Toronto Pastors Fellowship Ready to Go on Monday!

The best part of serving other pastors by hosting the Toronto Pastors Fellowship is that I get to read all the papers presented about one week before anybody else. I just finished David Robinson’s excellent work on, “The Pastor as Competent” and I am quite excited to meet with my brothers, hear this paper, and discuss the truths it contains.
I think we have a pretty cool line up this year. Our idea was to listen carefully to Paul’s admonition to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 and 4 and so we will take each section and unpack its relevance to us. David starts us off with a look at what makes us competent in our duties – the Word of God we preach.
As always, there will be some great coffee, singing, time to fellowship, pray together and sharpen one another in the things of God.
Does your pastor attend TPF? Some men say they can’t make it because they take Mondays as a day off. I do, too. But I have found over the last 14 years that “losing” part of my day off once a month to this kind of spiritual input bears greater fruit than gardening. Besides, most pastors have fairly flexible schedules and can probably take another day off, so tell your pastor to come. The Starbucks is free!
Looking forward to seeing you there. All are welcome.

Joy in God - Thanks Haggai!

We have been studying Haggai Sunday mornings at GFC and last week traced out the development of the temple theme in two directions: back to Eden and ahead to the New Jerusalem. What is dominant in that theme is the thought, “God dwells with man.”

Wednesday’s church meeting to pray usually includes some time to put the truth we are learning into action, so I asked our folks to list off everything they could think of about God. My premise was that being residents of this world tempts us to lose focus on the One who will dwell with us forever. We are prone to get more interested in our “paneled houses” than we are in God.

So, in the span of 4-5 minutes, folks just rattled off what they knew was true about God. And as we did that, I sensed our joy in Him getting elevated. I thought I would share with you what the GFC folks said – I was merely “the scribe.”

God is…

• Faithful
• He rejoices over His own
• Love
• Accepts sinners
• Keeps all His promises
• Just
• Cannot be deceived
• Sovereign
• Unchanging
• Patient
• Holy majestic
• Full of power
• Complex
• Answers prayer
• Self-existent
• All knowing
• Provides all we need
• Sustains the universe
• Lives in us
• The Breath of life
• Victorious
• Worthy of worship
• Truth
• Limited only by His nature
• Puts away wrath and judgment
• Loved us first
• Provides the way of escape
• Holy holy holy
• Sends suffering for our good
• Righteous
• Restorer
• Brings justice
• Grace
• Sanctification
• Creator
• Brings the dead to life
• Knows all the deep thoughts of every person
• Convicts of sin
• Does all for his glory
• Does not need us
• Exercises steadfast love
• Not clear the guilty
• Our hope
• Gives strength
• Made the universe, not just the earth
• Takes down His enemies
• Compassion
• Intentional, not arbitrary
• Limits the sea and man
• Lets Himself be known
• A Person
• Angry with the wicked
• Owns everything

The Futility of Regret

Here is a chapter on "The Futility of Regret" from A.W. Tozer's "That Incredible Christian" that Paul McDonald referenced on his blog this summer. I had read it years ago and forgotten about it, but a fresh look increased my appreciation.

I think that many Christians slide off the narrow path into a sea of regret far too often. Ultimately, this reflects a poor grasp of the Gospel. I will be addressing this somewhat on Sunday night at GFC.

The human heart is heretical by nature.Popular religious beliefs should be checked carefully against the word of God, for they are almost certain to be wrong.

Legalism, for instance, is natural to the human heart. Grace in its true New Testament meaning is foreign to human reason, not because it is contrary to reason but because it lies beyond it. The doctrine of grace had to be revealed; it could not have been discovered.

The essence of legalism is self-atonement. The seeker tries to make himself acceptable to God by some act of restitution, or by self-punishment or the feeling of regret. The desire to be pleasing to God by self-effort is not, for it assumes that sin once done may be undone, an assumption wholly false.

Long after we have learned from the scriptures that we cannot by fasting, or the wearing of hair shirt or the making of many prayers, atone for the sins of the soul, we still tend by a kind of pernicious natural heresy to feel that we can please God and purify our souls by the penance of perpetual regret.

This latter is the Protestant's unacknowledged penance. Though he claims to believe in the doctrine of justification by faith he still secretly feels that what he calls "godly sorrow" will make him dear to God. Though he may know better he is caught in the web of a wrong religious feeling and betrayed.

There is indeed a godly sorrow that worketh repentance and it must be acknowledged that among us Christians this feeling is often not present in sufficient strength to work real repentance; but the persistence of this sorrow till it becomes chronic regret is neither right nor good. Regret is a kind of frustrated repentance that has not been quite comsummated. Once the soul has turned from all sin and committed itself wholly to God there is no longer any legitimate place for regret. When moral innocence has been restored by the forgiving love of God the guilt may be remembered, but the sting is gone from the memory. The forgiven man knows that he has sinned, but he no longer feels it.

The effort to be forgiven by works is one that can never be completed because no one knows or can know how much is enough to cancel out the offence; so the seeker must go on year after year paying on his moral debt, here a little, there a little, knowing that he sometimes adds to his bill much more than he pays. The task of keeping books on such transaction can never end, and the seeker can only hope that when the last entry is made he may be ahead and the account fully paid. This is quite the popular belief, this forgiveness by self-effort but it is natural heresy and can last only betray those who depend upon it.

It may be argued that the absence of regret indicates a low and inadequate view of sin, but the exact opposite is true. Sin is frightful, so destructive to the soul that no human thought or act can in any degree diminish its lethal effects. Only God can deal with it successfully; only the blood of Christ can cleanse it from the pores or the spirit. The heart that has been delivered from this dread enemy feels not regret but wondrous relief and unceasing gratitude.

The returned prodigal honours his father more by rejoicing than by repining. Had the young man in the story had less faith in his father he might have mourned in a corner instead of joining in the festivities. His confidence in the loving-kindness of his father gave him the courage to forget his chequered past.

Regret frets the soul as tension frets the nerves and anxiety the mind. I believe that the chronic unhappiness of most Christians may be attributed to a gnawing uneasiness lest God had not fully forgiven them, or the fear that He expects as the price of His forgiveness some sort of emotional penance which they have not furnishes. A our confidence in the goodness of God mounts out anxieties will diminish and our moral happiness rise in inverse proportion.

Regret may be more than a form of self-love. A man may have such a high regard for himself that any failure to live up to his own image of himself disappoints him deeply. He feels that he has betrayed his better self by his act of wrongdoing, and even if God is willing to forgive him he will not forgive himself. Sin brings to such a man a painful loss of face that is not soon forgotten. He becomes permanently angry with himself by going to God frequently with petulant self-accusations. This state of mind crystallises finally into a feeling of chronic regret which appears to be proof of deep penitence but is actually proof of deep self-love.

Regret for a sinful past will remain until we truly believe that for us in Christ that sinful past no longer exists. The man in Christ has only Christ's past and that is perfect and acceptable to God. In Christ He died, in Christ he rose, and in Christ he is seated within the circe of God's favoured ones. He is no longer angry with himself because he is no longer self-regarding, but Christ-regarding; hence there is no place for regret.

Praying for More Than a Few Minutes

What makes a church like ours set aside a beautiful Saturday morning to seek God in five hours of prayer?

When Grace Fellowship Church began we were one dependent lot. We had no money, no building, no people, and no guarantee of success. Yet, reading of two personalities from the past had recently impacted me.

First, I read a description of the Week of Prayer held every year at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London under Spurgeon’s ministry. The author held up that week as one of the sweetest, most spiritually refreshing seasons of the calendar year. The week would begin with the elders leading in prayers of repentance “often in tears” and culminate in aspirations of great hope in the progress of the Gospel.

I also read how George Mueller started an orphanage, yes, to help the orphans, but more importantly, to launch an impossible ministry that would prove the sovereign God hears and answers prayer. If you read his autobiography you will laugh with joy at all the ways God did exactly that.

So, at GFC we started with a mid-week meeting to pray before we ever met for worship on Sundays. And after Sunday meetings began we kept it. Within a year or two we added a week of prayer in the New Year. Several years after that we started holding a second week or a day of prayer in September (the second new year!).

And all we do at these meetings is pray. Oh, we have little booklets to direct us and remind us of what we should be praying about, but there is no teaching, nor is there that bane of all lively prayer meetings – the 40 minutes of “prayer requests.” (It has always floored me that we can be so easily duped into talking about what we are going to pray rather than just praying!)

So, this Saturday will come, our fall day of prayer, and I will have feelings in the morning like, “Yawn, here we go again.” And, “Five hours on a Saturday sure is long!” Then I will put on my pastor game-face, show up at 7AM and by noon be thinking, “Does it have to end?”

You pray for us, won’t you? That the Lord will “come down” this Saturday and meet with His people. He has never missed an opportunity so far.

Pure Church: Carey Conference Audio

Pure Church: Carey Conference Audio

He must have put this together while I was preparing his All-dressed chips. For somehow, Thabiti managed to piece together a nice post linking to all the audio from Carey Conference last week.

He missed his own messages though, and the two wonderful sermons he preached at GFC today.

Other than that, not a bad post!

Carey Conference 2009 and Thabiti Anyabwile

Well, just “one more sleep” until Carey Conference! Already things are looking grand. Registrations are high, the camp is ready, and we are delighted to add Thabiti Anyabwile to our own list of great preachers.

Speaking of Thabiti, you can pray for his safe and quick travel. Already they have experienced one flight cancellation and been delayed by about 2 hours. We are praying they get in easily tonight.

Thabiti is travelling from Grand Cayman. Yes, that Grand Cayman. So it is no small feat to get to Toronto from there. It really is remarkable that you can stick your toes in the warm Caribbean (thanks GT) in the morning and in Lake Ontario at night… all in the same day.

Cravings Underlie Conflict - Mahaney and Powlison

Sovereign Grace Ministries Blog - C.J. Mahaney's View from the Cheap Seats & Other Stuff:

"I asked David to elaborate on this quote:

I have yet to meet a couple locked in hostility (and the accompanying fear, self-pity, hurt, self-righteousness) who really understood and reckoned with their motives. James 4:1–3 teaches that cravings underlie conflicts. Why do you fight? It’s not “because of my wife/husband…”—it’s because of something about you. Couples who see what rules them—cravings for affection, attention, power, vindication, control, comfort, a hassle-free life—can repent and find God’s grace made real to them, and then learn how to make peace.

—Seeing with New Eyes (P&R, 2003), p. 151.

To hear David expand on this quote, download the 7-minute audio recording here (5.9 MB)"

The United Church's uncertain future - Holy Post

The United Church's uncertain future - Holy Post

It’s not the only religious organization in Canada to suffer from a lack of interest. But more than others, perhaps, the United Church has tried to find relevance and attract attention by offering what many complain is an all-inclusive, interpretive and “watered-down” brand of faith.

“People are leaving in droves because of it,” says Geoff Wilkins, a United Church member and reformist who lives in North Vancouver. “We have to get back to a church of substance. Essentially, what the church is saying now is come and join us, you can believe anything you like.”

At least one church has become a virtual no-God zone.

Gretta Vosper is the minister at West Hill United Church in Toronto and author of With or Without God: Why the way we live is more important than what we believe. She explains that she doesn’t refer to God anymore “because there is no single meaning for the word.”

The question is often raised: Why is Rev. Vosper, a self-described “non-theist,” in the United Church? Its leaders don’t consider her views as heresy. Perhaps not even strange.

Preaching Jesus in Rexdale

Steve and I had a great night tonight preaching Jesus in Rexdale. The local police division began an initiative several years ago with local clergy where they walk some of the more difficult areas of our neighbourhood with pastors. The idea is kind of a “we’re all in this together” thing.
Well, it is also a wonderful way to talk to folks about Christ.
Steve had a great conversation with a man tonight who was trusting in his own works. He was able to show the emptiness of works and point to the glorious work of Jesus. I was king of stuck listening to some others talk about crime in the neighbourhood, so I listened with half an ear and prayed for Steve.
Then we had a lot of fun with a whole whack of kids. After that, I was able to have a very direct conversation with two lovely young girls. Like so many in this world, it was clear their hope was not in Jesus alone. So, I told them how I had broken all of God’s commandments (they wondered how I could still be a pastor!) then I showed them how they had also. After that, we talked about the justice of God and how it would be unfair of Him to simply excuse us for crimes we had committed and then punish other people. So I told them of being in a court where the judge decides we are guilty and will go to prison for life… only to have another man, an innocent man stand up and say he will take my place. The crime is paid for, but I am free.
I told my 12 and 14 year old friends that is what they needed – a substitute. I think they understood that.
So we talked about how that Substitute can only be had by turning away from sin and putting faith in Him.
They promised me they would read the Gospel of John and I am going to pray that God saves both of them – to their surprise and His glory!

WWJT: What Would Jesus Tweet

Culturality & Missiology: Tweet Tweet

Even sadder is the growing number of young men and women who are wannabe’s. They actually seek counsel regarding how they can create and promote their personal brand. One young student recently asked me how often and what topics of his life he should tweet. Really?

Remember Jesus? I have tried to imagine Jesus tweeting and sending Facebook updates like many that I see.

“Just healed a blind man.”

“Lunching today with chief tax man in Jericho @Zacchaeus.”

“Walked on water this evening, disciples amazed I could calm a storm. lol.”

“Fed 5,000 men and their families with a boy’s lunch today.”

“Washed the disciples feet. Being intentional to exercise and model humility.”

“Check my reviews from the crowds last Friday. #Jerusalem”