I will be preaching at First Baptist Church in Azle, Texas on Sunday, June 23, 2013.
If you’re in the area, I’d love for you to join us.
First Service: 9:00am
Bible Study: 10:15am
Second Service: 11:30am
Archives For David Norman
In my ministry in London I often used to say that what determines whether or not you and I are Christians is not what we say on vacation and not what we say when we are in our studies or reading a book somewhere and reading about theology and reading the Scriptures. This is not the ultimate test.
The ultimate test of our profession of the Christian faith is what we feel, what we say, and what our reaction is when a hurricane comes or a tornado or some calamity produced by nature or some violent epidemic, a disease that brings us face-to-face with time and eternity, with life and death. The ultimate question is, what is our response then?
From Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Setting Our Affections Upon Glory
Lloyd-Jones, Martyn. Setting Our Affections Upon Glory. Wheaton, IL.: Crossway, 2013. 173 pp. $15.99.
In Setting Our Affections Upon Glory, nine sermons from Lloyd-Jones’ final trip to the United States are published for the first time, demonstrating to a new generation the homiletic mastery of “The Doctor.” These sermons, delivered at the Pensacola Theological Institute in 1969, are saturated with exegetical insight and seasoned with pastoral wisdom.
In expositional form, these sermons address topics related specifically to the gospel and the church that are just as cogent in our day as in his. He reminds his hearers that the ultimate test of faith is not our response to times of plenty, but in times of loss. He argues that the church generally must be built upon doctrine, because otherwise, “it is not Christian fellowship. It is carnal fellowship. It is merely human fellowship” (56). In fact, he states that “there is nothing more dangerous to the true life of the church than reversing this order and putting fellowship before doctrine” (58).
This little book is a wonderful addition to any collection of sermons. It serves as a fantastic introduction into the masterful preaching of Lloyd-Jones, but more importantly has the capability of transforming the way we think about the gospel and the church.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Setting Our Affections Upon Glory
I received this book free from the publisher through Crossway book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
“Canst thou by searching find out God?” (Job 11:7). Can a man ascend into that eternal realm where God dwells, God, “[who] is light, and in [whom] is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5)? The thing is preposterous. God is Spirit. “No man hath seen God at any time” (John 1:18). It is impossible. And yet the modern man says, “I don’t understand this. And because it doesn’t conform to the rules of my scientific outlook, I’m going to reject it.” Oh, what a fool the modern man is! What a baby he is, even in the realm of thought. Fancy bringing his abilities and his methods into a subject that, by definition, excludes it all! If people could understand God, they would be equal to God. God, by definition, is altogether “other.” He is the absolute and the eternal, the everlasting God. That is the subject matter of the gospel.
From Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Setting Our Affections Upon Glory
I will be preaching at Eagle’s Nest Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas on Sundays, June 16 and 30, July 7 and 28, and August 18 and 25, 2013.
If you’re in the area, I’d love for you to join us.
Sunday School: 9am
Morning Worship: 10:45am
Introduction to his Life
In the late Spring of 1747, Jonathan Edwards welcomed a terribly sick young missionary by the name of David Brainerd into his home (31). The young man was dying of tuberculosis – a disease that plagued Brainerd’s life and ministry for seven years until finally taking it October 9, 1747. Edwards recalled that he found Brainerd to be, “remarkably sociable, pleasant, and entertaining in his conversation; yet solid, savory, spiritual, and very profitable” (349).
Several years before, a controversy was brewing in New England as the result of the Great Awakening. Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches were experiencing significant differences of opinion regarding revivalistic preachers such as George Whitefield and the new converts resulting from their ministry. Those clinging to a more traditional faith looked with disdain and contempt upon those who were emphasizing excitement and emotional responses to the revivals taking place. In 1741, Edwards was invited to extend the commencement address at Yale College in the hopes that he would chide the excited and excitable students and support the more conservative faculty. Instead, Edwards’ sermon, “The Distinguishing Marks of a Word of a Spirit of God,” defended the legitimacy of the Great Awakening and produced greater fervor and excitement among the student population.
Young David Brainerd was in the crowd as Edwards spoke, and though he ranked at the top of his class, he was expelled shortly thereafter for making a disparaging remark regarding one of the tutors. This expulsion would radically alter the trajectory of Brainerd’s life, for in that day no one could be installed as a pastor in Connecticut unless they had graduated from Harvard, Yale, or a European University.
Brainerd was a devout, pietistic young man who, due to his expulsion from Yale, was no longer able to achieve the end to which he believed God had called him – to faithfully serve as a pastor. The faculty at Yale, however, were unwilling to reinstate him. Shortly thereafter, he was charged by the Society in Scotland for Propogating Christian Knowledge to become a misisonary to the American Indians in New England.
He served for a combined four years in three different locations where he experienced the full spectrum of emotions as he saw seasons of openness and resistance to the gospel. After the most fruitful season of his ministry, he began to succumb to the tuberculosis that had plagued his life, and traveled to New England where he hoped to recover his health in order to return to those he affectionately deemed to be, “his” Indians. Rather than recover, Brainerd was diagnosed as terminal and was nursed by Edwards’ daughter, Jerusha, until he passed into his eternal inheritance.
Though Brainerd only lived to see his twenty-ninth birthday, Edwards saw fit to edit and publish his diary and journal to the public. In doing so, an obscure missionary that few would have ever been aware of has become a pivotal example in piety, devotion, self-sacrifice, and perseverance to generations.
Keys to his Ministry
An Honest View of Self
Underlying Brainerd’s missionary endeavors was a gut-wrenching, honest appraisal of his own relationship with God. Upon reading his diary and journal, one may be struck by Brainerd’s lack of missionary zeal early in his ministry. He seems much more content to study, pray, and repent than to actually share the gospel with the indians in his care. One reason for this appearance is that Brainerd wrote his journal for public consumption (to be published by the Society in Scotland for Propogating Christian Knowledge), while his diary was written for the sake of his personal self-examination and to measure his spiritual growth. Thus, while his journal contains stories of preaching and conversions, his diary is full of self-introspection. This ongoing self-appraisal, and constant reminder of his own need for God’s sovereign goodness, provided the ballast he needed in order to effectively minister to others.
A High View of Preaching
Yet one must not read Brainerd’s Life and Diary and not take note of the means by which he shared the gospel with the American Indians. He preached whenever he could find a hearer, but was convinced that, “only He [God] can open the ear, engage the attention, and incline the heart of poor benighted, prejudiced pagans to receive instruction” (207). Brainerd understood that the sovereign God works through the human preacher, leading Brainerd to herald the message of the gospel of Christ through an interpreter (who became the first to be baptized during Brainerd’s missionary endeavors).
A High View of Baptism
One final observation is that Brainerd did not baptize new believers upon conversion, but instead, “deferred their baptism for many weeks after they had given evidences of having passed a great change” (242). Brainerd was not too quick to encourage new believers to enter into the baptismal waters, but first insisted upon observing the change in their lives as a result of the gospel. In doing so, he emphasized the weighty-witness that baptism is to believers and non-believers alike.
Conclusion
Brainerd’s ministry to the American Indians pales in comparison to the impact his life and sacrifice have made upon generations since. However, as one notes his intense self-introspection, the emphasis he placed upon gospel proclamation, and the weight he ascribed to the ordinance of baptism, one cannot help but question our efforts today. Do we regularly seek examine our own walk with Christ? Do we value and lift high the proclamation of the gospel? Do we believe that ordinances and sacraments mean something? Studying the efforts of Brainerd’s ministry calls us to no less than these questions, but opens us up to one further. Has God called us to give up our dreams and embrace the task of carrying forth the gospel to the nations?
Quotes from Jonathan Edwards, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd
Friends,
I am in the process of filling out my preaching calendar for this summer. As a seminary student, itinerant preaching and pulpit supply is one of the means I have at my disposal to serve the Body of Christ, hone my skill, and support my family.
I would love the opportunity to preach at your church. I still have several Sundays available this summer.
July 21
August 4
August 11
Would one or more of these days work for your congregation?
Click here for more information or here to set a date on the books.
Thanks.
I will be preaching at Bear Creek Baptist Church in Glenn Heights, Texas on Sunday, June 2, 2013.
If you’re in the area, I’d love for you to join us.
Sunday School: 9:30am
Morning Worship: 10:45am
Harris, Joshua. Humble Orthodoxy. Colorado Springs, CO.: Multnomah Books, 2013. 83 + xi pp. $9.99.
In December of 2011, I reviewed Joshua Harris’s Dug Down Deep. In that review, I wrote, “The final chapter turned out to be my personal favorite. In that chapter (titled “Humble Orthodoxy”), the author gives great encouragement to approach orthodoxy and doctrine and theology with humility.”
It would appear that others shared my appreciation for this particular chapter, and the publisher opted to publish it separately under the name of the original chapter, Humble Orthodoxy.
In this small book, Harris makes the observation that, “it seems like a lot of the people who care about orthodoxy are jerks” (3). They seem to have taken the instruction in Jude to “contend for the faith,” and have interpreted it to mean, “Be contentious for the faith.” For Harris, this is simply unacceptable for the believer.
Harris opines that far too often, Christians struggle with either remaining orthodox or remaining humble. This, however, is not a choice we get to make. We are called to be both – humble and orthodox. In what I believe to be the key paragraph from the book, he writes,
“Genuine orthodoxy – the heart of which is the death of God’s Son for undeserving sinners – is the most humbling, human-pride-smashing message in the world. And if we truly know the gospel of grace, it will create in us a heart of humility and grace toward others” (30).
This does not mean that we refuse to stand for biblical truth when the situation warrants we do so. Rather, this means that we need to exercise wisdom and “avoid controversy that distracts from the gospel” (53). In doing so, we reveal a critical mind without a critical spirit, and are more likely to gain an audience when, in fact, we do speak up.
Humble Orthodoxy was a book I needed to read. It will be a book I need to read again and again. I humbly recommend that you do so as well.
Joshua Harris, Humble Orthodoxy
I received this book free from the publisher through Multnomah Books’ Blogging for Books Program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Mason, Eric. Manhood Restored: How the Gospel Makes Men Whole. Nashville, TN.: B&H Publishing Group, 2013. 202 + xxi pp. $14.99
Manhood Restored: How the Gospel Makes Men Whole is written to take aim at the modern epidemic of absent men. Often, even in their physical presence, this absence remains, and has become that which is characterizing an entire generation. This absence is felt in homes, society, places of work, and places of worship as another generation grows up without the help and guidance of fathers. He writes:
“Tonight, about 40 percent of American children will go to sleep in homes in which their fathers do not live. Before they reach the age of eighteen, more than half of our nation’s children are likely to spend at least a significant portion of their childhoods living apart from their fathers. Never before in this country have so many children been voluntarily abandoned by their father” (21).
The solution to such a painful reality, according to Eric Mason (founder and lead pastor of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is none other than the redemption of manhood. And this redemption is only possible when Jesus is presented as the example of biblical masculinity. “From beginning to end, God has a purpose for men. It’s a purpose that’s been lost but, in and through Jesus Christ, one that might yet be recovered” (4).
Mason writes in a pastoral manner that biblically identifies the problem, biblically presents the solution, and biblically reveals the results of the solution. The problem is the absence of biblical masculinity. The solution is a renewed and redeemed understanding that Jesus is “the prototype” of what manhood was intended to be (45). In his life and actions, Jesus not only reveals what masculinity looks like, but provides the means by which humanity can be restored to the very source of manhood – God the Father. This renewed understanding and restoration to the Father affect five major areas according to Mason: worldview, sexuality, vision, family, and the church.
Mason writes as a man to men, calling them to more than a monthly breakfast meeting or Bible study – calling them to give up their lives for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of their wives, for the sake of their children, for the sake of their communities, and for the sake of the church. This is not the feminized-Christianity that has arisen out of a world void of masculinity, but rather the gospel-soaked, Christ-exalting, biblical masculinity expressed in laying down one’s own life for the sake of Christ.
This is what has been missing in so many churches and cities around the world. Pick up a copy. Read it. Give it away. And jump in with both feet.
Eric Mason, Manhood Restored: How the Gospel Makes Men Whole
I received this book free from the publisher through the B&H book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.