The Gospel Coalition

Yesterday was a great day. From 10 am to noon we had our first all staff meeting since the merger took place between New City and Coral Ridge. It was a remarkable time of fellowship. I explained to the staff just how important it is for us to become a demonstration community.

What do I mean?

I carefully explained that one of my goals as senior pastor is for our staff to embody gospel-centered community so that we serve as a model to the rest of our church. How will we do this? I told them how important it is for us to laugh with one another, cry with one another, love one another, serve one another, exhort one another, and forbear with one another. I explained just how necessary it is that we pray together, read the Bible together, and serve together. We must share in one another’s pleasures and pains. And we must strive, by God’s grace, to “stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). I told them that my expectations were basic: work hard at becoming the kind of community we want our church to become–self-sacrificial and gracious, not self-protective and perfectionistic.

If we do this we will soon see that our commitment to demonstrate God-centered community will trickle down throughout our church, and then our church will increasingly become what we long for our surrounding area to become. As this continues to happen, our church will model what human life and community can look like when fueled by the gospel.

That’s the way God does things—he critiques by creating. He shows us what’s wrong by giving us a model of what’s right. Think about the incarnation of Jesus: God the Son becoming man, taking on human flesh, and showing us perfect humanity. God “critiqued” what was wrong with sinful humanity by showing us, in Christ, what humanity was originally intended to be and what redeemed humanity will one day be again.

The church joins with Christ in showing the world what’s wrong with it. Christ, the Head of the church, did it by demonstrating what humanity is intended to be; the church, as Christ’s body, does it by demonstrating what human community is intended to be. We work at becoming together what God wants the rest of the world to become. The purpose of God’s people is to show a watching world what will one day fill the whole earth.

If Christians care to make a difference in this world, it has less to do with gaining political power or electing the right officials and far more to do with actually living out our new life together in this new community—the church—before the watching world. Our best approach for reaching people in today’s world is living with the people we’re trying to reach and showing them what human life and community look like when the gospel is believed and embraced.

God’s great evangelistic tool is the church—this new, counter-cultural community in which the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit comes to expression in the unity, community, and joy of God’s people. As we live together in a way that’s consistent with who we’ve been remade to be, we become a blessing to the world by showing them how sweet life can be in a community of individuals who love one another, care for one another, defer to one another, are patient with one another, and serve one another. The world will take notice of a community of men and women who refreshingly and joyfully bear one another’s burdens and who actively look to lay down their lives for others in need because Jesus laid down his life for them. When the world sees that Christians want to help people because God has helped them, they’ll begin to ask what makes us so different. A faithful presentation of the gospel to our world, in other words, requires Christian community on full display.

And, as I reminded the staff of our one new church yesterday, it begins with us.
 

Tim Keller has a new book coming out in October on idolatry entitled Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex & Power, and the Only Hope that Matters.

A couple weeks ago, Kim and I had the chance to catch up with Tim and his wife Kathy over dinner. Tim had come down to South Florida to finish this book. He seemed excited about it. I am too.

Here’s the publisher’s description of it:

The issue of idolatry has been with the human race for thousands of years; the subtle temptation is always to take what is good and turn it into the ultimate good, elevating it above all other things in the search for security and meaning. In this timely and challenging book, New York pastor Timothy Keller looks at the issue of idolatry throughout the Bible — from the worship of actual idols in the Old Testament, to the idolatry of money by the rich young ruler when he was challenged by Jesus to give up all his wealth. Using classic stories from the Bible Keller cuts through our dependence on the glittering false idols of money, sex and power to uncover the path towards trust in the real ultimate–God. Today’s idols may look different from those of the Old Testament, but Keller argues that they are no less damaging. Culturally transforming as well as biblically based, COUNTERFEIT GODS is a powerful look at the temptation to worship what can only disappoint, and is a vital message in today’s current climate of financial and social difficulty.

Bryon Mondok reviews my forthcoming book Unfashionable for the Good News here.

From John Piper:

The greatest of men—like the apostle Paul and St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther and John Calvin and George Whitefield and William Carey and Jonathan Edwards and Billy Graham—the most admirable of men are only meteors on the sky of history. They last about a third of a second and then are gone. But God is like the sun. And generation after generation he rises on the just and the unjust and never fades in his glory. “To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to ALL GENERATIONS, FOR EVER AND EVER. Amen.”

On the same day that my new book Unfashionable is released (April 14), my publisher is re-releasing my book Do I Know God? in paperback. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m excited about it because I had the opportunity to go back and slightly revise it.

When the original was published, there were sections that were left out during the editing process and things I later wished I would have said more clearly. Well, all of that is fixed in this new revised version. Plus it’s cheaper.

If you don’t know anything about the book, here’s a three-part interview that my friend Josh Harris did with me when the book first came out 19 months ago. 

Please pray with me that the re-release of this book will serve to help people find certainty in life’s most important relationship.

My younger brother Aram is one of my closest friends and by far the funniest guy I know. We are both die-hard Miami Heat basketball fans. Not long ago, my two boys (Gabe and Nate) were watching a Heat game one Saturday afternoon and saw my brother Aram up-close and personal on TV cheering for our beloved team. Later that night, Aram was a featured fan on ESPN highlights. You can watch it here. He’s the non-bearded guy with the green T-shirt. Funny stuff.

Here’s what Aram and his friend (pastor) John had to say about this momentous event in their lives:

“I’m just like any one of you guys” said Aram in his awww-shucks manner, “I just happen to be on National television and be seen worldwide by trillions of people.”

“Here I thought I got a lot of face-time as a pastor” said John, pastor/announcements guy at Aram’s church. “And I just know that if it wasn’t for the camera man singling out the ruggeddly handsome Aram in the crowd, we’d never have made it on TV. Pffft – and to think I almost brought Jay”.

My friend Mike Horton (J.Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California) has written a follow-up book to his excellent Christless Christianity. It is entitled The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World and will be hitting the shelves in October. His publisher offers this synopsis:

In his well-received Christless Christianity Michael Horton offered a prophetic wake-up call for a self-centered American church. With The Gospel-Driven Life he turns from the crisis to the solutions, offering his recommendations for a new reformation in the faith, practice, and witness of contemporary Christianity. This insightful book will guide readers in reorienting their faith and the church’s purpose toward the good news of the gospel. The first six chapters explore that breaking news from heaven, while the rest of the book focuses on the kind of community that the gospel generates and the surprising ways in which God is at work in the world. Here is fresh news for Christians who are burned out on hype and are looking for hope.

Mike is always thoughtful, provocative, and very hepful. I look forward to reading The Gospel-Driven Life.

I apologize for being so slow to post new stuff this week. It’s been a very, very busy week. In fact, I told a friend of mine today that I’m still trying to figure out how to properly adjust to the pace of my new life. Anyway, I will do my best to post more frequently in the days ahead.

In the meantime, however, I wanted to re-post this quote from Ray Ortlund that I have read over and over again. Reading this again reminded me that God never uses people who love safety more than sacrifice. The world desperately needs more God-saturated, happy, on-fire, lay-down-your-life followers of Jesus who understand that God plus nothing equals everything and that everything minus God equals nothing:   

There is only one way to live: all-out, go-for-broke, risk-taking, pedal-to-the-metal, ferociously joyful and grateful enthusiasm for the Lord Jesus Christ. Halfway Christianity is the most miserable existence of all. Halfway Christians know enough to feel guilty about themselves but haven’t gone far enough to get happy in Christ. Wholehearted Christianity is very happy.