  Receive assurance.

I’m greatly enjoying mornings with my daughters.  We’ve started a new routine this year.  I spend 15 minutes with each of them discussing the Bible and praying for one another.  With my oldest daughter, I’m studying Hebrews.  With my youngest daughter, I’m reading 1 John.  They chose the books, and God has been meeting with us in powerful ways.

I’m a bit of a dim-wit, because it just dawned on me this morning that these times are rich with opportunity for teaching them not just the discipline of reading (set a time, choose a book, do it regularly, etc.)  but also how to read the Scripture.  I find myself drawing their attention to the basics: subjects, verbs, similes, metaphors, repetition, and so on.  As we do that, we fight taking things for granted in the text and incredibly rich things “pop out” at us.  And we also learn to avoid the frequent mistake of simply jumping to “this is what it means to me.”

That little sentence has been the death of many well-meaning attempts to understand the Bible.  “What it means to me” ruins our understanding because it decapitates the intent of the original author.  What matters first and primarily is “what did it mean to John or Paul or Luke or whoever wrote Hebrews.”  What did the author intend to communicate.  That’s first base in biblical interpretation and its the guard rail that keeps us from driving off into the wilderness of subjectivity and a million swamps of private interpretation.

And, ultimately, we’re concerned to know what the Author–God Himself–intends to communicate with us.  If we’re hasty to rewrite the Bible with our own thoughts, we’ll ultimately write God right out of it.  A premature “what it means to me” takes the pen out of God’s hand and dips it in the ink of our puny intellectual, emotional, social, psychological and usually idolatrous wells.

Writing on a larger subject, but commenting very helpfully where this issue is concerned, Carl Trueman offers the following:

“if the intent of the divine author does not inform and ultimately determine the meaning of scripture, then three things follow: scripture has no normative set or range of meanings; theology becomes merely reflection upon human religious psychology; and God remains an unknown, and unknowable, quantity.” (Wages of Spin, p. 55).

Now that’s a train wreck!  And it explains so well why some people “don’t get anything out of the Bible.”  In fact, they may not be reading the Bible in such a way as to “get something out,” but to always put something in–self.  Can it be any wonder that wherever we put self where God belongs we get nothing out of it?

In it’s proper place–well after we’ve done the careful work of understanding the author’s intent–”this is what it means to me” can be helpful.  It’s then  just another way of bringing home the application.  But if this sentiment forgets its place, it’ll undermine the deeper, richer blessings of Bible study that we’re meant to enjoy when we sit and let the Father speak to us.

“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first” (Heb. 3:12-14).

“And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming” (1 John 2:28).

It is entirely possible to be among the brethren and have a sinful, unbelieving heart.  Judas did.  Judas’ hands mingled in the bowl with the hand of God the Son, but his heart belonged to the enemies of Christ who bought his betrayal for 30 pieces of silver.  The fact that all the disciples asked in turn, “Surely, not I Lord?” reveals the uncertainty they had about their own hears.  As the songwriter puts it: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.”

What a desperately wicked and deceitful and frail thing is the human heart.  And by degrees, subtly and unnoticed, the heart may become unbelieving.  It may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  So much so that some who seemed to begin with Christ may finish without Him.

The antidote: “continue in him,” that is, Christ.

The practical application: “Encourage one another daily.”

The encroachment and deceit of sin is so steady and unrelentless, we need to daily encourage one another.  We need others to speak every day the words of life, to assure us in the faith, and by such words to purge our hearts of unbelief and hardness.  As Paul Tripp put it, “Our words are the principal tool God uses in the work he does through us” (Winning the War of Words, p. 199).  What we say to one another every day has serious spiritual importance; it may be the difference between increasing hardness and increasing confidence before God.

“But if we continue in Him, we may be confident and unashamed on the Day He returns.”  This morning I asked my youngest daughter what she thought it would be like when Jesus returned.  Her first response: people will be afraid.  I think she nailed it.  But I asked her why she thought that.  “Because it will be a surprise and shocking,” came the reply.  Again: spot on.  Sinful men are never ready to meet a holy God.

But for those whose thoughts are fixed on Christ, who love His coming, who long for His appearing, who are in Him, the Day of His return will be a Day filled with confidence and no shame.  We will be ready to meet Him, and seeing Him we will be like Him (1 John 3:2), and seeing Him we will be satisfied completely (Ps. 17:15).  What a great and glorious Day!

So, in view of that coming Day, let me ask you: How is your day going so far?  How might it change by thinking for a moment about that coming Day when Christ will appear and we will be caught up together with Him in the air?  Will we be confident and unashamed because we have continued in Him in faith, love and hope?  Will others be confident and unashamed because today we encouraged them with the word of life?

I pray so.  For every day we need to be encouraged so that our hearts might not harden and our confidence be made solid.

“In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him.  Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.” (Heb. 2:8)

Let this truth take hold: Everything is subject to Jesus.  “God left nothing that is not subject to him.”  The entire creation–everyone and everything in existence, whether in heaven or on earth–lives beneath the feet of Jesus.  Everything bows under the sway of His rule and control.  There is nothing excepted.  He is King, and all is subject to him.  The Savior is exalted far above every power, dominion, principality, ruler–everything!

“Yet at  present we do not see everything subject to him.”  That disturbs some people.  It may even sound like a contradiction.  Or, we may think this means there is something “not yet” under His sway.  And we may be tempted to look around at the world’s chaos–of which there seems to be much–and say, “God did not control that.  Jesus was not in that.  This or that is ‘outside’ the Lord’s will.” In so many attitudes, unspoken thoughts, actions and words, we may say, “Are you really on the throne?”

But the sentence is about us–not Jesus.  It points to a limitation in us–not the Risen King.  Everything is under Him.  But we don’t see it… yet.  At present, our powers of observation are limited.  Our vision is blurred.  Our perception cloudy.  But believing that Jesus is not ruling and that there is anything not yet under him because we don’t see it yet is like believing the sun is not in the sky because the day is cloudy.  The clouds may block the sun from our view, but the sun beams there in all the radiant power it ever had on the hottest, brightest day.

So it is with Jesus.  We do not yet see everything subject to him, but He is the One “sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Heb. 1:3).  It’s not too much to say that the entire universe hangs on His every word.  Everything is subject to Him.  That’s why we call Him Master.

Let us not forget this today, even if we don’t see it fully.

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Heb. 13:20-21).

Do you?

I think my favorite book is Hebrews. Is there a book that so completely demonstrates the supremacy of Jesus Christ over all things?

So, I’m thankful for anything that gives me a deeper love for the Savior by helping me to plumb the riches of the Book of Hebrews. If you haven’t heard already, Justin Buzzard has published an excellent study of the Book of Hebrews. It’s called Hebrews: Consider Jesus. Everyone should pick this study guide up.

Here’s the information from the Good Book Company website:

Product Description

Jesus Christ – it’s a name that still has unique pulling power, even in today’s secular society. Jesus is used as a comforting idea in times of trouble, an inspiration for those seeking spirituality, and even as a figurehead for counter-cultural enthusiasts. But the real Jesus is so much greater than this.

Jesus Christ is at the centre of the Bible’s message and God’s plan for the universe – and at the centre of human history. But is He at the centre of our existence – our hopes, priorities and day-to-day lives? We need to move on from simply knowing the details of His birth, life and death to a deeper understanding of their meaning.

The letter to the Hebrews helps us leave behind out limited views of Jesus by explaining to us the supreme greatness of Christ Himself.

Consider Jesus is a Bible-study guide to help ordinary Christians get to grips with Hebrews. Here is an invitation to fix our eyes on God’s Son – our perfect Brother, faithful and merciful High Priest, atoning Sacrifice and great Shepherd. Use these studies to discover the whole picture of Jesus Christ, and equip yourself to know, trust and follow Him, come what may.

Table of contents

Introduction
Why study Hebrews?
1. God’s greatest revelation (Hebrews 1 v 1 – 2 v 4)
2. The greatest man (Hebrews 2 v 5-18)
3. A greater Moses (Hebrews 3 v 1 – 4 v 13)
4. A greater priest (Hebrews 4 v 14 – 5 v 10 (ch 7))
5. A greater truth (Hebrews 5 v 11 – 6 v 20)
6. A greater covenant (Hebrews 8 v 1 – 10 v 25)
7. A greater promise (Hebrews 10 v 26 – 12 v 3)
8. A greater kingdom (Hebrews 12 v 1 – 13 v 25)

Leaders’ Guide