But his words hold a timeless wisdom for any of us who find ourselves in conflict with others (and that’s definitely all people who draw breath). This has been so helpful for me to apply to my own heart as I have both conflict and controversy to deal with. I hope you who read this find it helpful as well.

(I learned about Newton’s letter from this article by Keith Mathison at Ligonier Ministries; I found Mathison’s article through this February 20 blog post by Mark Lauterbach at his GospelDrivenLife blog.)

Here are a couple of excerpts to whet your appetite. Click the above link to read the whole blog post by Mathison.

“Selfrighteousness can feed upon doctrines as well as upon works; and a man may have the heart of a Pharisee, while his head is stored with orthodox notions of the unworthiness of the creature and the riches of free grace. Yea, I would add, the best of men are not wholly free from this leaven; and therefore are too apt to be pleased with such representations as hold up our adversaries to ridicule, and by consequence flatter our own superior judgments.”

“If we act in a wrong spirit, we shall bring little glory to God, do little good to our fellow creatures, and procure neither honor nor comfort to ourselves. If you can be content with showing your wit, and gaining the laugh on your side, you have an easy task; but I hope you have a far nobler aim, and that, sensible of the solemn importance of gospel truths, and the compassion due to the souls of men, you would rather be a means of removing prejudices in a single instance, than obtain the empty applause of thousands. Go forth, therefore, in the name and strength of the Lord of hosts, speaking the truth in love; and may he give you a witness in many hearts that you are taught of God, and favored with the unction of his Holy Spirit.”

Over the past month or two, I’ve had reason to think through why I believe Gospel-preaching ministry must take priority over benevolent ministry to the poor, sick or persecuted. A Christian can’t take the New Testament very seriously and believe that doing good to others is ever more urgent than proclaiming the Good News. But when challenged on this, especially by people who aren’t too passionate about evangelism, or who don’t have a high regard for preaching as the primary way God speaks to His gathered Church, I have felt the need to do a better job at giving a winsome and persuasive answer.

So this morning, when I read Greg Gilbert’s blog post over at 9marks.org, and then watched the video which he recommended, I was both challenged and helped. Here’s the video Greg commended (actually he mentioned audio, but video is better). It’s a conversation between Don Carson, John Piper and Tim Keller.

And this I suppose to be that blessed Trinity that we read of in the Holy Scriptures. The Father is the Deity subsisting in the prime, un-originated and most absolute manner, or the Deity in its direct existence. The Son is the Deity generated by God’s understanding, or having an idea of Himself and subsisting in that idea. The Holy Ghost is the Deity subsisting in act, or the Divine essence flowing out and breathed forth in God’s Infinite love to and delight in Himself. And I believe the whole Divine essence does truly and distinctly subsist both in the Divine idea and Divine love, and that each of them are properly distinct Persons.[1]

Here’s the link to the whole Piper sermon on John 3:31-36. But as you watch, listen or read, make sure to be ready to receive from this text of Scripture what it is intended for: that you would behold the fullness of the Glory of God and His grace to you for your eternal life and joy!

“The Father Has Given All Things Into Jesus’ Hands”, John Piper, May 31, 2009.

[1] Jonathan Edwards, "An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity," [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/trinity/files/trinity.html]. Accessed 15, June, 2007.

Most people I talk with about God’s sovereignty and human free will assume that we all have free will. This is a huge assumption. Yes God created us with free will. But doesn’t the Scripture say we, before being born again, were “slaves to sin”?

Romans 6:17   But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed…

Romans 6:20   20 When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

 

Hmmm. We were slaves to sin. That means we were not free. Since when? It must be since Sin. When did Sin come along? At the Fall of Adam. So we all were slaves to sin since Adam’s time. What did we do when we were slaves to sin? We sinned. Did we sin because someone forced us to? No. We sinned because we wanted to. It was our “will” that was enslaved to sin, to “want” only what Sin wanted. Before we were born again, we did not have free will to want righteousness. God changed all that. That’s why Paul begins Romans 6:17 with the words, “…thanks be to God”!

Here’s the Westminster Confession of Faith on “Free Will”.

• 9.1  God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil.(1) (1)Matt. 17:12; James 1:14; Deut. 30:19. 
• 9.2  Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God;(1) but yet, mutably, so that he might fall from it.(2) (1)Eccl. 7:29; Gen. 1:26.
  (2)Gen. 2:16,17; Gen. 3:6.
• 9.3  Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation;(1) so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good,(2) and dead in sin,(3) is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.(4) (1)Rom. 5:6; Rom. 8:7; John 15:5.
  (2)Rom. 3:10,12.
  (3)Eph. 2:1,5; Col. 2:13.
  (4)John 6:44,65; Eph. 2:2,3,4,5; 1 Cor. 2:14; Tit. 3:3,4,5. 
• 9.4  When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin,(1) and by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good;(2) yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.(3) (1)Col. 1:13; John 8:34,36.
  (2)Phil. 2:13; Rom. 6:18,22.
  (3)Gal. 5:17; Rom. 7:15,18,19,21,23.
• 9.5  The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.(1) (1)Eph. 4:13; Heb. 12:23; 1 John 3:2; Jude 24.

Here’s the Bible passage:

John 9:1-3  ESV John 9:1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.  2 And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"  3 Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Now there are lots of well-meaning Christian brothers and sisters who, not having taken into account the whole teaching of Scripture, default in favour of the superficial sense of verses that seem to imply that God only intends nice things to happen to His children and that He therefore never intends suffering to happen to His children. And there are verses (like Mat 7:11 or John 10:10) that can be misunderstood to suggest that God would never ordain suffering in the life of one of His children.

Yet such a shallow reading of Scripture needs to be balanced by an understanding of the teaching of the whole Bible, not just a verse here and a verse there. If we zoom out from the single verse and take in more of the context of Scripture we can see that there is more to the picture.

In John 10:10, for example, some like to quote Jesus saying, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly”, as if that’s the sole reason Jesus came into this world and as if it’s that simple. But 12 verses earlier, in John 9:39, Jesus said, “For judgement I came into this world…”

Similarly, in Matthew 7:11, Jesus is often quoted as saying, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” But a few verses later, Jesus continued with these words,

Matthew 7:21-23   21 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

So the statement Jesus gave in John 10:10 which at first glance seems to declare His whole reason for coming is complicated by His statement in John 9:39. And His teaching in Matthew 7:11 which at first glance seems to mean that the Father would never give anything but good things to those who ask is complicated by Jesus’ own teaching in Matthew 7:21-23, when some people who ask God for good things actually get Judgement instead.

Back to John 9:1-3. Notice, in verse 2, in the disciples’ question, that they assume the man’s blindness was ordained by God (since they assume that someone’s sin was the reason for the ordained punishment of blindness). And notice that Jesus does not correct them or rebuke their assumption of God’s sovereignty over this particular instance of suffering by saying something like, “You ask this because you do not understand your Father in heaven! He is not responsible for things like blindness; He would never cause someone to suffer!” No. So much the opposite in fact. The answer that Jesus gives assumes that God did ordain this man’s suffering, but not because of this man’s sin or because of anyone else’s sin. Rather it was so that “the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). In other words, God made this man blind so that He could provide grace and display His own glory through what Jesus was about to do for him.

I’m pretty sure that some people will jump up and down at that last statement and recoil at the thought of God actually causing suffering in order to display His glory. The problem is that this is a clear teaching of Jesus that says exactly that. This teaching is not contradicted by the context. It is not refuted simply by quoting another verse like John 10:10. After all, if God’s glory was displayed through the healing of the blind man, and if God planned exactly that when He made the man to be born blind, and if through this healing and this account in Scripture, people come to put their trust in the Sovereign God who gives grace to sinners though they deserve His wrath, has not Jesus done what He said He came to do in John 10:10, “that they might have life and have it abundantly”?

If a man is willing to take the child he loves, hold him down on a table in a doctor’s office, and allow a stranger to plunge a sharp needle into the flesh of his own beloved son, in spite of the child’s cries of protest and pleas for mercy, in order to do some greater good for the child in the long run (such as protect him from a deadly disease), though the child may be too young to possibly understand such a reason at the time, how much more is our heavenly Father willing and able to lead His children through suffering He intended when it will lead to their greatest good and eternal joy?

WDJS? (What did Jesus say?)

Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. (John 9:3)

Geoff Ashley’s excellent study on John 9:1-3 can be found here: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/theology/?p=287

More related resources and updated videos by Matt Chandler on his faith in God’s sovereignty in the face of suffering can be found here: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?p=489 

and here: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?cat=8

One Thing I Remember from Preaching Class by Kevin DeYoung

This has helped me. I pass it along to any young preachers out there looking for free advice.

When you come to a passage there are four things you can do: illustrate, defend, explain, apply. I rearranged the order from seminary class so the four points make a convenient acronym: IDEA. Most young preachers, and probably most preachers in general, gravitate toward "explain." We do best at studying the text and communicating what we learned to others. If the passage is especially obscure or controversial, it makes sense to land heavy on the E. But sometimes the passage is relatively simple. In this case, don’t spin your wheels on endless word studies that basically repeat with synonyms what everyone can see immediately in the text.

Most preachers, myself included, need to incorporate the I, D, and A more often. One note on the D while I’m at it: it is rarely wise to spend a lot of time defending what your people don’t need defended. For example, in most churches you can probably skip the 15 minute intro on the Pauline authorship of Ephesians. Likewise, don’t waste time defending your interpretation against esoteric objections in the commentaries that no one in your church would ever think of.

"Illustrate" and "apply" are the hardest to do well. It requires a different part of your brain. You need to think creatively. You need to imagine what your people are or might be going through. You need to avoid the temptation to offer quick sermony points of application like "Don’t let money be your idol" or "Some of you need to trust God with your time." Probe deeper. Use one good, personal illustration or one concrete point of application rather than firing application-buckshot with little imagination.

So remember, for every text and every point you can illustrate, defend, explain, or apply. It’s an IDEA whose time has come.

“…do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6)

I was glad to hear that Matt Chandler is back home with his family and resuming some responsibilities at The Village Church. But I was also saddened to hear of the serious prognosis regarding the tumor that was removed from his head. Thankful, but still praying. Praying that his wife and children, any siblings, parents, other family; his friends, church leadership and congregation will also “not be anxious… but in everything” pray, supplicate and give thanks… letting their requests be known to God.

The Village Church website has a section of their pastors’ blog set aside to updates and info regarding Matt’s health. Click here to go there.

P.S. – Merry Christmas! Jesus is the reason for all the seasons, for all weather (even snow), for all that exists and happens in Creation, for every man, woman and child, and for every angel or spiritual being God has made: Jesus is the Reason for All.

Please join in praying for Matt and for his wife, Lauren, and their three children.

You can read along in Hebrews 11 by clicking here to open a new window.

For the original source at the Southern website, click here.

How do I know God exists? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

How can God be loving yet send people to hell? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

How can God allow suffering and evil in the world? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

What do you think? Leave your comments below.

Don Carson currently teaches at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is co-founder of the Gospel Coalition. He was raised in Canada, used to teach at Northwest Baptist College & Seminary in Vancouver (where I attended seminary but many years after he left there for greener pastures) and has served as a pastor before serving for many years since as a teacher and scholar. He is considered by many to be one of the leading evangelical scholars in the world.