Off to the Dominican Republic

Today and until November 22nd I will be in the Dominican Republic. I am going with a team of men from the Central Valley. It is a wide assortment of men, with a variety of backgrounds. Some know Christ and some don't. I am very excited about this opportunity and am grateful for the resources that were provided for me to go.

We will be partnering with Student International to serve their sites in the Dominican Republic. Anything from building sandboxes to sports clinics to micro-finance classes will mark our week. We hope to humbly serve the nationals who run the variety of ministry-related facilities throughout the island.

Please pray for this trip, for our team, for the men who don't know Christ and for the many people we will encounter in the Dominican Republic. Pray also for my family while I am gone.

Thanks.

Shawn

Random Assortment Monday

It's Monday, let's break up the monotony with some random news and updates:

We had our second cul-de-sac cookout yesterday. We had another 15 adults from our street. The cool thing is that this group was a new set of neighbors, meaning in our two cul-de-sac cookouts, we have met 30 different neighbors. We were able to spend time in good conversation. We are definitely building relationships!

Cornhole was a huge hit. I didn't doubt this at all. My neighbors now have an expectation that they can come over and get a few rounds of cornhole in before dinner or before their kids have to go to bed. We are always looking for connecting points and this appears to be a good one.

The email era is apparently over. See you on Facebook or Twitter, I guess? From the article: "Years ago, we were frustrated if it took a few days for a letter to arrive. A couple of years ago, we'd complain about a half-hour delay in getting an email. Today, we gripe about it taking an extra few seconds for a text message to go through." Does anyone know if the post office still sells stamps?

If you don't know about Auto-tune the News then you won't understand the gross injustice of this Jimmy Kimmel segment.

How can they not give the Gregory Brothers any credit?

I preached at Sovereign Grace Church on October 4th. The text was 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 You can listen to it here if you wish.

Here's some Columbus Day reading for you. The myth of the Flat Earth is busted.

Sure is dusty in here...

One thing I have learned in Bakersfield is that dust accumulates quickly. Everything in my office is covered with dust. I do the typical guy dusting, using my hand to dust it off, only to see those minimalistic efforts to be wildly insufficient. Dusting is a war in Bakersfield.

Sometimes the war gets intense. Take Tuesday night for example. We are at soccer practice. I coach a team of 4-5 year olds...which is just another way to say I heard cats. We practice at school with several other teams utilizing this huge field. The sun is setting, parents are folding up their chairs, coaches are gathering equipment when I look up to see this wall of smoke. At least I wondered if it was smoke. It was strange. The air was calm and all was quiet when I realized, "hey, that wall of smoke is moving toward us...rather quickly." And then just like that, it hit.

Carnage ensues. Kids are screaming and flailing. Soccer moms are sprinting for their minivans. Coaches are rescuing small children as they flap in the wind like flags. It was our first dust storm experience. And it won't be our last, I'm afraid.

Well, the idea of dust is certainly true with this blog. I'm simply not a a very consistent blogger. Which just means I'm not a very good blogger. The original design for this blog was to update the many people who are supporting us in some fashion as we seek to plant a church in Bakersfield, CA. You would think I would have this place buzzing with updates, yet it is covered in dust. Let me make some attempts to shake off the dust and give you all an update to our lives here in Bakersfield.

We are seeking to start a church from scratch. This is both thrilling and overwhelming. If I could use a word to describe our action plan it would be "intentional". We absolutely have to be intentional at meeting people, building relationships, sharing our lives and the gospel. It's a long and yet fruitful road.

Recently, we hosted a cul-de-sac party on our street. We were wanting to do something to get our neighbors out of their homes. They go to work, come home and pull into their garage never to be seen again. I would do my lawn work on Saturday, hoping to connect with others, only to find that everybody has a gardener! So, to counter this, we grilled meat and invited everyone out. 17 adults and 10 kids from our street were kickin' it in our cul-de-sac. It was such a big hit that we are doing it again in two weeks. Other neighbors want to take ownership of it and I plan on introducing Cornhole next time. We are excited for the in-roads into our neighbors lives.

We followed up with some our neighbors this past week and invited them to our first Considering Christ Group last night. The title of the groups suggests what it hopes to do. We were hopeful that one particular couple would come. They are from Iran and we have made a great connection with them. They have lots of questions, lots. You could color us thrilled when they came last night. It made the cook-out in 103 degree heat worth it!

This is where we are at right now. Hopefully, I swept off enough dust for you to a glimpse into our lives in Bakersfield. I will try to chase this dust away more consistently.

The Center of the Gospel

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

1 Corinthians 15:3-5

At the center of the gospel is the declarative, objective truth that Christ died for his people. This is so fundamentally necessary, for apart from it there is absolutely no salvation, no redemption, no Christianity. Yet, over the centuries and concurrent today, many have tried to leave behind the "shackles" of objective truth for something much less obtrusive as 'faith in Christ alone.' Well, 'faith in Christ alone' should not be undesirably prominent...it should be DESIRABLY prominent in the life of a believer and in the life of a church! Look at what Paul called his preaching of the gospel: of first importance. That means, for Paul and for us today, that the center of the gospel is to be the center of our lives as individuals and churches. We should treat the gospel as capital, chief, consummate, distinguished, dominant, excellent, foremost, incomparable, main, major, matchless, outstanding, paramount, peerless, predominant, preeminent, principal, renowned, stellar, supreme, surpassing, towering, transcendent, ultimate, unmatchable, unrivalled, unsurpassed...

So, what is the center of the gospel? Its simple, really:

Christ died for our sins (v.3)

Christ was buried (v.4)

Christ rose from the dead on the third day (v.4)

Christ appeared to the disciples (v.5)

And this was all done "according to the Scriptures" (vv.3-4)

Essentially, the gospel is the outworking of the plan of God, before ages past, to substitute his son in place of his people in order to save them from the penalty due for their sin. The gospel is propositional. The gospel is objective. The gospel is necessary. And as such, the proclamation of this gospel into all the nations is a noble task of high worth. This series is examining the "worth" of the gospel. The mere fact that God planned to save for himself a people and sent his son as a substitutionary atonement answers the worth question. That is why it is of first importance.

The Great Debate

Atheism is supposedly in a resurgence these days. With the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens championing the improbability of God, many would have you believe that the new atheists are a vast number.

Whether that is true or not, atheism is filled with tremendous irony and inconsistency. My friend Chad Vegas pointed this out in his blog: Atheism and Debaptism? This reminds me of what has been called The Great Debate. In 1985 Greg Bahnsen debated Gordon Stein in a Christianity v. Atheism debate on the campus of the University of California. Bahnsen destroyed Stein in terms of debate points and in terms of demonstrating the inconsistency and irony of atheism. If this sort of stuff is up your alley, check out the transcript and audio of the debate at the following links:

Transcript: http://www.bellevuechristian.org/faculty/dribera/htdocs/PDFs/Apol_Bahnsen_Stein_Debate_Transcript.pdf

Audio via YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6iEUanJbsw

Why the Gospel?

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us in Christ

with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,

that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ,

according to the purpose of his will,

to the praise of his glorious grace,

with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1:3-6

Why the Gospel? Because God loved us.

How's that for a Sunday School answer?

Yet, I want us to focus on the characteristic of this love: it is a sovereign love. God doesn't love sometimes or love when He feels like it. God always loves because God is love. Theologian John Murray put it this way and I quote it here because I like it: "He is love, and that necessarily, inherently and eternally." God is always love; forever. So much so, that whatever God wills or does is love. We can't fully grasp this because we can't always be love. We are unloving, and for most of the time, unlovable. That's the beauty of the gospel; it is God's love demonstrated to the unlovable (Romans 5:8). Now, you may be wondering how this answers the question of why the gospel. Shouldn't it be that we are sinners, enemies of God, needing his grace? While that is most certainly true it doesn't get to why God would do any saving at all! The answer to the "why" is that God chose, out his good pleasure (i.e. his love!), to save a people to be heirs with and through Jesus Christ.

So, what is the love of God actively doing in the gospel? According to this passage, it elects and predestines. This electing and predestination have an immediate and ultimate application. Immediately, we are holy and blameless before God. This is true, not because we are good enough or because the ability to do good was infused to us. It is solely because of the merit of Christ on whose basis we can stand before God through faith, as Paul would further this thought out in chapter 2 of this letter. God loved us and chose to show this love by choosing us before there was an "us" in order that we would be holy and blameless adopted heirs. Since we didn't earn this, it is nothing we can look to as warranting God's love. He simply, freely and sovereignly gave it.

The ultimate application in all of this is that we would marvel at God's grace. The opening phrase of verse 3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," and the phrase in verse 6, "to the praise of his glorious grace," tell us to give God glory because his God is so glorious. The sovereign love of God predestines people in order that the sovereign love of God (and more specifically God Himself) would be glorified. Seems rather self-serving...that is until we remember that all that God does is love; necessarily, inherently and eternally.

There is one last phrase that we need to explore to round out this sovereign love. We were chosen and predestined "according to the purpose of his will." God planned to do it. He planned to demonstrate his sovereign love. A commentator put it like this, "When the Father chose a people for himself, deciding to adopt them as his own children, he was motivated by love alone. Hence, what he did was a result not of sheer determination but of supreme delight." It delighted God to love us; to choose us. I delight in my wife. I delight in her love for me but it is when I can delight in loving her that I am most delighted. And God planned the gospel in order to delight in our salvation. Staggering.

God, in love, chose a people to be right in his sight. God, in love, predestined a people to glorify Him. All this, according to his will.

So, why the Gospel? Because God loved us.

The Gospel: Why It Is Worth It All

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'"

Romans 1:16-17

This marks the beginning of a series I will be doing on the undeniable worth of the gospel in relation to salvation and to a life wholly devoted to God. In my many travels and interactions with churches and believers, I have found an almost forgetfulness about this cosmic, personal redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the behalf of sinners (Col 1:15-23). How can we become so stale and complacent with such an undeserving, cataclysmic change in our position with God? The gospel is to orient our every day living in such a way that "the things of this world grow strangely dim." The course of this series will look at the "why", the "what", the "how" and the "now what" concerning the gospel. The hope is simple: that we would "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," to his glory now and forvermore (2 Peter 3:18).

Before we begin, take time to ponder deeply on the nature and need of the gospel. Evaluate the nearness of the gospel to your everyday living. If you don't already do this, or have gotten away from doing this consistently, plot out ways that you can start each day (or complete!) with an intentional effort to preach the gospel to yourself.

The next entry will begin the "why" of the gospel.

Why I Liked "Why We Love the Church"

Why We Love the Church

Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck

It was a book that struck a positive chord for church. There has been so much lamenting over the misgivings, failures, inadequacies, lack of relevance...blah, blah, blah this and blah, blah, blah that of the church. In the past ten years there has been an unrelenting wave crashing against the institution known as "the church." Of course, there have been many reasons to be upset with aspects of the church; i.e. immoral pastors, political party marriages (to both sides of the aisle!), deadness, to name a few. DeYoung and Kluck are not naively ignoring those reasons. Their hope was to promote why the church is to be loved.

They wrote the book for four kinds of people: the Committed, the Disgruntled, the Waffling, the Disconnected. So basically for everybody. The book breaks down just like their previous book Why We're Not Emergent. DeYoung's chapters are thorough and theological and Kluck's chapters are experiential and cool. While DeYoung's end notes were expansive, Kluck's were by far wittier.

What is particularly helpful with Why We Love the Church is their careful explanation of why abandoning the church is a horrific idea. As DeYoung put it, "The church we love is as flawed and messed up as we are, but she's Christ's bride nonetheless."

If you are Committed, Disgruntled, Waffling or Disconnected, I encourage you pick this book up and give it a read. You may love the church...the church you attend...more.

Generosity

We had been praying for God to provide for our transportation needs. Last Saturday we were given a car by some very generous people. They put in a new AC unit and put on new tires...and then gave it to us. I had the DMV Experience yesterday and we are now off and running. Its an older car...in fact it was made the year I graduated from high school...so we are hoping it will last us for a longer than expected time. Yet, the generosity of these kind people was more than just meeting a need.

Last Sunday, I preached at a hispanic church just up the road from Bakersfield, in a town called Delano. Iglesia Nuevo Pacto has a tremendous story of God's generous and providential care. It was such a pleasure to be with them. I would preach a sentence or two and Pastor Martin Medina would translate. Not the most ideal but God isn't bound by language barriers. After the service Iglesia Nuevo Pacto took up a love offering for us. We were blown away. Can't help but be grateful for such generosity.

Then I was invited to a pastor's retreat from Sunday night to Tuesday by Chad Vegas at Sovereign Grace Church. Chad, Jason, the assistant pastor at SGC, and I went over to Pismo Beach for reading, prayer and vision casting for church-planting in Bakersfield. It was such a fruitful time for me...getting to know them, praying with them, etc and just the undistracted time of prayer and Bible reading. After the past two months this was sorely needed.

As I reflect on these things, it is clear that God, in his grace to us, is caring for our needs. And I would add, better than we could care for them on our own.

One of My Sermons

If you want to hear a recent sermon of mine, you can download my first sermon in Bakersfield:

http://www.bakersfieldchurch.org/sermons/viewsermon.php?ID=255

I was invited to preach at Sovereign Grace Church by the pastor, Chad Vegas. I have really appreciated Chad and the handful of people we have been able to meet and connect with at SGC. We are very like-minded and have long term hopes of working together to plant more churches. SGC has been a very gracious and generous church to us, especially helping us get settled in Bakersfield.

I would encourage you to check out their website and some of Chad's sermons too. He is a Christ-honoring and gifted preacher. We have been blessed to be worshipping alongside of them.