FreeTruth

One of the chief blessings our church has received through our relationship with Sovereign Grace Ministries has been a new ability to see the centrality of the gospel for all of life. This is not a cliche for us; it's life-blood for our souls.

The only thing worth declaring and the only boast worth having is the gospel of Christ's atoning death on the cross (1 Corinthians 2:2; Galatians 6:14). This is the "thing of first importance" (the "main thing" as one of our SGM friends and leaders, C.J. Mahaney, would put it) by which, it should be noted, we not only were saved, but we "are being saved" (1 Corinthians 15:1-3).

The cross is not simply what delivers us from hell; in a very real sense, it is what delivers us from everything. We cannot face any need or crisis or temptation or sin without a fresh look at the cross and its implications for our lives. At TFC we have always believed, preached, and lived the gospel. But in recent times we have seen its glorious relevance for all of life. We are those who are redeemed, ransomed, delivered, empowered and secured by the atoning and wrath-averting death of Christ.

Because God was willing to deliver Christ up for us all we are sure that God will freely give us all things we need for life and godliness (Romans 8:32). Perhaps a few words from and cited by C.J. in his widely read and delightful book, Living the Cross Centered Life, will crystalize this for us today:

"We never move on from the cross, only into a more profound understanding of the cross" (from David Prior).

For this reason we should:
1. Preach the gospel to ourselves everyday.
2. Memorize the gospel through gospel texts.
3. Pray the gospel.
4. Sing the gospel.
5. Review how the gospel has changed our lives.
6. Study the great doctrines of the gospel.

Because of the gospel of Christ's atoning death and triumphant resurrection we should "expend all our energies admiring, exploring, expositing,and extolling Jesus Christ" (from Sinclair Ferguson).

If people attending our church think they sense a fullness of joy and a deep appreciation for grace, it is because we have become increasingly cross centered. I believe that Trinity Fellowship Church has become more humble, more holy, and simply put, more happy, precisely because it has become more radically and pervasively a community of the Cross.

And for this emphasis we are indebted to God's grace channeled to us through Sovereign Grace Ministries. For this I, for one, am thankful.

Labels: Cross Centered Living, Gospel, Gratitude, Mission, Missions, Sovereign Grace Ministries

Today I continue some thoughts I began yesterday re TFC's relationship with Sovereign Grace Ministries and the joys it has produced. I continue this boast confident of a couple of things. First, boasting in others is a very biblical thing to do (as Paul models for us time and again in the NT).

Second, I can boast in God's grace to us through SGM without any hesitation because in my estimation it has nothing to do with me except this: my church and I have been on the receiving end of grace in this relationship a whole lot more than the giving end. In boasting about the family of churches of which we are a part, I am not boasting about ourselves for this simple reason: pretty much all we've done is receive!

And third, I boast in others really so I can glory in God who in His astonishing mercy gives others to us for our good and His praise! If any good is to be found in SGM it is due to the amazing grace of God, and so in the end to boast in others is to glorify Him. And this I do with all joy!

So with all that in mind, let me continue with some excerpts from some thoughts I shared recently at a SGM pastors event:

Before I mention some specific blessings TFC has enjoyed in relationship with Sovereign Grace Ministries, let me say this. I’ve made more decisions during my life than I’d like to recall or admit, in which after the decisions were made, it became abundantly clear that those decisions were mistakes. Time revealed the errors of judgment of which I was guilty. But in the case of adoption into Sovereign Grace, the opposite is true.

Now that I can see with four years worth of hindsight, I can say with deep gratitude that as time has gone on, this is one decision about which I (and the TFC leadership team) have no regrets! I can say without any hesitation and with all thankfulness that we’ve become more sure of, more happy in, and more grateful for, God’s grace in leading us into relationship with Sovereign Grace than we were when the decision was first made. I’ve seldom been surer of the grace-produced rightness of a pastoral decision than I am of this one.

With all that said, when I asked Gayline to help me think of the blessings that being a part of SGM has yielded in our life and ministry, she didn’t take long to shoot off to me a list of no less than 20—yes 20—blessings. I think the process took her about three minutes! That’s the kind of joy impact that this relationship has had in our life. And now I get to share some of them with you...

Tomorrow I'll start sharing some specifics. But can I take a moment now to ask you this question: do you pause regularly to consider how God has blessed you through others, and then intentionally thank God and them for those blessings? When I got to share these thoughts with my SGM friends and leaders I was overwhelmed with joy precisely because I got to share them! I was given a chance to say thank you and to tell the folks that have been a means of God's grace in my life that I was grateful and humbled because of them and that grace.

Have you done that with anyone recently? A parent, a Christian friend, a pastor, a children's ministry worker who is a blessing to one of your children, a care group leader who commits 5-10 hours per week to help care for your soul? May I encourage you to practice the lifestyle of gratitude to others and glory to God that is displayed pervasively in the Bible?

Why not go out of your way to do this today?

Labels: Gratitude, Mission, Missions, Sovereign Grace Ministries

October is Sovereign Grace Ministries' (SGM) mission month. During the month in our church we will be viewing a series of short videos highlighting the mission of SGM in which our church shares. On October 25th we will be receiving a special offering to give to SGM to help our family of churches extend its gospel reach even further into the world.

To help us grasp the reasons why all of those connected to Trinity Fellowship Church should rejoice in SGM, and want to support it with all our might (and much of our money) I want to take a month of blog posts (or at least quite a few days) to share the blessings our church has gained in the past four years since we were adopted into this family of about 70 churches in this country and around the world.

I'm going to share excerpts from a public word of gratitude that I was privileged to give at a recent SGM pastors event. In doing this I hope to do a couple of things: boast in the kind grace of God in our church's life and give honor and gratitude to whom honor is due! Here's how my testimony began:

It is a huge pleasure to be able to share what becoming a part of the Sovereign Grace family has meant to my wife, Gayline, to my church family, and to me. I should probably give a bit of history first. I’ve been pastoring for nearly 27 years, with 24 of those years being in an independent, unsupported and unaccountable local church work.

I was blessed with very good and wonderful men at my side, guys whose life, character and leadership were (and still are) of immense personal value to me, and of priceless pastoral value to the church in which I serve. Without Tim, Bruce, Steve, and Scott, all members of TFC pastoral team during the years, I would have crashed and burned years ago. Whatever current and future blessing God may have in store for me in the ministry entrusted to me, I have determined never to forget or let others forget the role these guys have had in my life. I thank God for who they are and what they mean to me.

But I also know that while God was kind to keep me going for around 25 years of ministry with these guys as a primary means of persevering grace for me, I could not envision 25 more years without their continuing care, and without something even more by way of oversight and care going on in my life. I knew the spiritual challenges of pastoral ministry enough, as well as the leadership challenges of a growing church, to know that for me to be faithful to the end of my days I was going to need increased grace from God through a widening circle of care and accountability.

About a dozen years ago those of us in leadership at Trinity began a theological journey in new directions. We’d always been Reformed in our theology, being strongly committed to the doctrines of grace and the God-centered and God-entranced worship they produce. But we were also—to put it mildly—rather vocal, dogmatic, and deeply entrenched cessationists, being convinced for years that there were certain of the spiritual gifts talked about in the New Testament that had ceased. Our theological journey was from cessationism into continuationism, a journey now quite complete (for a statement of the reasons why we took this journey into a more complete embrace of all the spiritual gifts the reader can go to the TFC website and under "Resources" read the Cardiphonia paper about "Continuationism").

This journey was not without difficulty, especially as we were called to lead our people through a transition into a real openness and delight in things we once disbelieved, doubted, and even denounced. It was back in 1998 or 99, as we were shifting directions that we came upon Sovereign Grace in a way most unexpected. Someone...gave us a tape of SGM (then PDI) music, Love beyond Degree, on the back of which were written these significant words: “PDI is essentially reformed with a significant charismatic dimension”...

[T]hose words hit us with a certain measure of pleasant shock, for they reminded us of us—and we had yet to meet anyone quite like us! We had felt oddly different with our perspectives and it was reassuring to know that there were at least a few other unusual (shall I say, weird) ones around. We were amazed at what God had led us to stumble upon!

To abbreviate a story exciting to us but probably tedious for some, let me just say that we initiated conversations with SGM guys—mostly my wonderful friends Warren Boettcher and Dave Harvey--asking them for all the help they could give in guiding us during our transition into a biblical pursuit of the gifts in church life.

We had no thoughts initially of joining with Sovereign Grace, but as they overwhelmed us with their friendship, aid and wisdom, it wasn’t too long before we knew—at least as leaders—that we would love to be a part of this family. It became clear to us that their convictions and values were the same as ours.

The conversations developed into a kind of foster kid relationship with Sovereign Grace, with SGM allowing us to crash all their family parties, and go to nearly everything they were doing. Things then moved—in a process lasting 2-3 years—to full adoption, a relationship that was formalized in August of 2005 and which we now cherish beyond words.

More to come...

Labels: Gratitude, Mission, Missions, Sovereign Grace Ministries