I don’t often cry, but it’s hard not to when listening to Gianna Jessen speak of her hope in Christ. Part 1 is her story, a child who survived an abortion, part 2 is a moving call for men to be men, women to be women, and to live for Jesus.

I’d never heard of this lady before, so thanks to Adrian Warnock for blogging it.

When’s the last time you looked another Christian in the eye and said ‘Mate you’re a sinner.  I know you have struggles, I know you’re tired but, deep down you’re wicked!  That’s your real problem.  But Mate - you’re clothed in the righteousness of Christ, carried on His heart before the Father, rejoiced over in the presence of the angels.’

Glen Scrivener

Things in life haven’t gone quite the way I hoped or desired just recently…

My general responses have been to sin, to be angry at God and others, and to not trust God’s purposes - yeah it’s easy to quote Romans 8:28 - I’m sure that is true, but it doesn’t look or feel that way at the moment.

I don’t have anything more to say on sin other than what Glen Scrivener has written - how should we respond to sin? Except maybe a thought from Romans 7…

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

As for responding to God, it’s the lack of trust and blindness to ’seeing the big picture’ that expose idolatry, false motives, selfishness and sin. I guess I just want to go back and listen to CJ Mahaney on Unanswered Prayers.

Mark Driscoll kicked off the Dwell London conference by explaining the gospel - highlighting the difference between the Gospel of Grace, and the Religion of Works.

Mark began by quoting Martin Luther from his lecture on Galatians 2:14 -

“The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine…. Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

Driscoll then went to 1 Corinthians 15, asking - What is the Gospel?

• It’s continual (now I would remind you)
• Proclamation and Explanation
• Pastoral and Personal
• Essential (don’t assume too much, preach the priorities)
• Relevant (don’t make it, show it)
• Christological - it’s all about Jesus
• Penal Substitutionary
• Biblical (it was prophesied)
• Eschatological (it has a future)

Under the PS point, Mark alluded to his knowledge of the NWA foundation, and told the story of how his church grew by 800 people on the week he preached PSA! He said that he wants to be a ‘truth teller’ - “I’d rather be hated than ignored - that’s my ministry!” Mark then moved on to look at the two enemies of the Gospel - Idolatry and Religion.

Idolatry

Driscoll quoted Luther who said that idolatry was “the sin”, and that it all came down to the first two Commandments - if we disobey the first two we have an idol, and will break the other commandments.

An idol is that which takes pre-eminence, which receives our worship. We’re all spiritual people because we all have our own definitions of heaven and hell, and the a ‘Functional Saviour’ (our idol) to take us from hell to heaven. He then goes on to reference Tim Keller who has a set of questions to expose our idols:

What are you afraid of? What do you long for? Where do you get comfort? How do you introduce yourself? Whose approval do you seek? What makes you happy/sad?

Religion

Mark started off by showing the clear differences between the Gospel of Grace and the Religion of Works:

If I obey God loves me  vs.  God loves me, his Spirit enables me to obey

Good and Bad People  vs.  Repentant and Unrepentant Sinners

What you do  vs.  What Jesus has done

He then explained the result of religion, it either leads to pride and self-righteousness (these people stay in the church), or despair at not being good enough (these people walk away from church). Rather, the Gospel ends in joy, those who receive grace are humble and happy.

Acts 17 - God commands ALL men to repent (religious and idolatrous)

Romans 1:16 - Mark reminded us not to be ashamed of the Gospel we preach, and again to notice that it goes to the Jews (the religious people) and to the Greeks (the idolatrous people)

Steve’s second talk was entitled ‘Planting communities of Grace‘. He opened by reading 1 Timothy 3, and then briefly spoke about groups and the 5 stages of a ‘group’ defined by Dr. Bruce Tuckman:

1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performing
5. Adjourning (he added this one at the end)

Steve stressed that the forming stage was the time to build a ‘dynamic of Grace’ into the structure, the DNA of the group. Then in to 1 Timothy 3:

The need for stand-out godliness (v.1-13)

• The principle to be ‘above reproach’ (in all things)
• Leaders should model real-life, practical holiness
• A love for strangers - “Grace with clothes on”

The means of stand-out godliness (v.16)

• ‘The Mystery’ - godliness revealed in Jesus
• Through relationships, lived out in real life
• Grace - to be loved and lived
• Chief of Sinners + a lover of grace and people

Where it comes together (v.15)

• In the church!

Steve then brought up two final thoughts:

• “litter the world with communities of grace”
• (point 5) Adjourning - keep going, keep replication, keep planting communities of grace

Steve gave two talks about grace in church planting - ‘Church Planter as a Minister of Grace’ and ‘Planting Communities of Grace’. Steve is involved in lots of different things; Crowded House in Sheffield, Radstock Ministries, and the Porterbrook Network who had partnered with Acts29 to put this day conference on. Here’s the first talk:

Church Planter as a Minister of Grace - 1 Timothy 1

Identity

• The Foremost of Sinners (v.15)
• A conviction not a comparison
• Paul’s past convicts him (v.13)
• Grace more than abundant (v.14-15)

Ministry

• Background - Ephesian heresy, Grace being turned into Law
• v.3-5, Paul confronts, instructs and teaches
• Encourages Timothy - to fight, contend, to pray indiscriminately (2:1)

Relationship between Identity and Ministry
Model Grace:

• You are an undeserving recipient of Prodigious Grace
• You don’t base ministry on performance (that’s legalism)
• You display humility in conflict and opposition
• Love the unlovely and unlovable
• Be kind an patient (2 Tim 2:24-26)
• Handle success and failure with grace
• We are trophies of grace - for HIS glory

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken, Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;

An extract from Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If…’

Here’s a little video produced by UCCF for the final night at NWA. If you want to understand the Bible from beginning to end and only have 3 minutes, this is a good place to go!

As these shouts and screams from the mob grow in volume, what’s it like for our Lord to look out upon these people? Even if you can’t recognize yourself among the angry face, or distinguish your own strident voice… He can. And in response to those sinful shouts and curses from you and me, Jesus yields to the sentence of death……
When we begin to grasp that we joined that mockery - that we are to blame for the Saviour’s death - we start to understand the seriousness of our sin.
But convicting you of sin is not my ultimate purpose here; rather, I want to convince you of grace. For when you’re deeply aware of your sin, and of what an affront it is to God’s holiness, and of how impossible it is for Him to respond with anything other than furious wrath - you can only be overwhelmed with how amazing grace is.

Only those who are truly aware of their sin can truly cherish grace.

CJ Mahaney, Living the Cross Centered Life (page 88)

A couple of weeks ago I went to Keswick week1 (with mother and father). As week1 is still in term time for some schools, it seems to be rather dominated by those of a latter generation, those who think Steve James is a young and trendy worship leader, who reminisce about old hymns and Scripture Union songs, and who laugh at the lamest of jokes and Dave Fenton’s pink shirts.

Anyhow, the theme of the week was Grace. Highlights were John Stott’s last preach, on Christlikeness, and Simon Manchester on Jonah. Alec Motyer gave the morning bible readings, an overview of Exodus which was superb. And I went to a couple of afternoon seminars looking at Hebrews with Jonathan Lamb and Simon Manchester.

The weather was a bit rubbish so I spent more time in cafes than at the top of mountains, but the lunches and the cakes were very good in the tea rooms. I think I’m turning into a bit of a conference junkie, it’s great to combine a bit of a holiday with some great Bible teaching and time to chat with folks - sadly I can’t make it to Forum but we’re all booked in to New Word Alive - on the subject of NWA, us Sussex students made it to the promo video (see at 1:25).