Is God's law a delight, or a drag? You would probably say the answer is a little complicated. Many of us who work hard to remain focused on the gospel as our hope before God have an almost visceral reaction to "the law," particularly when it is presented as a means of obtaining or maintaining peace with God. This is good. The law is never our hope. Jesus is.

However, the law is "holy, righteous and good" (Romans 7:12) and  Scripture tells us how "blessed" is the man who "delights" in the law (Psalm 1). The Psalmist says, "Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day" (Psalm 19:97). The apostle Paul also says, "I delight in the law of God in my inner being" (Romans 7:22). Why do (should) the people of God love the law? Here are 3 reasons.

1. In the law we have divine direction.

God has not left us alone to figure out what is right and wrong. He has graciously spoken clearly, and we now know the difference between good and evil. In the law we see the character of God and his will to be carried out on earth as it is in heaven. For example, we not only know that God calls us to do good to others in some general sense, but more specifically that we should be hospitable, loving, generous, and patient. He tells us what he desires of us. This is itself grace. We can delight that God has been kind enough to tell us what he requires of us (Micah 6:8).

2. Through the law we uncover our sin.

The law of God not only shows us God's will, but it also acts as a mirror that exposes our sin and falsehood. In the law we see God's standards and commands, but we also see how quickly we break them (Romans 7:7-25). As we have broken the law, it breaks us. The law is used by God to afflict our conscience so that we feel the weight of our guiltiness. And this is a reason to love the law, as it can eventually destroy our pride and any confidence we put in our ability to measure up to God's standards.

3. By the law we are led to the gospel.

In showing us the will of God, and our inability to keep it, the law leads us to see our need for mercy and grace. As many like to say, before we can know and embrace the "good news" of redemption and restoration in Jesus, we must first know and embrace the bad news that we are condemned as law-breakers and under the curse of God. It functions as one of the tools that God uses to prepare us to meet Jesus. So, we love the law as it leads us to see our need for grace and the beauty of the gospel against the backdrop of our guilt and corruption.

But here's the rub: we can only love the law after it has been fulfilled by Christ on our behalf. The law will only be a delight to us after we have found life by the gospel. 

For without the gospel, in the law we only find standards unmet and guilt without relief. We wind up sharing Martin Luther's frustration with the call to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," and say with him, "Love God? Sometimes I hate him!" Apart from the gospel the law leaves us broken and needy.

It is in the gospel where God's standards are met, his law is fulfilled, sin is forgiven, and we are restored to him. The reality of our justification before God through Christ liberates us from the law's condemning power and produces in us a delight in God's law and a motivation to keep it for God's glory and our good.

Is the law our delight? It really depends on whether the gospel is our hope and boast. If it is, then the law does not condemn us, but guides us. It shows us God's way, reminds us of our need for the gospel, and as we walk in it the law leads toward the good of our neighbors and praise of our God (Matthew 5:16). That is our delight.

Re:Train

The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) prepares missional leaders for ministry. View the professors, catalog, and application at retrain.org.

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Michael Horton explains moralistic therapeutic deism and how it shows up in our churches and literature.

In this interview series, Mars Hill PR Director Nick Bogardus interviews Dr. Michael Horton. For more information and resources from Dr. Horton, check out White Horse Inn.

Exchange Conference

June 17-18, San Diego: A conference about identifying the Truth and the Lie of life. Learn more.

Leaders Lead Themselves

Leaders should spend 50% of their time leading themselves. So suggests Dee Hock, author of Birth of the Chaordic Age. When most leaders think of leadership, they think of downwardly leading those for whom they’re responsible. But you really lead upwardly (with those to whom you are responsible), horizontally (with those who are your peers), and, perhaps most importantly, inwardly (you lead yourself). If I am not able to lead myself, how can I lead others? Leadership has a great deal to do with modeling. So what is involved with leading yourself?

When I began to consider self-leadership, my mind raced back to a verse I memorized long ago from Song of Solomon 1:6, which says: “…they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!” A modern rendering of that might be: “They made me responsible for taking care of what belongs to others, but I have not taken care of what belongs to me.” I have not done a good job of managing, stewarding, and leading myself, yet I am tasked with trying to lead others.

Self-Management

The two key passages on leadership in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1) deal primarily with self-management or self-leadership as a prerequisite for leading others. Could it be that the reason so many leaders fail in upward, downward, or horizontal leadership is that they have not done a very good job of inward leading?

A Checklist For Self-Leading

Here are a few areas to consider that are consistent with 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 as you reflect on leading yourself.

1. My gifts. How am I doing at leading myself to know my gifts, stay within my limits, and develop those gifts to their highest, God-pleasing potential?
2. My character. How am I doing at leading myself to be a person of integrity who follows through on promises made and is a person that others can trust?
3. My purity. How am I doing at being careful of what my eyes see, my ears hear, and my mind thinks about? How are my relationships with members of the opposite sex? Do I have guidelines, safeguards, and appropriate and honest accountability?
4. My pride. How am I doing at keeping Christ at the center? Am I the hero of my own stories? Do the words I speak communicate an attitude of arrogance and superiority, or am I characterized by humility and teachability?
5. My pace. How am I doing at leading myself in the use of my time? Is my schedule writing checks my body can’t cash? Am I going at an unbalanced pace that is digging myself, and those whom I lead, an early grave? Do I have a biblical view of work and leisure, or am I a workaholic who gets a sense of self-worth based on my work?
6. My finances. How am I doing at leading myself in the money arena? Do I have healthy protection and checks and balances built-in regarding organizational funds that don’t belong to me? Are there healthy audits over all financial dealing with which I am associated? Do I resist the lusting and grabbing lifestyle of my culture, choosing instead to be content and satisfied with God’s provision? Or is my happiness at the door of the next purchase?
7. My anger. How am I doing at leading myself emotionally? Do I have a reputation for being a hothead and having a short fuse? Do I keep score regarding perceived slights, insults, and put-downs? Do resentment, bitterness, and lack of forgiveness characterize me? One survey I came across revealed that bitterness is the major cause of burnout for men between 38 and 50 years of age.

These are my key areas of “self-leadership.” What areas of self-leadership do you need to focus on?

Pre-order Pastor Dave's new book, Leaders Who Last.

Leaders Who Last

Too many Christian leaders stumble, burn out, or veer off track. Learn how to endure from a seasoned pastor and leadership coach in Leaders Who Last.

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At the recent A29 Louisville Boot Camp, I sat down with A29 Pastor Jason Martin from Austell, GA to talk about replanting a church, the counsel he would give to guys in similar situations, what it looks like with 5 kids, and his one thing for church planters. Great stuff, brother! Thanks for sharing with us.

Churches Helping Churches

Who will help local churches in the wake of catastrophes? You can. Learn more here.

Sojourn Community Church in Louisville has created a new podcast containing the full audio from two sessions of the Worship Track at the November 2009 boot camp at Sojourn, featuring Sandra McCracken, Tim Smith, Mike Cosper, and others.

Subscribe to the Podcast

The podcast is called "Inside Sojourn," and you can download these and other interviews and features of the podcast via iTunes or RSS.

The first is the "worship leader panel" featuring Tim Smith, Mike Cosper, Kevin Twit of Indelible Grace, Marc Heinrich of Bethlehem Baptist, and Josh Dix of The Journey.

The second is the "songwriting panel" featuring Tim Smith, Mike Cosper, Kevin Twit, Sandra McCracken, Neil Robins of Sojourn and Chip Stam of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Direct Download

• Worship Leader Panel (mp3)
• Worship Songwriting Panel (mp3)

Trial Study Guide

Get the companion study guide to Pastor Mark's Trial sermon series in downloadable PDF form. Find out more.

What did you learn today?

 The first dozen times I spent with Pastor Mark Driscoll he asked me the exact same question—"What did you learn today?"



This did five things:

1. It forced me to consider the massive amount of information coming in and discern what's important.
2. It set me up in the habit of reflection on how God is moving and what he's teaching me.
3. It made me understand that I have a pastor who cares not just about what I do, but who God is shaping me to be.
4. It increased my awareness of the who, what, where, why, and when around me.
5. It pushed me to take on the identity of 'learner'.

Death By Love

Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears tackle some of the most serious redemptive aspects of Jesus' work in these twelve letters of counsel to individuals. Find out more.

How NOT To Be a Missional Church series: Click | View Series

The missional church movement has been good and bad. On a positive note, let’s focus on the bad. I want to suggest three ways to not be a missional church. In continuation of the series, this post examines some of the defects of social action-driven mission.

Social Action-Driven Mission

This approach probably creates the best community of the three mentioned in this series. A socially-minded and active church attracts socially-minded non-Christians. When my City Group recently cleaned five apartments from top to bottom for some homeless women and children, we all got a little closer. There’s something about being on a common mission—the sweat, the jokes, the empathy, and the memory–that unites folks. Creating a missional memory strengthens community and mission. It also raises questions with non-Christians you serve. But is social action enough?

1. Social action-driven mission isn’t unique to the church.

There are plenty of non-Christians engaged in social mission—serving the poor, the needy, the abused, and the homeless. They don’t need a church to engage in social mission. There are thousands of non-profits that can do this. What sets the church apart? If we are banking on social mission to be the unique contribution of the church, we’ll lose the game, and more importantly, the souls.

2. Social action doesn’t create new community.

Although social action mission creates community, it doesn’t create new community. Regenerated, new creation is the unique work of God the Spirit (Tit. 2.11; Gal. 6:15) through faith in the Son (Tit. 3:6-7; 2 Cor. 5:17). If we convert people to community and social mission alone, and not to Christ, we offer a very incomplete gospel. Regeneration is both social (Matt. 19:28) and spiritual (Tit. 3:5). The Spirit, not social mission, makes men new.

3. Social mission can lead to liberal church.

When we reduce mission to social action, we run the danger of becoming a socially-minded liberal church that neglects large stretches of the Bible requiring repentance and faith in Jesus. When missional communities focus on social mission alone, they disregard their evangelistic identity, gifting, and responsibility as the church of Jesus Christ, the Jesus who died and rose to make all things new—people and products, souls and society.

This series has attempted to identify some of the shortcomings in expressions of missional church. When mission is driven by events or evangelism, or social action, we engage in incomplete mission. When we engage in incomplete mission, we offer an incomplete gospel to our neighbors, towns, cities, and world. In a future series, I will take a more positive tack by exploring three areas that promote being a missional church.

This series is based on Jonathan Dodson’s talks at the LEAD ’09 conference.

Re:Train

We are launching The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) to prepare leaders for ministry locally and around the world. Additional details and downloadable application form here.

Invitation from God: Click | View Series

Isaiah 1:18—"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

The sinful condition of men is terrible in the extreme... God himself interposes to produce a change. The proposal of peace is always from his side. He urges that a conference be held at once, "Come, and let us reason together."

GOD'S REASONS TO MEET WITH US

1. The one main ground of difference is honestly mentioned, "though your sins are like scarlet." God calls the most glaring sinners to come to him, knowing them to be such.
2. This ground of difference God himself will remove, "they shall be as white as snow." He will forgive, and so end the quarrel.
3. He will remove the offense perfectly, "as snow—as wool."
   • He will remove forever the guilt of sin.
   • He will discharge the penalty of sin.
   • He will destroy the dominion of sin.
   • He will prevent the return of sin.
4. He explains by his own Word how this is done.
   • Free forgiveness obliterating guilt.
   • Full atonement averting punishment.
   • Regeneration by the Spirit breaking the power of sin.
   • Constant sanctification forbidding its return.
   • See, then, the way of your return to God made easy.
   • Consider it carefully, and talk with God about it at once.

Adapted from Charles Spurgeon's sermon notes.

Resurgence Literature

Re:Lit is a ministry of Resurgence. There you will find a growing line of books to help guide the resurgence of the new reformed. Find out more.

The Human Heart

The popular mantra, “follow your heart,” assumes that we have inherent goodness deep inside us that we just need to express to others.

John Keats wrote: “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affection and the truth of imagination.”

This is a modern version of the “Care Bear Stare” used to overcome “Dark Heart”—make sure to watch this video; you will not regret it.

Actually, Jesus has some bad news regarding what comes out of the human heart: evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, false testimony, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly (Matt 15:17-20; Mark 7:20-22). He concludes, “All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:23).

In Galatians 5:17-21, Paul follows Jesus’ lead and tells us that inherent within us is sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

The Fruit of the Spirit

After Paul makes his list of sinful desires, he follows it with the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is not inherent in us but worked into us by the Holy Spirit.

The natural human heart produces one kind of desires, and the Spirit produces another kind by giving us a new heart. And they are opposed to one another. Thorn bushes do not produce oranges. Weeds do not produce apples. And the human heart does not naturally produce the fruit of the Spirit.

Misconceptions

Unfortunately, some Christians treat the fruit of the Spirit like a new Law—expectations that we must strive to attain by our own effort. This is not Paul's point. The fruit of the Spirit is the work of the Spirit, not us. This is a message of great hope, not pessimistic resignation. The fruit of the Spirit is what we can ask and hope that God does to us. The fruit of the Spirit is hope for the work of God in us; not duty. The fruit of the Spirit is anticipation of what God may do to us; not moral expectation with the threat of punishment. The fruit of the Spirit is God killing parts of us to transform them—cutting in order to heal, destroying for the purpose of rebuilding. The fruit is not our dedication to our pious intentions.

If it is God who works in us to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13), then why do we begin with the Spirit but really try to attain our goals by human effort (Galatians 3:3)?

• How do you conjure love when you hate your ex? Or the person who slanders you? Or your self-absorbed friend?
• How do you make yourself joyful when you are paralyzed by fear and insecurities?
• How do you summon peace when you are flooded by worries about your past, or present, or future?
• How do you make yourself patient when your anxiety wakes you up at night or you can feel the anxiety in your body?
• How do you invoke kindness when there are so many people who act like your enemy?
• How do you strive for gentleness when you know that the meek are treated like doormats?
• How do you stir-up goodness when badness erupts so naturally and feels more immediately fulfilling?
• How do you enact self-control when your desire for quick pleasure is so out of control?

Transformation

Left on our own, we cannot do any of these because the fruit of the Spirit is the work of the Spirit, not our action plan for managing sin and achieving holiness (read Luther’s Bondage of the Will). What we need is not assistance by the Holy Spirit mixed with our spiritual effort. We need the Spirit to transform us. We need the Spirit to give us a new heart with new desires and affections: “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

The fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of faith and repentance, not spiritual self-determination. The fruit of the Spirit is the hope that God may do what he promises to do: to restore that which has been destroyed, to be faithful when you are faithless, and to show up in your weakness with his strength.

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Invitation from God: Click | View Series

Isaiah 1:18—"Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."

The sinful condition of men is terrible in the extreme. This is set forth vividly in previous verses of the chapter. They are altogether alienated from their God.

God himself interposes to produce a change. The proposal of peace is always from his side.

He urges that a conference be held at once, "Come, and let us reason together."

That conference is to be held at once: "Come now" for the danger is too great to admit of a moment's delay. God is urgent; let us not procrastinate.

GOD INVITES YOU TO MEET

Sinful men do not care to think, consider, and look matters in the face; yet to this distasteful duty they are urged. If they reason, they rather reason against God than together with him; but here the proposal is not to discuss, but to treat with a view to reconciliation. Ungodly hearts also decline this.

1. They prefer to attend to ceremonial observances. Outward performances are easier, and do not require thought
2. Yet the matter is one which demands most serious discussion, and deserves it; for God, the soul, heaven, and hell are involved in it. Never was wise counsel more desirable.
3. No good can come of neglecting to consider it. It is one of those matters which will never drift the right way of itself.
4. It is most gracious on the Lord's part to suggest a conference. Kings do not often invite criminals to reason with them.
5. The invitation is a pledge that he desires peace, is willing to forgive, and anxious to set us right.
6. The appointment of the immediate present as the time for the reasoning together is a proof of generous wisdom. "Just as you are," come to God in Christ, just as he is. Love invites you in all your sin and misery.

Adapted from Charles Spurgeon's sermon notes, which are in the public domain.

Porn Again Christian

Pastor Mark Driscoll's frank discussion on pornography and masturbation is now available from Amazon. Find out more.