How Can I Be Sure I Would?

August 4, 2011August 4, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Steve Timmis of The Crowded House and co-author of the book Total Church posed the following questions and thoughts for reflection:

How can I be sure I would lay down my life for sake of Jesus & the gospel? Perhaps I’ll be like Peter in his bravado and subsequent denial? Can’t ultimately be sure until I’m called on to do so.

But there are indicators in what I am reluctant to give up…

If I’m not prepared to give up my bed to go and serve someone, I can be fairly confident I won’t give up my life…

If I refuse to give up a holiday abroad so I can support someone in gospel ministry, I can be fairly confident I won’t give up my life…

If I’m not willing to pursue people who are different from me in order to bless them, I can be fairly certain I won’t give up my life…

If I’m not prepared to miss out on promotion so I can stay & help plant churches, I can be fairly certain I won’t give up my life…

If I’m not prepared to jeopardize a friendship so that I can tell others about Christ, I can be fairly certain I won’t give up my life.

I think these are worth some personal consideration. Jesus told those who wanted to hang with him:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Luke 9.23)

Being a follower of Jesus and being a fan of Jesus are very different things.

4 Keys to Cultivating Inner Peace

August 1, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

How can one cultivate genuine inner peace? Thomas a Kempis suggests embracing the following four attitudes and practices:

Seek to do the will of others rather than your own. (Matthew 26.39; John 5.30; John 6.38)
Always choose to have less rather than more. (1 Corinthians 10.24)
Always seek the lowest place and consider others better than yourself. (Luke 14.10; Philippians 2.3)
Always wish and pray that the will of God be completely fulfilled in you. (Matthew 6.10)

Such a person will enter into the realm of peace and rest.

From Imitation of Christ 23.1

Spiritual Formation Beyond Decency

July 29, 2011July 29, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

We must stop using the fact that we cannot earn grace (whether for justification of for sanctification) as an excuse for not energetically seekng to receive grace. Having been found by God, we then become seekers of ever-fuller life in him. Grace is opposes to earning, not effort. The realities of Christian spiritual formation are that we will not be transformed “into his likeness” by more information, or by infusions, inspirations, or ministrations alone. Though all of these have an important place, they never suffice, and reliance upon them alone explains the now-common failure of committed Christians to rise much above a certain level of decency.

~ Dallas Willard, in The Great Omission

Christ-likeness: The Purpose of God for His People

July 28, 2011July 28, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

by John R.W. Stott

I remember very vividly, some years ago, that the question which perplexed me as a younger Christian (and some of my friends as well) was this: what is God’s purpose for His people? Granted that we have been converted, granted that we have been saved and received new life in Jesus Christ, what comes next? Of course, we knew the famous statement of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever: we knew that, and we believed it. We also toyed with some briefer statements, like one of only five words – love God, love your neighbour. But somehow neither of these, nor some others that we could mention, seemed wholly satisfactory. So I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth and it is – God wants His people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God.

So if that is true, I am proposing the following:

First to lay down the biblical basis for the call to Christ-likeness;
Secondly, to give some New Testament examples of this;
Thirdly, to draw some practical conclusions.

And it all relates to becoming like Christ.

So first is the biblical basis for the call to Christlikeness. This basis is not a single text: the basis is more substantial than can be encapsulated in a single text. The basis consists rather of three texts which we would do well to hold together in our Christian thinking and living:

Lets look at these three briefly.

Romans 8.29 reads that God has predestined His people to be conformed to the image of His Son: that is, to become like Jesus. We all know that when Adam fell he lost much – though not all – of the divine image in which he had been created. But God has restored it in Christ. Conformity to the image of God means to become like Jesus: Christlikeness is the eternal predestinating purpose of God.

My second text is 2 Corinthians 3.18: ‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ So it is by the indwelling Spirit Himself that we are being changed from glory to glory – it is a magnificent vision.

In this second stage of becoming like Christ, you will notice that the perspective has changed from the past to the present, from God’s eternal predestination to His present transformation of us by the Holy Spirit. It has changed from God’s eternal purpose to make us like Christ, to His historical work by His Holy Spirit to transform us into the image of Jesus.

That brings me to my third text: 1 John 3.2. ‘Beloved, we are God’s children now and it does not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when he appears, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is.’ We don’t know in any detail what we shall be in the last day, but we do know that we will be like Christ. There is really no need for us to know any more than this. We are content with the glorious truth that we will be with Christ, like Christ, for ever.

Here are three perspectives – past, present and future. All of them are pointing in the same direction: there is God’s eternal purpose, we have been predestined; there is God’s historical purpose, we are being changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit; and there is God’s final or eschatalogical purpose, we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All three, the eternal, the historical and the eschatalogical, combine towards the same end of Christlikeness. This, I suggest, is the purpose of God for the people of God. That is the biblical basis for becoming like Christ: it is the purpose of God for the people of God.

***

NOTE: The above address was the last message John Stott gave at the Keswick Convention. This address was given in Summer 2007

Prayer a Priority?

July 21, 2011July 22, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Sometimes the truth hurts, doesn’t it? Such is the case in a recent article by Jonathan Graf for Prayer Connect. In the article titled Living Up to a Core Value Graf writes:

I was recently at a denominational gathering for a group that I know values prayer tremendously. In one of its core values it states: “Prayer is the primary work of God’s people.” I have no doubt that this group believes that. But when I look at what is emphasized in the group’s magazine, website, and materials that come out of its national office to churches, prayer is not placed in a position to make one think it was as important as other things – certainly not enough emphasis to show they believed it was the primary work of God’s people.

One of the primary reasons prayer is so weak in churches and in believers lives these days has to do with this “lip service” given to the importance of prayer. It seems enough for a church to say “we believe in prayer,” or “we want to be a praying church.” Our actions don’t seem to matter as much as simply saying that. The Apostle James (who was affectionately known as “Camel Knees” because of the callouses on his knees from kneeling in prayer) says, “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17). If we apply that truth to prayer, he is saying, if you say you believe in prayer, but that belief is not accompanied by activity and actions that prove that, then you don’t really believe it!

What Graf is getting at could be – and should be – applied to any Core Value of a church or organization. After all, if something is not put into practice is it really a value at all? And the same could probably be said regarding many of our supposed spiritual disciplines. But about prayer many especially seem to be prone to pontification without participation.

By the way, Prayer Connect is a new magazine and e-journal well worth reading.

Ordinary Saints

July 19, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Jerry Bridges opens his book, Respectable Sins, with a reaffirmation and reminder that all who are in Christ are declared Saints. While some may find this status difficult to believe, Bridges explains:

“We don’t become saints by our actions. We are made saints by the immediate supernatural action of the Holy Spirit alone who works this change deep within our inner being so that we do, in fact, become new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5.17). This change of state is described prophetically in Ezekiel 36.26: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone [a dead, unresponsive heart] from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh [a living responsive heart].”

Bridges goes on to write:

“It would be nice if we could end the story here, because [this] might suggest a saint is someone who no longer sins. Alas, we all know this is not true. Rather, if we are honest with ourselves, we know that nearly every waking hour, we sin in thought, word, and deed. Even our best deeds are stained with impure (mixed) motives and imperfect performance…”

As Bridges points out, most of us never think of ourselves as saints and few of us think about the responsibility to live as saints. And while we can easily identify sin in the actions and conduct of segments of our society, in most churches we fail to address how gossip, worry, etc. are also sins that tarnish and erode.

My Spiritual EKG

July 14, 2011July 14, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

“How are you doing, Spiritually?” That is an important question.

The Great Physician, by both direct and indirect statements in his Word, repeatedly encourages us to examine our hearts. But while many may be aware that it ought to be our regular practice to take a Spiritual pulse, I suspect that relatively few know how to read the gauges even if they try. Consequently, if we are not certain what we are looking for, it follows that we are not always quite sure how to answer our opening question. So, it seems, the typical response we might give, even to those who may genuinely care, is an awful lot like the responses we give to the stranger on the street, or the hotel clerk we see each morning on vacation, when they ask “How are you today?” “Fine, thanks. And you?” But this is too important a question to simply perpetuate the standard reflex response.

I have benefited from regularly asking myself 10 Questions I learned from Don Whitney and his short but helpful book: 10 Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health. Asking myself these questions, or considering observations people have offered about me as they relate to these questions, serves as a good spiritual check-up.

Each of the 10 Questions below is a link to an excerpt of respective chapters from Whitney’s book:

Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

May 27, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

Having recently posted some thoughts and resources about dealing with our discontent, I thought I might offer something from the other direction – how to cultivate godly contentment. As Paul wrote to his protege, Timothy: “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Timothy 6.6)

Thanks to the folks at Monergism, Jeremiah Burroughs‘ classic The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment can be read free online.

Art of Our Discontent

May 26, 2011May 26, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Trevin Wax asks these questions:

How do unbelievers know we are Christians?

By the fish symbols on our car?

By our bumper stickers?

By our voting patterns?

By our church attendance?

No. Jesus tells us that the outside world will know we are Christians by the way we love one another. (John 13.34-35; 1 John 4.12) When we submit to one another in love, we bolster our evangelistic witness by showing the world that love and authority don’t have to be separated. God’s rule is life-giving. He rules us for our good and for his glory, and the church reflects that loving rule.

(From Counterfeit Gospels, page 157)

But what about when that love runs cold? What are faithful followers of Christ to do when we grate on one another or disappoint one another? I am not talking about when we are in conflict, necessarily. I have in mind when we just seem to grow apart?

This is a pertinent question to ponder, because inevitably most will experience this in at least some relationships with others in our churches. So how are we to respond? How can we most glorify God in these situations?

First, let me offer an illustration of a way not to respond.

Once, in a previous church I served, I participated in a discussion with a church member who had seemingly disappeared. As we inquired about him, how was doing, and what he was up to, he informed us that he had been disappointed by some of the Elders in the church. None of us had been aware that this had been the case, so we were filled with a mixture of emotions: sadness, disappointment, frustration, etc. One man asked him why he had not made this known, why he had not followed the pattern of Matthew 18 to seek reconciliation and restoration of relationships. His response: “Matthew 18 does not apply. None of you sinned against me.”

Somewhat perplexed, I inquired: “Had someone offended you because of sin would you have then followed Matthew 18?” He assured us all that he most certainly would have done that. And I believe him. He was (and is) a faithful man, zealous to be obedient to God.

I felt I had no choice. I had to point out the absurdity of this logic. He was missing the whole spirit of the instructions for the process of reconciliation. True, Matthew 18 is a process that must be undertaken and which could culminate in some form of church discipline. But it is not discipline the Lord delights in. Our Lord delights in heartfelt relationship. What this man expressed was essentially that he would have shown more love and concern for his fellow Christians had any of us been guilty of offensive sins. Absent that, he felt he had no responsibility to seek to restore these relationships. In other words, he would have loved us more had we sinned against him than he did because we had not.

I suspect his dilemma is not uncommon. In our disposable culture it seems relationships are among the easiest things to discard. But as I posed at the beginning of this post, this is not the way things ought to be among those in Christ’s Church. As J.I. Packer observes, in his doctrinal handbook Concise Theology:

“The task of the church is to make the invisible Kingdom visible through faithful Christian living and witness-bearing.”

I think Packer sums it up beautifully. Our task is to embody the values and principles before a watching world. By doing so we become a living demonstration of the way things ought to be – and one day will be. As we live this out, perhaps especially in relationship, we are counter-cultural – i.e. we present an alternative to the culture in which we live.

So how should we respond when we feel we have drifted apart from others in our church? How, practically, do we honor God with our relationships?

Continue reading →

This Present Communion

May 13, 2011May 13, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

“We are justified if we have accepted Christ as Savior. But present communion with God requires continual bowing in both the intellect and the will. Without bowing in the intellect, in thinking after God; without acting upon the finished work of Christ in my present life; and without bowing in the will in practice, as the waves of the present life break over me, there is no sufficient communion with God. Without these things I am not in my place as the creature in a fallen and abnormal world. These three things are absolutely necessary if there is to be real and sufficient communion with God in the present life.”

~Francis Schaeffer

Organic Church

May 10, 2011May 10, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 4 Comments

You will observe that I am not merely exhorting you “to go to church.” “Going to church” is in any case good. But what I am exhorting you to do is go to your own church – to give your presence and active religious participation to every stated meeting for worship of the institution as an institution. Thus you will do your part to give to the institution an organic religious life, and you will draw out from the organic religious life of the institution a support and inspiration for your own personal religious life which you can get nowhere else, and which you can cannot afford to miss – if, that is, you have a care to your religious quickening and growth. To be an active member of a living religious body is the condition of healthy religious functioning.

–B.B. Warfield

How to Disarm an Angry Person

April 29, 2011April 29, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

It is the most difficult of maneuvers. There are no guarantees of success. And the stakes are high. But we have no choice: we must learn how to do it.

How do you disarm an angry person?

The angry person could be a child, parent, spouse, friend, neighbor or counselee. And, of course, we could use a little disarming ourselves sometimes.

To read the rest of this post from CCEF click: Disarm

Revival: The Restoration of the Holy Spirit to This Place

April 27, 2011April 27, 2011 / Dennis Griffith

To understand aright what this teaching of the Spirit is, there are three things we must specially remember:

The first, that it is all from within. It is by influencing, by renewing, by purifying the life, that the Spirit gives the experimental knowledge of God’s truth. Out of the light of life, wrought within our feeling and willing and acting, spiritual wisdom and understanding is born.

The second, that this power and energy of the Spirit is given on one condition — that of entire possession. As a teacher can not teach unless he has the undivided attention of his pupil, the Holy Spirit demands the entire control of the life. A great deal of prayer for the teaching or the filling of the Spirit is vain, because the seeker is not faithful in obedience to that measure of the Spirit which he already has. The Spirit claims our whole being.

And the third essential element in the teaching is that it is only communicated and to be received by faith. The movings of the Spirit cannot be known or felt until we begin to act. It is when, while feeling our weakness, we believe in the hidden presence and power within us and begin to act, that his guidance and strength are known. Faith in his indwelling and most certain leading, much faith in the Father who works by the Spirit, unceasing faith in the Lord Jesus, in union with whom we have the Spirit flowing through us — this faith will receive the fullness of the Spirit. This is the revival we must seek for, the restoration of the Holy Spirit to his place as the inward teacher, having complete possession and control of heart and life.

Excerpted from Andrew Murray‘s Coming Revival

Elect or Elite?

April 8, 2011April 8, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

A few years ago, soon after coming to Bristol, I was asked by a godly woman in our church: “What does it mean to be Reformed?”

She had been talking with someone from another church who had snidely claimed that their church did not associate with our church because we were not Reformed enough.

What arrogance!

My response to the inquiring woman was that we were not a TR church (Thoroughly Reformed), but we want to be a HR church (Humbly Reformed). What’s the difference? Not substance. Attitude.

Elliot Grudem offers a wonderful encouragement to cultivate an HR attitude, in an article from the Acts 29 Network blog: Elect or Elite? Why Arrogance Has No Place in Reformed Theology. Below is an edited version of Grudem’s message. To read the original, or to hear the audio message delivered at an Acts 29 Bootcamp, click the link.

***

Keller, Calvin, Predestination – BINGO!

When I was in seminary, my friends and I would occasionally play bingo during the classes: what we’d do is write the names of people in our class in the bingo squares, and if that person spoke in class, you got that square – and if you got all the squares in a row then you got ‘bingo.’ We’d always make sure we filled our squares with a couple of ringers that we knew we could get to talk by tipping off their hot-button issues. So if you needed the ringer’s name, you’d ask a questions like, “can someone please tell me what this has to do with homeschooling?” and you knew that individual would ask the next question – and – BINGO!

We do something similar in Reformed circles. We have our key names and key phrases that fill our “bingo board” in our minds. And if people mention Keller and Calvin, and “the gospel” two or three times, if they say “predestination” then we think they’re orthodox.

And if they miss those things – the key phrases and names that make up what we think it means to be Reformed – then we say they’re not Reformed, they’re not “gospel-centered,” they’re not orthodox, regardless of what they have really said.

Are We Elect or Elite?

We can rely on our theology too much, thinking that our theological precision is the key to our church’s growth rather than the Holy Spirit. We can fall into phrase-righteousness or name-righteousness thinking that a sermon is heretical if it sounds more like it came from the book of James than from one of Paul’s epistles. We can begin to think that the reason our church is small is because we’re right. And we’re the only one in town that’s truly preaching the truth. We can become theological snobs believing that we and our two or three heroes have a corner on right theology. Or that the Holy Spirit stopped speaking to the church on May 27, 1564 – the day that Calvin died.

We have a word for people like that, don’t we? The word is proud.

But unfortunately in our circles we tend to see this type of pride, especially among those who have just discovered the truths of the Reformed tradition. It doesn’t take much to move from elect to elite.

But it shouldn’t be that way.

What Does it mean to be Humbly Reformed?

To be Reformed one does have to hold to a Reformed soteriology. But if we’re not talking Reformed Bingo phrase-dropping, what do we mean by that?

J.I. Packer sums it up: “To Calvinism there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners.”

Packer is saying that salvation is entirely of the Lord, and sinners have nothing to do with their salvation. That God saves you out of his own good pleasure as an act of his delight. Sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all. Every step is an act of grace. Salvation is entirely an act of God.

What room does this gospel of grace leave you to boast? What room does it leave you for self-promotion? What need do you have to prove yourself to God and others? If what Paul writes is true, you have none.

If you really understand this gospel, this message that “God saves sinners,” and really understand Reformed soteriology, then you should be known for your humility, not your pride. You know that everything you have is a gift of grace.

And the Answer Is…

John Frame is the Chuck Norris of Systematic Theology, and he also is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Once I heard him ask a question of a man when I was with him during a mock ordination exam. I don’t remember what Frame’s question was but the student took a long time before giving a faltering answer. And Frame laughed and said “that is the best answer I have ever heard in any type of theology exam.”

What was the student’s answer to the question? “I don’t know.”

When’s the last time you answered a question like that? Are you really that good? Are there secret things that belong to the Lord? Or is it, like, the Lord and you? How long has it been since you answered a question with ‘I don’t know’?

***

By the way, when I was in seminary my friend David Zavadil and I also played BINGO during classes. We became somewhat infamous for it. I guess our tradition lived on… and spread.

Practical Importance of Doctrine

April 5, 2011 / Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

If there was one thing I could impart to the members of our church, or to other pastors, it would be an appreciation for the practical importance of doctrine. I think it was R.C. Sproul who pointed out: “We are all theologians… the question is whether we are good theologians.”

Sprouls’ point is valid. Everything we think, feel, and do is rooted in what we think about God. Some may not give this conscious attention. Some even repress it or deny it, but then this a-theism is what they think or feel about God, and these folks will act accordingly.

I suppose that many are turned off by the very idea of doctrine because it has been abused so frequently. I imagine others have been guilty of taking these awesome truths and boring folks with them – something I am sure I share a guilt in. But the inadequacies of a teacher should not turn people away from seeking to know God better by knowing about God, any more than a bad meal or a bad cook should make people turn away from food.

In this brief video, pastor/theologian Tim Keller offers a few simple insights about the practical importance of doctrine. Even if you are a skeptic, give what Tim says at least a few moments thought.

GRACE & PEACE

mullings & musings of w. dennis griffith

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