Indulge me…..
Susan and I at Oceanside, CA, on the famous PCH 101 (I know, I don't know how to smile for pics).
Susan and I at Coronado Beach, CA.
What A Coast, What A Lady
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Monthly Archives: January 2010
Desiring God Conference For Pastors
Click the pic for more info.
We have arrived home from San Diego, and are deeply grateful for all that God taught us. This was the best year yet, and we already have next year’s date on the calendar, for we wouldn’t miss how God uses this time away in our lives.
Last year, I had some time in-between this conference, and the Desiring God Conference for Pastors (of course, I missed last year when extremely sick). Not so this year. I am thrilled with the line-up for this conference that I have attended for nine years now. Be sure to bookmark the link, as they will post the video and audio of the sessions for your benefit.
The best part is that I will be taking my 14 year-old son Colton with me. Please pray that God will teach us a great deal, together, about the Pastor, the People, and the Pursuit of Joy in ministry.
No Better News!
The gospel, in brief, is the good news about the person and finished work of Jesus Christ. Consider for a moment that the eternal Son of God relinquished the glories of heaven to become a man, a human being like you and me. He lived a perfect and sinless life (unlike you and me), fulfilling every requirement of God’s holy law in a way we could never hope to accomplish. And then in a glorious display of God’s love for sinners like us, he willingly received the full fury of God’s righteous wrath against sin by dying for our sins on a cruel Roman cross.
Because God’s absolute and perfect holiness demands an equivalent holiness from all who come before him, in ourselves we are hopelessly lost and condemned. But Jesus, who had no sin of his won to pay for, took our place, paid our penalty, and suffered our punishment.
Because his death as our substitute was perfectly sufficient to pay for our sin, God vindicated him by raising him from the dead. So now all who place their trust in Jesus’ work on their behalf and turn from their sin will be forgiven, counted righteous in him, and saved from judgment for all eternity . . . all by God’s marvelous grace.
This is the gospel. This is the good news.
Better news simply does not exist!
- Gary & Betsy Ricucci, Love That Lasts: When Marriage Meets Grace (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2006), 21-22.
(HT: Of First Importance)
Restoring In San Diego
The conference this week has been a deep and rich blessing in many ways. God has answered many prayers, and many questions. We are so grateful for the privilege to be here. We are grateful to the people of Calvary for letting it happen, and to grandpa and grandma Molesky for watching the kids.
Here are just a few pics that explain why posting has been light. Blessings all!
Hot Chick, Hot Car (thank you Hertz for a cheap upgrade)
La Jolla Beach
Wyatt and Josephine Earp actually owned this joint. We ate here Wednesday.
Great wife, great food at St. George's (at Wyatt Earp Hotel and Saloon)
A GREAT day with our friends, Mark and Elizabeth Bjorlo on Coronado Island.
Susan and I in front of Hotel del Coronado, built in 1881.
Hope In God
God is the center of every hope worth cherishing for man.”
—Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 61
(HT: Of First Importance)
Sunday Sermon
Head here for the sermon from Sunday, January 24th.
The Idolatry of Sex Leads to Abortion
:: Sermon Text – Psalm 106:28-48
:: Sermon Summary – How is it that otherwise rational people can commit and support horrific child sacrifice? The psalmist provides the answer.
How To Wreck Your Church In Three Weeks
A powerful note from Ray Ortlund, via my friend Thabiti Anyabwile.
Read, pray, and repent if necessary ::
Week One: Walk into church today and think about how long you’ve been a member, how much you’ve sacrificed, how under-appreciated you are. Take note of every way you’re dissatisfied with your church now. Take note of every person who displeases you.
Meet for coffee this week with another member and “share your heart.” Discuss how your church is changing, how you are being left out. Ask your friend who else in the church has “concerns.” Agree together that you must “pray about it.”
Week Two: Send an email to a few other “concerned” members. Inform them that a groundswell of grievance is surfacing in your church. Problems have gone unaddressed for too long. Ask them to keep the matter to themselves “for the sake of the body.”
As complaints come in, form them into a petition to demand an accounting from the leaders of the church. Circulate the petition quietly. Gathering support will be easy. Even happy members can be used if you appeal to their sense of fairness – that your side deserves a hearing. Be sure to proceed in a way that conforms to your church constitution, so that your petition is procedurally correct.
Week Three: When the growing moral fervor, ill-defined but powerful, reaches critical mass, confront the elders with your demands. Inform them of all the woundedness in the church, which leaves you with no choice but to put your petition forward. Inform them that, for the sake of reconciliation, the concerns of the body must be satisfied.
Whatever happens from this point on, you have won. You have changed the subject in your church from gospel advance to your own grievances. To some degree, you will get your way. Your church will need three or four years for recovery. But at any future time, you can do it all again. It only takes three weeks.
Just one question. Even if you are being wronged, “Why not rather suffer wrong?” (1 Corinthians 6:7)
San Diego, Here We Come!
San Diego
Our conference, Converge, has an annual meeting for the pastors (and their wives) of large churches. For two years now, it has proven to be a really important week in our ministry at Calvary Community Church. We receive refreshment, encouragement from others in ministry (smarter and longer), and it affords Susan and I a week of focused time together.
In about two hours we depart for San Diego.
We’d love your prayers for us – that God would richly bless this week, energizing us for the year ahead.
The Root Of A Happy Religion
“Half our doubts and fears arise from dim perceptions of the real nature of Christ’s gospel. . . . The root of a happy religion is clear, distinct, well-defined knowledge of Jesus Christ.”
- J. C. Ryle, quoted by John Stott in Your Mind Matters (London, UK: InterVarsity Press, 1974), 32.
(HT: Of First Importance)
Of Calvinism, Cows, And Preaching
A great quote as I head toward the pulpit this morning:
As to myself, if I were not a Calvinist, I think I should have no more hope of success in preaching to men, than to horses or cows.
(John Newton in a letter to Rev. Thomas Jones; October 20, 1767)
(HT: Kevin DeYoung)
A Father’s Last Words
These words, shared by Ray Ortlund, were particularly moving to this pastor ::
Sunday, July 22, 2007. Dad woke up very early in his hospital room in Newport Beach. He knew it was finally his day of release. He had the nurse call the family in. Jani and I had just arrived in Northern Ireland for ministry there. We didn’t know what was happening back home. But the family gathered around dad’s bed. They read Scripture. They sang hymns. Dad spoke of word of patriarchal blessing and admonition to each one. He pronounced over them the Aaronic blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24-26). He fell asleep.
I asked my sister about dad’s message to me. It was this:
“Tell Bud, ministry isn’t everything. Jesus is.”
A Stiff Uppercut To Anxiety
A series of tweets from my friend Joe Thorn yesterday ::
5 reasons I might be anxious/stressed. All of which are cured by the gospel…
1. Not knowing or trusting God (his power or purpose) in the midst of uncertainty.
2. Underestimating the power of the gospel to heal what hurts or overcome what threatens us
3. Unrepentant sin and a convicted conscience
4. False guilt via false teachers or bad theology
5. Threatened idols: when my identity is found in perception, performance, significance, success, etc., & those things are threatened.
And from Jesus ::
Matt. 6.25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matt. 6.34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Like…You Know??
This is one of my all-time favorite poems by Taylor Mali, and I have posted it before, and even read it in an introduction to a sermon once.
But, here is a new presentation of it ::
(HT: Justin Taylor)
A Street Corner That Needs Your Help
This Sunday I will be preaching on idolatry and the issue of abortion. As I prepare, I watched this video from John Ensor, who has given much of his life to the cause of life in the name of Jesus and the Gospel.
May God move us all to action for the cause of the voiceless, to help men like John and so many others who labor tirelessly at street level in pregnancy resource centers across our country.
An Intelligent Fool
From my friend Matt Perman ::
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” ~ Albert Einstein
Good word. And a concept worth pondering: “intelligent fool.”
