Living & Loving to Please God

/ Dennis Griffith / 5 Comments

Steve Brown, professor at Reformed Theological Seminary and president of Key Life Network, penned a marvelous word picture of the motive and expression of a life gripped by God’s grace:

When I became a Christian, two things happened. I got saved, and I got loved.  I got loved so deeply that it still amazes me when I think about it. Because I got loved so deeply, I want to please the One who loved me that much. I may not always please him – sometimes I even run in the other direction, because his love can really hurt.  I may chafe against pleasing him; I may not even speak to him. But I’ll tell you something: I want to please him, and when I don’t please him, it hurts. Now if I really want to please him, I must know what pleases him. I find that out by reading the Word and listening to his commandments. When I know what he wants, I want what he wants. Love does that to you.  But I must know what he wants. That is why we must never soften the teaching of the Law of God. Holiness is a very important teaching as long as it is given in the context of God’s love.

~ from When Being Good Isn’t Good Enough

Same-Sex Marriage: Some Suggested Reads

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Ever since President Barrack Obama mad his announcement about the Great Reversal, and his renewed support of Gay Marriage there has been no lack of opinions posted… well, pretty much everywhere.  I considered writing something up, but other pressing matters left me without the time to formulate words to express my opinions.  But I did take the time to read the takes of a number of others.  Some of those I appreciated most are posted below.  I will likely add more to this post as I run across anything poignant on this polarizing issue.

Of special note, I think Mike Horton’s two articles are tremendous. The first is as pertinent for Christians to consider as it’s title is provocative.

Living By Vows

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

While going through pre-marital counseling during our engagement, one of the things our pastor, Dr. Donald Hoke (here & here), required Carolyn and me to read was a little booklet written by his dear friend, Robertson McQuilkin, Living By Vows.  This short booklet chronicled a period in the life McQuilkin shared with his wife, Muriel – the last part.  It was a striking illustration that has stayed in my mind more than two decades later.

Now as a pastor, and as one who is given the privilege of preparing others for marriage, I have often included this little booklet as part of the required reading for those whom I counsel.  For a long time I have thought about posting McQuilkin’s story here on my blog. Now I finally do so.  Please read this and consider the example Dr. McQuilkin embodies of a godly husband (or spouse).  Let his heart compel you to renew your own commitment to your spouse.  And please share this with others.  I would love to see Dr. McQuilkin’s little booklet go viral one day.  ~ WDG

***

After his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, college and seminary president Robertson McQuilkin found himself torn between two commitments, two divine callings.  Here he shares the story of his struggle:

It has been a decade since that day in Florida when Muriel, my wife, repeated to the couple vacationing with us the story she had told just five minutes earlier. Funny, I thought, that’s never happened before. But it began to happen occasionally.

Continue reading →

You Will Never Regret Loving This Much

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Wedding season will be in full bloom within the next few weeks. But there is never a season when those already married or those contemplating marriage would not benefit from tending the soil of their souls by renewing their understanding of what marriage is and what marriage demands.  As I say at the beginning of every wedding I officiate:

“Marriage is an institution ordained by God, regulated by His commandments, and has been blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore marriage should be held in high honor by all.”

In this video of a Western Pennsylvania couple, Ian & Larissa Murphy, we see a unique but much needed perspective the essence of what God wants marriage to be; what he designed it to be.

…And if while watching this video you are not tempted to tear up… Check your pulse. You are either dead, or like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz you have no heart.

For those interested in learning more, here is a link to Larissa’s story: Part 1 – Why We Got Married; Part 2 – Learning Contentment in Suffering.  I love the way she opens part 1:

“You will never regret loving this much.”

10 Warning Signs of an Inwardly Obsessed Church

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Researcher Thom Rainer warns of signs of a church that is so inwardly focused that it has ceased to be the church of Jesus Christ and has become, at best, a museum to (assumed) past glories, in which the membership makes up the board of directors.   Rainer writes:

Any healthy church must have some level of inward focus. Those in the church should be discipled. Hurting members need genuine concern and ministry. Healthy fellowship among the members is a good sign for a congregation.

But churches can lose their outward focus and become preoccupied with the perceived needs and desires of the members. The dollars spent and the time expended can quickly become focused on the demands of those inside the congregation. When that takes place the church has become inwardly obsessed. It is no longer a Great Commission congregation.

In my research of churches and consultation with churches, I have kept a checklist of potential signs that a church might be moving toward inward obsession. No church is perfect; indeed most churches will demonstrate one or two of these signs for a season. But the real danger takes place when a church begins to manifest three or more of these warning signs for an extended period of months and even years.

1. Worship wars. One or more factions in the church want the music just the way they like it. Any deviation is met with anger and demands for change. The order of service must remain constant. Certain instrumentation is required while others are prohibited.

2. Prolonged minutia meetings. The church spends an inordinate amount of time in different meetings. Most of the meetings deal with the most inconsequential items, while the Great Commission and Great Commandment are rarely the topics of discussion.

3. Facility focus. The church facilities develop iconic status. One of the highest priorities in the church is the protection and preservation of rooms, furniture, and other visible parts of the church’s buildings and grounds.

4. Program driven. Every church has programs even if they don’t admit it. When we start doing a ministry a certain way, it takes on programmatic status. The problem is not with programs. The problem develops when the program becomes an end instead of a means to greater ministry.

5. Inwardly focused budget. A disproportionate share of the budget is used to meet the needs and comforts of the members instead of reaching beyond the walls of the church.

6. Inordinate demands for pastoral care. All church members deserve care and concern, especially in times of need and crisis. Problems develop, however, when church members have unreasonable expectations for even minor matters. Some members expect the pastoral staff to visit them regularly merely because they have membership status.

Continue reading →

Ordo Salutis Illustrated

/ Dennis Griffith / 2 Comments

John Bunyan has a wondrous grasp of the theology of the Christian Life.  Pilgrim’s Progress is evidence of that.  In this classic literary masterpiece, Bunyan uses allegory to illustrate the reality, and the perils, of life in this world for God’s redeemed people.  And in the illustration above someone has taken Bunyan’s allegory and writings and made a poster of some of one of the more complex theological issues, the Ordo Salutis – or the Order of Salvation.

Why should anyone care about the Ordo Salutis? Well, a Biblical understanding of the way God has laid out our salvation not only will offer us comfort in time of our discouragement, it will move you to worship the God of our salvation when you ponder the amazing grace he has orchestrated.

I have enjoyed reflecting upon this map.  It evokes deep questions to ponder, which are also answered and illustrated on this map.  But the picture above is difficult to read clearly. To see the map in full size, or even blown up, download it by clicking: Bunyan Ordo Map

Transforming Power of the Gospel

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment
“The good news of the Kingdom is that our King has won a marvelous victory for us. Through his sinless life, sacrificial death as our substitute, resurrection, and ascension, he has not only conquered death for us, removing its penalty, but he has also conquered sin’s power over us… Now through repentance faith, God means for us to tap into the powerful victory of our King, so that we might be transformed into true worshippers of God and more authentic lovers of people… Through faith we are always to be placing our affections on Christ”.

NOTE: This quote was taken from Steve Childers‘ unpublished paper True Spirituality: The Transforming Power of the Gospel. Steve is president of Global Church Advancement and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary – Orlando.  The whole article is well worth reading, and can be accessed and downloaded from GCA web page. Click: True Spirituality

Confession of a Recovering Legalist

/ Dennis Griffith / 6 Comments

stone-face

The guy seemed somewhat indignant. “There are no legalists in this room”, he insisted in response to an indirect, and unintentional, indictment made by another member of the presbytery.

Little did he know.

“Absolutely there are legalists in the room”, I thought outloud.

I cannot say with certainty that this man, who felt compelled to defend himself and all those like him, is indeed a legalist.  I suspect he is. There seems quite a bit of evidence that suggests he is.  But I don’t know what is in his heart – or the heart of any other man in that room.

What I do know is my own heart.  And even if no one else there in that room matched the description, at heart I am a legalist.

That would surprise many. In our presbytery, which is historically characterized as being very narrow and uptight, I am, I suspect, by comparison seen as being ‘looser’ and to the Left of center. (NOTE: It’s probably the only place I ever go where I am consisered Left of anything.)  I am the guy who frequently points out the emptiness of Fundamentalism and all the associated rules as compared to the greatness of the grace offered us in Christ.

But as Craig Cabaniss articulately points out:

Legalism, however, is not a matter of having more rigourous rules.  It’s far more lethal than that. It strikes at the very core of our relationship with God.

C.J. Mahaney explains:

Legalism is seeking to achieve forgiveness from God and acceptance by God through obedience to God. In other words, a legalist is anyone who behaves as if they can earn God’s approval and forgiveness through personal performance.

Now I am not usually so foolish as to think I can or will gain God’s forgiveness or acceptance by my behavior.  I realize my only hope is in Christ. And I know that Jesus – and He alone – has already accomplished everything that is necessary to reconcile me to God.  (This is known as forensic justification.)

But I often get the feeling that God likes me better than those uptight legalists because I am not as uptight. And I like that feeling.  Furthermore,  I like to think I am more committed to  the advancement of Christ’s kingdom than they are.  I am not sidetracked by mind-numbing minutia, as some others seem to be.  In short, I like ‘knowing’ that I am ‘better’ than others because I am faithful -more or less – to a set of behavioral standards that others are not so visibly faithful to observe.

And that is what makes me a functional legalist.

A legalist is not defined by narrowness or the imposition of rules upon others.  It is the erroneous sense that I can earn God’s favor by  my behavior – by what I do and what I don’t do.  And for me it is favor and not forgiveness that I desire through my legalism.

Cabaniss points out:

Legalism is a heart condition that can easily affect… and color any activity.  Legalism can taint our Bible reading, praying, witnessing, eating, sleeping, lovemaking, working, recreating, joking, shopping – we can be legalistic about anything!

The solution is not lowering our standards.  It is necessarily raising our understanding of and response to the glorious grace of God.

Contextual Asessment Starter Questions

/ Dennis Griffith / 4 Comments

One of the greater frustrations I have experienced in the church I serve has not come from the people within the church as much as it has from well intended (I presume) outsiders and fringe folks who espouse a missional approach. This is surprising because I want to embrace a missional approach. But much of the advice I repeatedly get is to make implementation without regard for the context of the culture in which our church is set, and without regard to the understanding of the people that have long been within the church.

The models that these well-intended Christians admire (and the models these folks have often reminded me are far different from what I have to-date effectively implemented) look a lot like those models I read about from cutting edge missional churches in Seattle, Dallas, and Metro Atlanta. They are excellent examples of missional thinking put in practice. And it is exciting to read about what God is doing in those cities. But I don’t live in any of those places. Nor, obviously, does anyone who regularly attends our church.   Nor do any of our neighbors that God has put us here to love.

So, in short, the reality is that much of the well intended criticism I receive is by those who desperately want to be missional, but whose advice is not really so much “missional” as it is the imposing of particular personal preferences on a people through practices and structures.  The irony is that their advice is just as much driven by their own personal preference as are the practices of the “Traditional Church” these folks rail against.

One of the primary marks of missional is to actually exegete the culture where you live and worship.  It requires an understanding of the real values, the faith shapers and influencers, and the idols that may offer peculiar obstacles to the gospel specific to ones own area.

The question is, then, how to determine what those factors may be in a particular community or region.

Continue reading →

Christians & Politics: Faith-filled or Faith Fooled?

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

In case you have been sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, this is a Presidential Election year in the USA.  Faith will be declared, inspected, invoked, and provoked from all sides over these next few months.  Some will offer opinions from positions of knowledge, while others will offer authoritative sounding opinions from positions of functional ignorance.  It may become particularly true of this election since both presumed candidates have expressed faith traditions outside the American norm.  One, the Republican, is in no respects a Christian. The other, the incumbent Democrat, professes a form of Christianity that leaves many understandably skeptical.

So, given these choices, how should American Evangelicals approach the coming season?    Should we vote for a darkhorse Independent or Third Party candidate, who has no realistic chance to win but, who matches our Evangelical identity?  Should we sit this one out, and wait until next time when we might have a viable candidate more in line with our theological ideologies?

Dick Doster says forgoing the election is not an acceptable option. Here’s why:

Christians, when rightly informed and motivated, change the character of political debate. They bring the moral standards of God’s kingdom into the civic realm and thereby become agents of His common grace — of His provision for those who believe as well as those who don’t.

This is the opening paragraph of Doster’s thought provoking article, Politics: Why Christians Must Be Involved, published at byFaith Magaizne.  Click the article title to read Doster’s whole piece.

The Need for Silence

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Wise words from Paul Tripp about… not speaking words.

I have learned this lesson well over the years. My words, both spoken and written, are far more tempered than they were even just a few years ago. But as almost anyone who knows me can attest, my natural deficit in this area is so great that what I have learned is as nothing when compared to what I have still to understand.  As I too often demonstrate, I am in regular need of this reminder from Paul Tripp.

Diving Deep Into Gospel-Centered Living

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

Last week I confessed my envy of a book written by J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary.  I admitted that I wish I had written the book.  Here, in J.D.’s words, is a synopsis of Gospel-centered Christianity that expresses exactly what I would want to communicate to everyone in my church, to everyone who reads this blog, to everyone who I encounter:

Living a life centered on the gospel is not about praying the Sinner’s Prayer to make sure you’re going to heaven and then learning a bunch of new principles to master the Christian life.  Gospel-centeredness is about saturating your heart in the good news of Jesus – letting it so remake your mind so that you see everything about yourself and your life through its lens.

Growth in grace is not going beyond the gospel, but deeper into it.

Make the gospel the center of your life. Turn to it when you are in pain. Let it be the foundation of your identity. Ground your confidence in it. Run to it when your soul feels restless. Take solace there in times of confusion and comfort there in times of regret. Dwell on it until righteous passions for God spring up within you. Let it inspire you to God-centered, death-defying dreams for his glory.

My soul has found its resting place. No longer do I struggle, in anguish, over what I must do for God to be pleased with me. Christ has accomplished it all on my behalf. I can add nothing to it, and I can take nothing away.  I have a lot of room to grow in my Christian life, but my position in Him is secure.

Having found (or better yet, been found by) Him, and overwhelmed at his grace, my heart is growing in love for him and others. Generosity is like a stream that flows ever stronger in my heart.  I give away more money now than I ever have, not because I have to, but because I want to. I think about myself less now than I ever have – mainly because I have found a greater, more captivating kingdom to live for than my own. The splendor of his Kingdom has made me bored with mine.

So I invite you to dive deeper into the gospel. Study it deeply – [not just] like a seminarian studies doctrine, but like you study a sunset that leaves you speechless; or like a man who is passionately in love with his wife studies her, until he is so captivated by her that his enthrallment with her drives out any allurement toward other women.

The gospel is not merely the diving board off of which you jump into the pool of Christianity; the gospel is the pool itself. So keep going deeper into it. You will never find the bottom.

Practical Prayer Ideas from D.A. Carson

/ Dennis Griffith / 5 Comments

Here are some ideas for prayer practices adapted from D. A. Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation:

Apart from any printed guides I may use, I keep a manila folder in my study, where I pray, and usually I take it with me when I am traveling.

The first sheet in that folder is a list of people for whom I ought to pray regularly: they are bound up with me, with who I am. My wife heads the list, followed by my children and a number of relatives, followed in turn by a number of close friends in various parts of the world…

The second sheet in my folder lists short-range and intermediate-range concerns that will not remain there indefinitely. They include forthcoming responsibilities in ministry and various crises or opportunities that I have heard about, often among Christians I scarcely know. Either they are the sort of thing that will soon pass into history (like the project of writing this book!), or they concern people or situations too remote for me to remember indefinitely. In other words, the first sheet focuses on people for whom I pray constantly; the second includes people and situations for whom I may pray for a short or an extended period of time, but probably not indefinitely. . . .

The next item in my manila folder is the list of my advisees — the students for whom I am particularly responsible. This list includes some notes on their background, academic program, families, personal concerns and the like, and of course this list changes from year to year.

The rest of the folder is filled with letters — prayer letters, personal letters, occasionally independent notes with someone’s name at the top. These are filed in alphabetical order. When a new letter comes in, I highlight any matters in it that ought to be the subject of prayer, and then file it in the appropriate place in the folder. The letter it replaces is pulled out at the same time, with the result that the prayer folder is always up to date. I try to set aside time to intercede with God on behalf of the people and situations represented by these letters, taking the one on the top, then the next one, and the next one, and so forth, putting the top ones, as I finish with them, on the bottom of the pile. Thus although the list is alphabetized, on any day a different letter of the alphabet may confront me.

While these ideas are expressions of Don Carson’s practice, it is not difficult to see how they could easily be translated into our own situations.

Gospel-Driven Sanctification

/ Dennis Griffith / 1 Comment

by Jerry Bridges 

Early in my Christian life I heard someone say, “The Bible was not given to increase your knowledge but to guide your conduct.” Later I came to realize that this statement was simplistic at best and erroneous at worst. The Bible is far more than a rulebook to follow. It is primarily the message of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ, with everything in Scripture before the cross pointing to God’s redemptive work and everything after the cross–including our sanctification–flowing from that work.

There is an element of truth in this statement, however, and the Holy Spirit used it to help me to see that the Bible is not to be read just to gain knowledge. It is, indeed, to be obeyed and practically applied in our daily lives. As James says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

With my new insight, I prayed that God would use the Bible to guide my conduct. Then I began diligently to seek to obey it. I had never heard the phrase “the pursuit of holiness,” but that became my primary goal in life. Unfortunately, I made two mistakes. First, I assumed the Bible was something of a rulebook and that all I needed to do was to learn what it says and go do it. I knew nothing of the necessity of depending on the Holy Spirit for his guidance and enablement.

Still worse, I assumed that God’s acceptance of me and his blessing in my life depended on how well I did. I knew I was saved by grace through faith in Christ apart from any works. I had assurance of my salvation and expected to go to heaven when I died. But in my daily life, I thought God’s blessing depended on the practice of certain spiritual disciplines, such as having a daily quiet time and not knowingly committing any sin. I did not think this out but just unconsciously assumed it, given the Christian culture in which I lived. Yet it determined my attitude toward the Christian life.

Continue reading →