There is a lot of truth to these words & parable by Francis Chan.
The Big Red Tractor
Posted February 10, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Church Growth Movement, Holy Spirit
Tags: Big Red Tractor, church, Francis Chan, Holy Spirit
J.D. Greear on 20/20 Collegiate Conference
Posted February 6, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Conferences, Religious Pluralism
Tags: 20/20 Collegiate Conference, J.D. Greear, Jesus, SEBTS
Greear is preaching from Acts 4 on the significance of Jesus being the only way to heaven. There are six cultural assumptions on why this belief is so controversial to most Americans.
1. Our culture believes that claiming there is only one way to God is archaic.
Christianity was born into a world where saying He was the only way was every bit as politically incorrect, if not more so, than it is today.
2. Claiming that there is one way to God is arrogant.
Peter’s attitude in verse 20: “we can’t help but speak what we have seen or heard.” It is not arrogance but believing that Jesus is who He said He is.
David Platt at 20/20 Collegiate Conference
Posted February 6, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Conferences, Gospel, SBC
Tags: 20/20 Collegiate Conference, David Platt, Gospel, Poor, SEBTS
David Platt begins his message with this video clip. Give is a look.
Below is a summary of the key points Platt made in his message this morning. When first personal pronouns are used, they are quotes of David speaking . . .
The last few years have been a crisis of belief in my own life, and it has revolved around the Bible. “Do I believe that it is true?” Not if I believe it is accurate or authentic, but if I believe it to be true. If it is, then the implications of our lives are staggering.
20/20 Collegiate Conference
Posted February 4, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Conferences, SBC
Tags: 20/20 Collegiate Conference, Danny Akin, David Platt, J.D. Greear, Matt Chandler, SEBTS
There are numerous conferences taking place this week, and I have the opportunity of attending one of them: the 20/20 Collegiate Conference put on by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It is my plans to post my thoughts and perhaps even live-blog some of the messages should that be a possibility, so I encourage you to check back over the next couple of days. If you are read the blog and are attending the conference, I hope to have the opportunity of meeting you. You can follow all other updates via my Twitter.
Here is the conference schedule for those interested:
Friday, February 5
7:30 PM Plenary Session I (Daniel Akin)
8:30-8:45 PM Worship
8:45-9:45 PM Plenary Session II (Matt Chandler)
Saturday, February 6
8:45 AM Plenary Session III (David Platt)
10:00 AM Breakout Session I
11:15 AM Breakout Session II
1:15 PM Afternoon Worship
1:30 PM Plenary Session IV (JD Greear)
2:45 PM Breakout Session III
3:55 PM Worship
4:00 PM Plenary Session V (Clayton King)
Dysfunctional Calvinism
Posted February 4, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Calvinism
Tags: Calvinism
I hope that my writings in support of Calvinism gives me the credibility to offer a few words concerning dysfunctional Calvinism. If not, I am going to say it anyway. 
Most of the Calvinists I have met are robustly evangelical and passionate about the gospel. They love the church and have found their soteriological understanding as empowering to their Christian life, causing them to function with greater confidence and courage under the sovereign purposes of God. However, there is a Calvinist here and a Calvinist there, few to be sure, who have provided sufficient provocation to address dysfunctional Calvinism.
What am I taking about, you might ask?
In Defense of Physical Community
Posted February 2, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Ecclesiology, Resources
Tags: Community, Internet Church, Jake Johnson, Technology
As a follow-up to my post about technology and the absence of community, I want to direct you a a series of guest posts by Jake Johnson on Rethink Mission wherein he makes a good defense for physical community, contra “internet church.” Here are the links:
–> In Defense of Physical Community – Part One
–> In Defense of Physical Community – Part Two
–> In Defense of Physical Community – Part Three
–> In Defense of Physical Community – Part Four
The Missional Church
Posted February 1, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Missional
Tags: Missional, Missional Church
A short, helpful, general explanation.
Exegeting the Context
Posted January 19, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Culture, Preaching
Tags: Community Exegesis, Context, Culture, Preaching
As someone who is still relatively new to preaching, I am finding myself given more and more to not only the content and delivery but also reception. In other words, I am giving myself not only to rightly understanding the text of Scripture but also the context of people’s lives. We often stress the importance of faithfulness to the biblical text (and rightly so), but as pastors there is a call to faithfulness regarding to the context as well.
One of the reasons why I love the Puritans so much is because they were to “earthy”. As Phil Ryken puts it in his book, they were “Worldly Saints.” In his excellent little book on preaching, William Perkins displays this in giving multiple categories of hearers, such as unbelievers who are ignorant and unteachable, unbelievers who are teachable but ignorant, unbelievers who have knowledge but have never been humbled, those who believe but have fallen back, and those who believe and are growing in their faith. For those of you prepare messages on a weekly basis, a large majority of your time is in the text with very little time left over to working through the context of people’s lives. But it is here where we learn that faithful expository preaching is inadequate apart from ongoing pastoral ministry.
The Bible Isn’t Boring!
Posted January 18, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Bible
Tags: Bible, John Piper
Good Works Before Men, Righteousness Before God
Posted January 16, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Holiness, Jesus
Tags: Christian Living, Jesus, Sermon on the Mount
Jonathan Edwards says in his book Religious Affections that the chief of all signs of true and saving grace is Christian practice. He makes his argument on numerous texts, beginning with “by their fruits you will know them” (Mat. 7:16). He goes on to say that Jesus gives others the right to judge us on our Christian practice based on Matthew 5:16 (“Let your light shine before others that they see your good works . . .”). What I find fascinating about this is what Jesus sandwiched between the two statements about good works and bearing fruit.
Half of Matthew 6 is focused on “beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.” The three big areas of this practice is giving, prayer, and fasting–some of the foundational practices of biblical spirituality. He tells them not to do them before other people but before the Father who sees and rewards in secret.
It seems on the surface that Jesus could be taken as contradicting himself here. In Matthew 5, good works are do be done before men. In Matthew 7, the fruit of our Christian lives ought be seen and verifiable by others. But in Matthew 6, Jesus is warning his followers to not let their practices be seen before men to be seen by them.
How would you respond to someone who is confused over this matter? How do you let your light shine before others in such a way that the good works seen by men at the same time do not violate the commands to practice righteousness before men and lose your reward from the Father in heaven? If by the fruit of our Christian practice people will be able to judge we genuine professors, how do we do that without a kind of practice before others that judges us as hypocrites (as seen in Matt. 6)?
Continue to pray for Matt Chandler
Posted January 15, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Prayer Request
Tags: Cancer, Jesus, Matt Chandler, Suffering
Here’s the latest from Matt Chandler. May God continue to give Him grace to suffer well and commend to a watching world the unsearchable riches of knowing and treasuring Jesus Christ.
His Joy in Us for the Race Before Us
Posted January 12, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Jesus
Tags: Faith, Fruit, Jesus, Joy
For the past couple of weeks, I have been meditating on a familiar passage of Scripture as I have been preaching on gospel-driven endurance from Hebrews 12:1-3. Sometimes the more familiar passage, the more we miss because of our assumption that we know all that the Spirit is teaching us on that particular verse. At least that’s been a lesson I’ve learned in my study.
In Hebrews 12:1-3, there are two things that have been “set.” There is a race “set before us” and there is the joy “set before Him (Jesus)”. The way in which we are to run is by looking to Jesus–that is looking by faith in Him in all that He is for us as seen in the gospel. After having explained the grand scope of salvation accomplished by all three persons in the Godhead, Paul prays that the Ephesian believers would have “the eyes of their hearts opened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you” (Eph. 1:18).
We do not see Jesus with the human eyes, but God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). Therefore we see Jesus by faith through hearts that have been enlightened (cf. Eph. 1:18). Believing is beholding, and through believing in Jesus, we “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Pet. 1:8). This is no ordinary kind of joy. It is glory-laced joy–the kind of joy that was set before Jesus that motivated Him to finish His race to die for sinners, endure the Father’s wrath, and drink the bitter cup that was reserved for us.
The joy of Jesus was the pleasures of His Father and bringing Him glory, revealing His character and accomplishing His mission of bringing redemption and salvation to everyone who puts their trust in Him. We are the fruit of His mission, and it was the joy of Jesus that caused this seed to go into the ground and die (John 12:24). One of the stunning reflections came when I saw the connection between our fruitfulness and His joy. In the same way that by looking to Jesus we are able to run with endurance, it is by abiding in Jesus that we are able to bear much fruit, for “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
Jesus explains this to us because (1) the Father is glorified in our fruit-bearing through faithful abiding, and (2) He intends that His joy may be in us, and our joy may be made full (John 15:11). This is remarkable. The joy that Jesus had in Him–the joy which was continually set before Him–is the joy that He would set in our hearts! And this is not a joy that would be initially deposited in small measure, but Jesus gives it to us in full measure!
So when you run the race God has set before you, He not only wants you to obtain the prize (1 Cor. 9:24), but He also wants you to feel His pleasure as you look to Jesus. As you believe in Him, the pace of our running should be propelled by the glory-laced joy in hearts, though inexpressible, is manifest in the way we pursue the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14). It is my prayer that as the eyes of faith behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that glory will be shown as we endure with joy and bear abundant fruit in the satisfaction of Him who has given it in fullest measure.
Lord, increase my faith.
Posted January 8, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Prayer, Puritan Persuasion
Tags: Faith, Puritan Prayers, Unbelief, Valley of Vision
This Sunday, I’m preaching on “the sin” of unbelief which ensnares believers in the Christian race. I have been meditating on this prayer from The Valley of Vision called “Faith and the World” as it has been very fruitful in my thinking. Would that God increase our faith and cause us to run with our eyes fixed on Jesus.
O LORD,
The world is artful to entrap,
approaches in fascinating guise,
extends many a gilded bait,
presents many a charming face.
Let my faith scan every painted bauble,
and escape every bewitching snare
in a victory that overcomes all things.
In my duties give me firmness, energy, zeal,
devotion to thy cause,
courage in thy name,
love as a working grace,
and all commensurate with my trust.
Let faith stride forth in giant power,
and love respond with energy in every act.
I often mourn the absence of my beloved Lord
whose smile makes earth a paradise,
whose voice is sweetest music,
whose presence gives all graces strength.
But by unbelief I often keep him outside my door.
Let faith give entrance that he may abide with me forever.
Thy Word is full of promises,
flowers of sweetest fragrance,
fruit of refreshing flavour when culled by faith.
May I be made rich in its riches,
be strong in its power,
be happy in its joy,
abide in its sweetness,
feast on its preciousness,
draw vigour from its manna.
Lord, increase my faith.
The soil in which plant…the soil in which we die.
Posted January 5, 2010 by Timmy BristerCategories: Church Planting, Community, Gospel, Missional
Tags: Church Planting, Gospel, Mission
So much of the discussion of church planting focuses on gathering the fruit without first deepening the roots. A flourishing church comes to life when there are people who have come to die. In the words of Jesus, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
As I have been reflecting on the church planting process, I have concluded the following: a well-planted church is the fruit of a well-planted gospel that is the fruit of a well-planted life.
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