Rockstanding

Desiring God is now offering what it terms the “essential Piper trilogy” of Desiring God, The Pleasures of God and Future Grace for $22.50. What are these books about? Glad you asked.

DESIRING GOD: MEDITATIONS OF A CHRISTIAN HEDONIST

The message of Desiring God is that God is most glorified in us when we
are  most satisfied in him. In this book, Piper calls this worldview
“Christian Hedonism” and explains why pursuing maximum joy is essential
to glorifying God. He discusses the implications of this for
conversion, worship, love, Scripture, prayer, money, marriage,
missions, and suffering.

THE PLEASURES OF GOD: MEDITATIONS ON GOD’S DELIGHT IN BEING GOD

One way to see the glory of God is to meditate upon the object of his
delight. In this reissued version with a new cover design, John Piper
unfo  lds for us a vision of God through the lens of his happiness. What
most delights the happiest Being in the universe? God’s gladness in
being God. If God’s excellencies can be admired in his pleasures, and
if we tend to become like what we admire and enjoy, then focusing on
these pleasures can help us to be gradually conformed to his likeness.
In other words, we will be most satisfied in God when we know why God
is most satisfied in God. This version includes the same content as the
revised and expanded edition published in 2000.

FUTURE GRACE: THE PURIFYING POWER OF LIVING BY FAITH IN FUTURE GRACE

What is future grace? It is all that God promises to be for us from
this second on. Saving faith means being confident and satisfied in
this ever- arriving future grace. This is why saving faith is also
sanctifying faith. The power of sin’s promise is broken by the power of
a superior satisfaction; namely, faith in future grace. Gratitude for
past grace was never meant to empower future obedience. Tomorrow’s
crisis demands tomorrow’s grace. And faith that future grace will be
there is the victory that overcomes the world. Future Grace contains 31
chapters - one for each day of the month - including practical chapters
on how faith in future grace defeats anxiety, pride, shame, lust,
despondency and more.

Tags: JohnPiper, Desiring God, The Pleasures of God, Future Grace, Christian Hedonism

AMAZING GRACE AT AMAZON: Amazon.com has put the 2007 theatrical release of “Amazing Grace” on sale. It was a great movie and a definitely worth checking out.

WHY STUDY CHURCH HISTORY? Tim Challies, author of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment and one of the most disciplined bloggers out there, has come up with seven reasons why you should study church history.

WHAT BIBLICAL MANLINESS LOOKS LIKE: Phil Johnson over at Pyromaniacs lays it on the line when it comes to being a man:

Biblical manliness is about authentic character. It’s not about bravado, and it’s not about boyishness. Going out into the woods with a bunch of other men, putting on war paint, making animal noises, telling scary stories around a campfire, and then working up a good cry might be good, visceral fun and all, but that has nothing to do with the biblical idea of manliness.

Read the rest here.

WORSHIPING SUMMER: John Piper offers some good counsel about how not to let the pleasures of summer turn you from worshiping God instead:

Don’t let summer make your soul shrivel. God made summer as a foretaste of heaven, not a substitute. If the mailman brings you a love letter from your fiancé, don’t fall in love with the mailman. That’s what summer is: God’s messenger with a sun-soaked, tree-green, flower-blooming, lake-glistening letter of love to show us what he is planning for us in the age to come—“things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Don’t fall in love with the video preview, and find yourself unable to love the coming reality.

A lot about what it means to have a tender heart for God. Consider David in Psalm 51:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. “Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

What has led David to this lowly state of remorse? Turn back to 2 Samuel 11:2-5 to see where it started:

It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. . . . Then she returned to her house. And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

And not only does David do this, he compounds his sin by bring Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, back from battle so he can sleep with his wife and thus cover up David’s sin. It doesn’t work and so David has Uriah killed in battle. It is only when the prophet Nathan confronts him that David repents.

And what is God’s response? “The Lord has taken away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Kings 12:13). From here, John Piper picks up the story and why it matters that we should care why God answers in this way:

And, Piper goes on to show that David’s response to his sin is a good example for us to follow. Piper lays out four ways in his sermon, “A Broken and Contrite Heart God Will Not Despise.”

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the great preacher of the 20th Century, wrote “Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Its Cure,” a collection of 21 sermons he originally delivered at Westminster Chapel in London. “Christian people.” writes Lloyd-Jones, “too often seem to be perpetually in the doldrums and too often give this appearance of unhappiness and of lack of freedom and absence of joy. There is no question at all but that this is the main reason why large numbers of people have ceased to be interested in Christianity.”

Believing that Christian joy was one of the most potent factors in the spread of Christianity in the early centuries. Lloyd-Jones not only lays bare the causes that have robbed many Christians of spiritual vitality but also points the way to the cure that is found through the mind and spirit of Christ.

This summer, John Piper is going through the Psalms in a sermon series at Bethlethem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. Last week’s sermon, “Spiritual Depression in the Psalms,” leans on Lloyd-Jones’ work and looks at how Psalm 42 is an antidote for depression. Below is an excerpt, go here for the whole sermon.

Alex and Brett Harris, teen authors of “Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations,” recently were interviewed about their book and other things on Tell Me More on NPR. Here are some things they talked about:

Can you do hard things yet still find time to relax?
How does doing hard things relate to their faith?
What five types of hard things do they say you should do?
What’s the hardest thing they’ve done lately?
What’s next for them?
Their involvement with the Mike Huckabee campaign
What motivated them to think about “doing hard things.”

From OnePlace.com:

Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899 – 1981) has been described as ‘a great pillar of the 20th century Evangelical Church’. Born in Wales, and educated in London, he was a brilliant student who embarked upon a short, but successful, career as a medical doctor at the famous St Bartholemew’s Hospital. However, the call of Gospel ministry was so strong that he left medicine in order to become minister of a mission hall in Port Talbot, South Wales. Eventually he was called to Westminster Chapel in London, where thousands flocked to hear his ‘full-blooded’ Gospel preaching, described by one hearer as ‘logic on fire’. With some 1600 of his sermons recorded and digitally restored, this has left a legacy which is now available for the blessing of another generation of Christians around the world – ‘Though being dead he still speaks’.

You can hear sermons from this great preacher for free! at OnePlace.com (with registration). If you own an iPod or an MP3 player, this is a great way to fill it with awesome encouragement, teaching and counsel. If you don’t you can still listen online for free.

I’ve been reading through Alex and Brett Harris’ book “Do Hard Things” and I can’t overstate how much I like it and strongly recommend it. As a parent of a teenager, I am constantly doing battle with our culture’s low expectations for them so it is encouraging to see two young men who are giving a great message that we all need to hear.

One of the things Alex and Brett talk about is that the whole idea of a special class of people called “teenagers” is a 20th century idea that has strongly taken root. In their research for the book, they discovered that even the word “teenager” did not exist publicly until 1941 and that, in an effort to protect children from cruel labor laws at the turn of the 20th century and instill universal education, we created a period where children are not yet adult but no longer children. We created the low expectations. In “America in So Many Words,” it is described this way:

Thus the years ending in -teen became something new and distinctive … The teenager remade our world. The concept is … subversive: why should any teenager enjoying freedom submit to the authority of adults? With the discovery of this new age, ours has been the century of the teenager ever since.

What does the Bible say about teenagers? Absolutely nothing. But it is not silent about youth and expectations. Instead, in I Corinthians 13:11 it says: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” Furthermore, in I Timothy 4:12 it says: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” And finally, in Romans 12:2: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world!”

What does our culture say? There is a joke that if Hollister (or American Eagle) said breathing was uncool, 92 percent of all teens would be dead. So, maybe it’s time for all of us to start thinking more highly and expecting more from these people we call teenagers. I leave you with the wisdom from I Corinthians 14:20:

Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

This is a piggyback post, based on something I read earlier today. The question is: Do people bore you? And is so, why? It is hard to show Christ’s glory when the only person we find interesting is ourselves. Here is what C.S. Lewis says:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. (The Weight of Glory, 14-15)

Our evangelism suffers when we can’t put away worship of ourselves long enough to engage someone else. Perhaps their view of Christ in us is being clouded by our own love for ourselves.

HT: Desiring God

Alex and Brett Harris are two awesome teenagers who have written a great book called “Do Hard Things,” which is an attack against the tyranny of low expectations. Read more about them on their blog.

This is a signpost to a great writer and speaker who points to a great writer and speaker. It’s great advice.

HT: Desiring God