How to Keep the Gospel in Your Community

Posted on May 10, 2009

In an effort to deepen our church in personal and communal gospel living, we will be working through Tim Chester’s You Can Change this summer. We have cast vision and trained our leaders on cultivating communities that speak the truth in love to one another. However, it has become apparent that we also need to equip our communities to help one another live in the gospel. When someone shares a pattern of sin or a false belief they need to be encouraged or challenged by someone else in their City Group to believe what is true, to live in the pattern of grace. I believe You Can Change will help us do that. Here are a few reasons why:

  1. It is about Gospel-centered change: “The secret of gospel change is being convinced that Jesus is the good life and fountain of all joy.”
  2. It heads off Gospel-distorting approaches to change: 1) Proving ourselves to God 2) Proving ourselves to others 3) Proving ourselves to ourselves.
  3. Personal Change Project: Every chapter includes Reflection Questions for discussion and a Personal Change Project that helps us identify an area of sin in which we need gospel-centered change. This a powerful process.
  4. Ten Key Questions: Each chapter raises an important question that leads us through the process of gospel-centered change. See Table of Contents here.
  5. It emphasizes Faith and Repentance as key to change: “We begin the Christian life in faith and repentance, and we continue the Christian life in faith and repentance.”
  6. Chapter 7 changed me on the spot: “If you let any of those gods down, they will beat you up. If you live for people’s approval or your career or possessions or control or anything else and you don’t make it or your mess up, then you’ll be left feeling afraid, downcast or biter. But when you let Christ down, he loves you still. He doesn’t beat you up; he dies for you.”

Read chapter five free. Also, Tim and Steve Timmis will be releasing a book on The Gospel-centered Life in about a month. Tim’s newest book Ordinary Hero releases Friday.

John Murray on Propitiation

Posted on May 10, 2009

On Sunday we examined the Atonement, lingering on the idea of propitiation from Romans 3:25: “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” To “propitiate” is to absorb, appease, or placate. On the cross, Jesus absorbed God’s just wrath that should have been absorbed by us. Is God’s wrath at odds with his love? John Murray helpfully states:

The propitiation of the the divine wrath, effected in the expiatory work of Christ, is the provision of God’s eternal and unchangeable love, so that through the propitiation of his own wrath that love may realize its purpose in a way that is consonant with and to the glory of the dictates of his holiness. It is one thing to say that the wrathful God is made loving. That would be entirely false. It is another thing to say the wrathful God is loving. That is profoundly true. ~ John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, 31

Why Do You Obey God?

Posted on May 7, 2009

If you obey, why do you obey God? Out of duty, in hope of reward, because your momma told you to? How we answer this question is utmost importance. If our answer is sub-biblical, we run the danger of misconstruing the gospel. If our answer is unbiblical, our discipleship will be fraught with angst with the grave possibility of abandoning Christian faith.

Given the gravity of this question, we should slightly tweak it to form a second question: “Why Should we obey God?” Answering this question is equally important. We need to honestly reflect on personal motivations for our obedience, as well as biblical motivations. The disparity between the two will prove quite illuminating in discerning how to regain Christian joy and hope in everyday struggles of doubt, despair, sin, and indifference to God.

So why do you obey…and why should we obey?

Timmis on Gospel Communities

Posted on May 7, 2009

Steve Timmis is an innovative leader in The Crowded House and Porterbrook Traning Centre and now European Director for Acts 29 in the UK. I’ve had the joy of working with Steve on a few things and my respect for him grows each time. Here are some outstanding resources on cultivating gospel-centered missional communities.

Resurgence has provided three sessions on Total Church traning on Gospel Communities.

  • Session 1: Gospel-centered Principles – an outstanding explanation of the Gospel summarized as: “Jesus, God’s promised Rescuer and Ruler, lived our life, died our death and rose again in triumphant vindication as the first fruits of the new creation to bring forgiven sinners together under his gracious reign”.
  • Session 2: Gospel-centered Practices – focuses on the “how tos” of GCs, addressing language, structure, mission.
  • Session 3: Gospel-centered Practices – focuses on more best practices on leader development, etc.