idols

"Every culture, gender, class, city, field of work, etc., has its own idols. Idolatry is anything I look at and say, "If I have that, my life has value." Anything that is so central to your life that you feel you can't live without it is an idol. Idolatry is making a good thing an ultimate thing. Because Paul saw idols everywhere, he was a really effective preacher. Like Paul, we need to discern, expose, and destroy idols in order to preach the gospel."

Tim Keller @ The gospel coalition 2009 conference. (read the notes here, or watch/listen to the full thing here)
Tim Keller also has a new book out on idolatry - Counterfeit Gods, see the video below for an introduction to the book (reading this on facebook and can't see the video? click "view original post" below) 

idols

"Every culture, gender, class, city, field of work, etc., has its own idols. Idolatry is anything I look at and say, "If I have that, my life has value." Anything that is so central to your life that you feel you can't live without it is an idol. Idolatry is making a good thing an ultimate thing. Because Paul saw idols everywhere, he was a really effective preacher. Like Paul, we need to discern, expose, and destroy idols in order to preach the gospel."

Tim Keller @ The gospel coalition 2009 conference. (read the notes here, or watch/listen to the full thing here)

the call to preach

audio:

download audio here

download video here
or watch below:

God's kingdom

"[God's kingdom is ] an ‘upside-down’ kingdom.
Many kingdom texts talk the reversal of values in Jesus’ kingdom (Luke 6:20ff.) in which the poor, the sorrowful, and the persecuted are above the rich, recognized, and satisfied. Why would this be? It is because Jesus emptied himself of his glory. Though he was rich, he became poor. Though he was a king, he served. Though he was the greatest, he made himself the servant of all. He triumphedover sin not by taking up power but by sacrificial service. He ‘won’ through losing everything.

This is a complete reversal of the world’s way of thinking, which values power, recognition, wealth, and status. The gospel, then, creates a new kind of servantcommunity, with people who live out people with a whole alternate way of being human. Racial and class superiority, accrual of money and power at the expense of others, yearning for popularity and recognition--all these things are marks of living in the world, and are the opposite of the mindset of the kingdom."

Tim Keller, Dwelling in the gospel (read, listen or download here, or watch here)

the gospel

"The gospel matters. Getting the gospel right matters. If you get the gospel wrong and you don’t distinguish between what the gospel is and what morality is, then what you’ve done at best is restrain the hearts of people, but you won’t see their hearts transformed. If you don’t get the gospel right, you will inoculate your people to Jesus."

Matt Chandler, A shepherd and his unregenerate sheep
read the full thing here
listen:

download the audio here

John 11
1Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." 4When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." 5Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days....

17On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Bethany was less than two miles^[a] from Jerusalem, 19and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

21"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." 23Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." 25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

read the full chapter here

listen to Don Carson speak on this passage below:


download it here

or watch it:

temptation

"... if the root issue of sin is pride or idolatry, here are the two great temptations that are sure to come your way.

The first temptation is to take something other than God and make it ultimate. Now I don’t know what that thing is. For some it’s cocaine or black tar heroin ...[but] most of us are much more apt to make family ultimate than cocaine. So the first temptation that’s coming for all of us is to take something other than God and make it our ultimate and to pursue it and chase it and own it. This is idolatry. You make your family an idol, you can make your children an idol, you can make making money an idol. You can make anything an idol.

The second temptation that’s sure to come is around the idea of pride, and it works itself out in two ways. We don’t like the God of the Bible, so we make our own. Usually that’s us, we make ourselves god. We don’t talk like that. We don’t introduce ourselves as Yahweh... But there are those who operate like they are god... so they'll say things like " I just can’t believe that God would command that, that God would want that, that God would ask that of me.” ... Do you see what just happened there? They just went, “That God is inadequate for what I want. I’m going this way.” And so the second temptation that is sure to come is to create another god otherthan the one in the Bible. Maybe that’s us, maybe that’s a different version of this God...

These are the two great temptations. They’re coming for all of us."

Matt Chandler, Temptations from within Read the full thing here, download it here, or listen below:

weakness

2 Corinthians 12:8-10
7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

The audio below is quite long (52 mins) and is aimed at people planting churches, but a lot of the stuff he says, especially about the verses above, is applicable to any Christian and worth listening to...
Darrin Patrick, cultivating a culture of repentance (download here)