Lecrae’s third studio album Rebel hits stores today. I encourage you to check it out. Here is the iTunes link.
Lord willing, this will expose many to an authentic, biblical worldview and people all over the world will be passionate about rebelling against popular culture to follow Jesus Christ with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.
Enjoy it. I know I will.
Some video from the DG Conference. (You’ll need to turn up the volume as Mark talks.)
I started the book, War of Words by Paul Tripp today. Tripp spoke this past weekend at Desiring God’s National Conference. The book is subtitled, “Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles.” More than anything, Tripp taught me during his message on Saturday that my communication problems come from within — not other people or situations.
In the first chapter, Tripp proposes that words belong to the Lord. After all, God spoke first and the first words that a human ever heard were not from another human — they were from God. Tripp writes so beautifully on how amazing it is that God speaks to us:
God, the sovereign Creator and Lord, spoke to Adam and Eve in words that they could understand! Let the wonder of this grip you. The infinite and almighty One makes himself knowable and understandable through human language! From the moment of creation, God is not distant and aloof. He is not hiding in silence. He comes near and uses words to reveal himself and explain everything else. God is not just a God who does, he is a God who speaks — powerfully, elaborately, consistently, comprehensively, and clearly to his people. Each phase of his work is marked by his words. He does not leave his people without a witness.
He is a God who can be known because he is a God he speaks. Scripture presents him as the great standard for all communication (p. 9).
Notable quotes (these are nearly full quotes — many are paraphrases that I took down during the sessions):
The practical purpose of Scripture is to make us spiritually mature.
The tongue carries the very breath of our souls.
John and Charles Wesley weren’t trying to write worship hits.
Emotions aren’t the problem; emotionalism is.
Singing together binds us together…but the gospel, not music, unites us.
[Quoting a person who has been rebuked] You hurt my feelings. You spanked my inner child.
Religion is ridiculous; Jesus is wonderful.
Pray for the shepherds. Pray for them more than you criticize, e-mail, gossip, or blog about them.
[Commenting on Amos 6:4-6] Woe to you who roll around in Escalades and wear lots of bling and lay around on couches hoping you can get onto MTV Cribs. This is God’s way of rebuking the sheep who are acting like swine. Their consciences are so broken that apart from a strong rebuke, they will not be changed.
Words belong to the Lord…you have never spoken a neutral word in your life.
Your heat is your causal core of your personhood….Word problems aren’t vocabulary or technique problems. They are heart problems.
It’s only when you stand before your Redeemer and are humbly willing to say, regardless of the flawed people you live among, “I am my greatest communication problem,” you are heading in a direction of fundamental change.
Sin is fundamentally antisocial.
There is a way to talk eloquently that nulifies the gospel.
No man can give the impression that he is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.
Paul rejects eloquence that exploits language to exalt self and ignore Christ.
With your speech, bring the cross out of the shadows.
I got home late last night from Minneapolis and the Desiring God National Conference. The theme this year was “The Wonder of Words and the Power of God.” It turned out differently than I had anticipated, but for good. It certainly was not a let-down.
I won’t give a summary of each message, but I will direct you to Desiring God’s blog for more. Links I would highly recommend are Piper’s five benefits of Christian eloquence, Paul Tripp’s thoughts on diagnosis and deliverance for communication woes, and Mark Driscoll’s advice to pray more than you criticize.
I hope you enjoy experiencing the conference from your home as much as I did in attendance!
Tomorrow I’ll be headed up to Minneapolis with two close friends of mine for the Desiring God National Conference. The theme is “The Power of Words and the Wonder of God.” I’m especially excited to hear from Paul Tripp and Mark Driscoll. For someone like me, who can be a little loose with words at times, this should be a challenging, but encouraging weekend.
Something cool: I’ll be going to a blogger open house after the Saturday night session. I was actually one of the first 20 people to reply to DG’s blog about the open house, so I’ll be receiving a free copy of The New Media Frontier, a book about using technology to advance the gospel.
If you are heading up the conference, and will especially be at the blogger open house, come find me. If I look at you and say, “Who the the heck are you?” don’t worry. Act like you know me.
God and the creature, in the emanation of the divine fullness, are not properly set in opposition, or made the opposite parts of a disjunction. Nor ought God’s glory and the creature’s good to be viewed as if they were properly and entirely distinct in the objection. This supposes that God having respect to his glory, and [to] the communication of good to his creatures, are things altogether different; that God communicating his fullness for himself, and his doing it for them, are things standing in a proper disjunction and opposition. Whereas, if we were capable of more perfect views of God and divine things, which are so much above us, it probably would appear very clear, that the matter is quite otherwise, and that these things, instead of appearing entirely distinct, are implied one in the other.
- Jonathan Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World
The transmission in my Mazda 626 went out this week. It still works for the most part, but the odds of it falling out of my engine and lying dead on the road soon are relatively good. I’m not going to lie, that sucks. I need a car and God knows that. However, God has shown me his glory through the process of dropping $1,400 two weeks ago for other problems and getting ready to sell the car in December due to the fact that I’m moving to South Africa. I can’t put more money into it. But I can’t afford a new car. Quite the dilemma.
This isn’t suffering — compared to what Jesus went through before he died on the cross — but in its own unique way, it is discipline. Some hardcore, eschatology-freak Christians might say that God punishes his children for sins or poor choices we make. Those people might say, “James, you sinned, so God is punishing you buy breaking your car and causing financial strain.” Hmm, sorry, no he’s not.
I do think, however, I’m being disciplined. For those of you who are more gracious and lenient, more of the hippie-Jesus crowd, you might say, “C’mon, James. Disciplined? A transmission? That’s just what happens in life. Just roll with it, man.” I disagree with you as well. God made Mazda 626 transmissions — as shoddy as they are — for their purpose. I believe God caused my transmission to crap out. Call me a radical, but listen first. Proverbs 16:4 says, “The LORD has made everything for its purpose.” Further, the word “discipline,” in English, comes from the Latin disciplina which means “teaching, learning.” I’m learning about God’s glory because of my car’s transmission. Here’s how the author of Hebrews talks about God’s discipline.
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
- Hebrews 12:7-8
If I am not seeing God’s glory and knowing him more, I am not his son. I’m just a religious phony who isn’t born again. When I got the phone call that the transmission’s funeral will be held sometime this month, I was not happy. But after that moment of frustration, I said, “God, it’s okay. It’s just a car. Show me your glory in this. Help me get through this well.” God is using this to cause me to endure. I need to depend on him financially even more than before. Now, I need to trust God to find a way to get to the gym each day. I need to trust God that someone will want to buy this car despite it having a bad transmission. I need to trust God that he knew what he was doing when I bought this car two and a half years ago not knowing how much money I’d invest in it.
Thank God for my transmission. It’s an opportunity to believe God’s promises and see his glory. He made everything for it’s purpose. Even transmissions.
From The Full Harvest
[My death] will happen very soon; and when you see my coffin carried to the silent grave, I should like every one of you, whether converted or not, to be constrained to say, ‘He did earnestly urge us, in plain and simple language, not to put off the consideration of eternal things. He did entreat us to look to Christ. Now he is gone, and our blood is not at his door if we perish.
