today started off awesomely @ mcd’s with a sausage biscuit and a coke. we got to advance09 and started singing some.
after we sang ed stetzer took the stage and spoke about the kingdom of God and the church. he pointed out that Jesus only mentions the church twice, while he uses the phrase kingdom of heaven a plethera of time. he said that the kingdom of God has faded away in our churches because of two things: dispensationalism and liberalism. the former says the kingdom comes later and the latter says we display the kingdom of heaven through social justice, but forget Jesus in the process of being kind.
he focused on matthew 13.16-20 where Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ and Jesus talks of how he will build his church. we have to gain more focus on the kingdom:
- we need to recognize the centrality of Jesus. he should be the driving factor of the things we do and our messages should be about him ALL THE TIME.
- peter’s confession is the foundation of Christ’s church. the authority of Christ gives is to the church and not just to Peter.
- the church is God’s tool of the kingdom mission
Stetzer said that people get enough religion to inoculate themselves, so they don’t catch the real thing. we have a lot of religion and not a lot of Jesus. we have the keys to the kingdom of heaven. let us open the doors.
he said going to a conference like this is similar to ministry pornography, because we see an unrealistic and fantastical vision of something we’ll never experience, so we need to stop trying to be cool and big and start trying to give our churches a vision of Christ and the advance of His kingdom.
JD Greear went next and spoke about revitalizing churches that are steadily declining in membership or passion. he said the reason they start to die is because people get religious, just like the pharisees, so he went to matthew 23 and talked about the six things that are signs of a religious and dying church (remember, religion is when people work to please God). here they are:
- religious people love recognition, praise and self-glory
- religious people substitute ritual for the love of God (using morality to try to keep God off their back)
- secondary things take centrality over knowing God (tradition, music, length of sermon, etc.)
- elevate religious ritual over love for people
- more aware of the sins of others than their own sin
- religious people think we’re always talking about someone else
the most powerful thing JD said was there are no good people and bad people. there are only sinners and Jesus.
eric mason took the stage next and i didn’t pay attention to a lot of what he said because i was spending time looking up his name on google because i recognized his voice from an old hip hop group. he was part of cross movement. the basic gist of his lecture was the main problem in the church was credibility problem and that the establishment of credibility comes through the faith of the church being grounded and seeking the glory of God, and the prayers of the church becoming Gospel centered.
he made a good point that the subtlety of false humility in our prayers can bring more glory to us than God, because our prayer becomes about how bad we are and never about how good God is.
the heaviest sermon of the day came from mark driscoll who talked about ministry idolatry. he started by saying that we all worship something as human beings. we’re built to be worshippers. some of us just worship cars, money, power, respect, etc.
idols lie to us in four ways:
- presenting themselves as Savior (i.e. money saves me , my hell is being broke and my heaven is being able to buy what i want)
- telling you it can mediate between you and God (pastors often serve as idols, and so does music styles, i.e. i can’t worship God by singing hymns)
- becoming your identity (leadership, status. altering your identity destroys your idols, thereby destroying your life)
- brings you righteousness (morality, tithing, attendance, etc.)
we can tell what we hold as idols by asking ourselves, “what do i treasure? what am i most fearful of losing? what do i sacrifice for?”
he quoted someone saying, “sin is a worship disorder, we worship our way into it and we have to worship our way out of it.”
common idolatries: money, family, sexuality, substance, morality, and people.
11 questions to ask if we are idolaters in our ministries:
- does your joy change when attendance is down? (attendance idolatry)
- do you feel God needs you and uses you because of your skill? (gift idolatry)
- are you better than other people because you know more than them? (truth idolatry)
- is success your evidence that God loves you? (fruit idolatry)
- what do you hold onto that holds the gospel back? (tradition idolatry)
- do you worship your methods as mediator? (method idolatry)
- are you motivated by God’s glory or your title? (office idolatry)
- is winning what motivates you at the deepest level? (success idolatry)
- do you use the pressure of ministry to make you walk with God? (ministry idolatry)
- does your ministry need to be unique? (innovative idolatry)
- who, other than Christ, are you imaging? (leader idolatry)
driscoll finished by saying two intense things to us. repentance should not be what we preach, but what we do. and that anyone who doesn’t repent is a heretic.
john piper spoke next and his humility seemed like it crushed the room. he moves over for God and it is evident. he talked about the church being missional around the globe. he talked about how our hearts were made to embrace living with a mission, saying that a soul shrinks to the level of its concerns.
he said the biblical task of missions isn’t to make sure everyone on the planet gets saved, but that cultural barriers are broken and bridges are built until every people group has a strong church that reaches the people around it. missions are the fulfillment and extension of the abrahamic covenant that says all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him, and ultimately through the seed that is Jesus Christ (romans 4).
three questions are essential to ask to give us a sense of urgency when it comes to living missionally:
- are people perishing? yes, hell exists and it is a terrible place where people will suffer, consciously, forever. the horror of hell goes on and on.
- is Christ’s work on the cross necessary to save? yes, there are no different ways to God. the only way to be saved is to accept that Jesus made a way to God on the cross and by His resurrection. there is one mediator between God and man: Jesus.
- do people have to hear about it and believe it to be saved? yes, this does not mean people who have never heard about will be judged and condemned at the last judgement if they’ve never heard. but how can people believe in what they have not heard and how can they hear if no one preaches to them and how can someone preach to them if no one is sent?
we must become missional in the church and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks for reading if you read the entire thing. tomorrow will be shorter, for there are only two sessions.
