Sadly it is too common for churches not to speak of Jesus, which is a tragedy akin to a wife rarely uttering the name of her own husband.  In our day when there are innumerable contradictory beliefs about who God is, Christians must be clear that their God is Jesus Christ alone so as to communicate the same central truth that scripture does.  No matter how many verses are used, the Bible has not been rightly understood or proclaimed unless Jesus is the central focus and hero.

Mark Driscoll
Vintage Jesus, pp. 66

Exactly. I think that Christians in general and many churches (if not most) have such a low view of Jesus and the gospel that we loose the power of our faith for powerless religion. I wish all Christian leaders had the same attitude that is extolled in this paragraph (and in the book as a whole), about their savior.

I would highly recommend that all Christians read this book, it would give us all a much better understanding of our hero. You can buy a copy of the book at amazon.com.

I think the issue with so many people, including many Christians that I know (and myself from time to time), is that they can get so caught up in the great things that God has done and the things that He has created, and their affections end up terminating on those things. And when they end there it makes it really difficult to see the treasure of who He is because they are blinded by what He made.

From time to time I hear and read of (and from) Christians that are all about doing, and they argue that knowing Christ intimately is not as important as acting like they think He would. I think that trying to guess what Jesus would do and letting our hearts tell us what good thing He would want us to do, rather than putting a high value on knowing Him, as He is revealed in the Bible, is a very risky thing to do, because it makes our experience with Christ subject to whatever we think is morally correct or right.

Many people believe that Jesus would want them to do this or that because of the What-Would-Jesus-Do-? attitude that has permeated religion and has taught us that He would do anything that is good. And we define good in our hearts the same way that the culture does because too many Sunday school teachers and preachers have let us down by shying away from their biblical responsibility to teach us of Christ and to uphold the Bible as the way to know Him and have instead replaced the Biblical knowledge of Him with a subjective, culturally moral, idea that scarcely resembles the Jesus of the Bible.

The problem with letting our hearts lead us in our pursuit of Him is that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (

)” Our hearts lie, and are easily led astray by other seemingly good things, from Him who is good.

There is this idea, among more liberal thinking Christians, that knowing Jesus through thorough exegesis of the scriptures in a sermon or the personal study of scriptures is not of as much value as just doing the good that we think He would want us to do. Some of them would go even further and say that Bible study and a focus on spiritual living is wasting the life that God has given to you to do the things that they determine are good to do.

I think that the American church is suffocating real and fulfilling life in Christ for the sake of morality. And, I believe, that what comes from a focus on moral things to the neglect of the mention and revealing of Christ through the Bible is that whole generations of people begin to think that we are here to be good people, first and foremost, and forget that it is for the very reason that we are not good that Christ had to die. And so in order to accomplish the most good in their eyes and to avoid people jumping ship, the Christ of the Bible is replaced with Bono or other humanitarians who everyone can unite behind because their message is basic and universal. But preach Jesus and no one wants to hear it, and therefore all of the “good” that they want to do will have less of a pool from which to draw volunteers.

So I think, to some extent, whether consciously or not, many in the church have decided that not as much good can be accomplished under the banner of Christ, and so therefore the church should unite under other banners that the culture can accept. And so Christ takes second chair to morality because it, unlike Christ, is defined on a personal and cultural basis without regard to the way that God wired the universe to be.

The truth is that the treasure is Christ. Not just the good things that He calls us to. Our dreams and affections, our hopes and desires, in Him are fulfilled. The more that I know of Him through the scriptures and good Bible teaching, the more I am moved by Him to affect those around me with the hope of Christ and share the treasure of infinite value with them.

I think it is also a bit faithless to suggest that because Christians in the past made church about memorizing this or doing that to the neglect of the hurting in the culture around them, that all who put a high value in knowing the Word of God will neglect the lost as well. I have been accused of this by a number of people, in a number of different ways, which I think is really unfair. I don’t believe that wanting deeper sermons or better teaching should label someone as indifferent to the plight of the poor and hopeless. I will grant that in the past many churchmen focused on being religious while the world around them perished, but I don’t agree with the notion that all who have a desire to know Christ more fully through sermons or Bible reading or prayer are of same mindset as those who came before. Yes, I am sure, that some are. I am sure that religion today is just as rampant and fruitless as it has been for many years, but to assume that at the mention of the Bible or the request for “longer sermons with better teaching” makes someone a religious and faithless spiritual wimp is ridiculous.

It is my perspective that good, deep, Bible teaching, whether or not Greek root words are discussed, shines a light on the Glory of Christ and moves people toward Him. And when they come to know Him more intimately the way that He is revealed through the Bible, and not just through the lenses of who we want Him to be, He is honored and we are moved to display hope and to do good to those in need. Because of Jesus, not because the rest of the world agrees it needs to be done. Christians, I believe, should be moved by the person of Christ, revealed in the scriptures, to do the works of Christ for those whom His heart beats, for the glory of His name.

The great thing is that doing good, for the Christian totally surrendered to the will of Christ, is infinitely bigger than anything the world, apart from Him, can accomplish. And I believe, that if people came in contact with who Jesus really is, as revealed through the Bible, they would see Him as the great treasure for which every loss would be cheerfully accepted that we might be able to say with Paul that

whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:7-11

7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (ESV)

To me, the treasure is worth it. To me, Jesus is worth it. And I want to know Him more. I know, for me personally, that being in a church, where Christ was not exalted as king and as the great treasure that He is on a regular basis, my soul grew a bit calloused, and ironically, amidst the constant calls to do something good for other people, my affection for the lost suffered because of my distance from Christ. But I find that any sermon that shows Christ as king and reveals His character from the pages of the Bible causes compassion in me that apart from the character of Christ being exalted is missing within me.

So, for me, and I believe all who have genuinely met Christ, my heart is broken more for the things that break His heart when I am constantly reminded of His grace in my own life. When Jesus is preached as the only treasure of eternal value, people who see and understand that to be true, will be far less tied to this world and much more open to doing the things of Christ to the glory of His name no matter what the cost. They will rise and sell everything if necessary, the will suffer ridicule if necessary. Because nothing is as valuable as Christ. He is the treasure.

I am becoming more and more convinced of the importance of good Bible teaching in the lives of Christians. I think without good Bible teaching Christians can never fully understand who Jesus is and why they should live for Him.

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The Bible is there above everything else to point us to and to teach us about our great king. It is not a rule book in which we attain salvation, but a book pointing to our salvation in Christ. But, it would be a great mistake to assume, that it isn’t of great value. It is the authoritative declaration of God about God. It is in Him that we have hope salvation, and it is in the pages of His book that we learn about Him. And so it is extremely important, for from these pages we learn about our King.

So, in saying that, I would encourage you to watch this video from a conference that the Resurgence is putting on called Text and Context, from Matt Chandler (pastor of the Village Church). It’s less than four minutes, but it does summarize my views on the matter as well. After you watch it, I would be interested to hear your opinions on the matter.

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The latest piece of holy-chain-mail that I got came with this warning:

“If you believe in God and in Jesus Christ His Son send this to all on your Buddy list, if not just ignore it.

In the Bible, Jesus says: ‘If you deny me before man, I will deny you before my Father in Heaven.’”

Are you kidding me? Do you see it? It says, (not just implies, but says) that people who believe in God and in Jesus will (not just might), but will send this to everyone they know. And it is proof that you don’t know Jesus when you don’t forward the email. Obviously people who love Jesus and know Him as savior and lord would forward an email about Him. So, obviously if you don’t know or love Jesus you won’t forward the email. In other words; you are saved and prove that you are saved when you forward the email, and you are lost and prove that you are an enemy of God when you disregard the email.

It says, if you don’t believe in Jesus just ignore this message. Which brings to mind another question. Who is this message intended for? Is it intended to show unbelievers the greatness of the love of Christ? No, because it encourages you to ignore the message if you aren’t a Christian. As if the message of grace was not intended for the lost but for a bunch of stuck up Christians who want to pat themselves on the back.

Apparently the God of the universe, the Savior of the world, and the Spirit of Truth are not equipped to declare my salvation, that feat must be left to a self-righteous, self-centered, and self-honoring email that some misguided holier-than-though “Christian” would write. When Jesus said in

that “everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven,” He did not mean “send the email to your friends and coworkers or go to hell.” That’s not what He was saying. Not forwarding an email has nothing to do with my acknowledging or denying Christ.

The way I acknowledge Christ is to live in such a way that people see Jesus. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose (

).” It’s all about the grace of God at work in my life, not about obtaining righteousness by sending an email.

You see, God reached down into human history and spoke His grace and love into it through the bible and through the Spirit and through all of the glorious things that Hes does in our lives, not to mention the greatest gift of love: the cross. What else was the cross than a public display of God’s glorious triumph over man’s sin and the greatest display of love and mercy that we could ever know? God doesn’t need email to make His point, He already did that. Jesus on the cross and in the tomb and raised again to ascend into heaven is more more dramatic than a cheesy email. But us self righteous Christians spend our time trying to add more to God, as if we humans have something that God needs. God is not lacking of anything. He doesn’t need holy-chain-mail to get His message across, He gave us the Bible. And we need the Bible more than we need any self serving email.

So, please no more holy-chain-mail. I’m tired of it. I’m frustrated that someone would feel good enough about their position before God so as to suggest that other people’s salvation and love for God is determined by what they do with an email, not what they do with Jesus. Come on church, it’s time to start acting like we know who He is, and put the focus back on Him. Please no more holy-chain-mail, it’s pointless, and will be deleted, but not before I reply to everyone of you with this message. Also, so you know, I do value receiving email from my friends and family, I even like receiving email about Jesus, and would even love to read your new poem or story about Him and what He’s done, or just completely random things. I am just ranting against email that says I don’t love Jesus if I don’t forward it. Don’t be discouraged to send me email, just understand that my love for Jesus is secure even if I think the email is lame and delete it.

I do love Jesus. More than anything. He is the only one who has never let me down, is always there to comfort me in need, and the only one who can put up with me as I am and love me for me, not some future version of me, but me today.

The Morning I Heard the Voice of God
March 21, 2007
By John Piper

Let me tell you about a most wonderful experience I had early Monday morning, March 19, 2007, a little after six o’clock. God actually spoke to me. There is no doubt that it was God. I heard the words in my head just as clearly as when a memory of a conversation passes across your consciousness. The words were in English, but they had about them an absolutely self-authenticating ring of truth. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God still speaks today.

I couldn’t sleep for some reason. I was at Shalom House in northern Minnesota on a staff couples’ retreat. It was about five thirty in the morning. I lay there wondering if I should get up or wait till I got sleepy again. In his mercy, God moved me out of bed. It was mostly dark, but I managed to find my clothing, got dressed, grabbed my briefcase, and slipped out of the room without waking up Noël. In the main room below, it was totally quiet. No one else seemed to be up. So I sat down on a couch in the corner to pray.

As I prayed and mused, suddenly it happened. God said, “Come and see what I have done.” There was not the slightest doubt in my mind that these were the very words of God. In this very moment. At this very place in the twenty-first century, 2007, God was speaking to me with absolute authority and self-evidencing reality. I paused to let this sink in. There was a sweetness about it. Time seemed to matter little. God was near. He had me in his sights. He had something to say to me. When God draws near, hurry ceases. Time slows down.

I wondered what he meant by “come and see.” Would he take me somewhere, like he did Paul into heaven to see what can’t be spoken? Did “see” mean that I would have a vision of some great deed of God that no one has seen? I am not sure how much time elapsed between God’s initial word, “Come and see what I have done,” and his next words. It doesn’t matter. I was being enveloped in the love of his personal communication. The God of the universe was speaking to me.

Then he said, as clearly as any words have ever come into my mind, “I am awesome in my deeds toward the children of man.” My heart leaped up, “Yes, Lord! You are awesome in your deeds. Yes, to all men whether they see it or not. Yes! Now what will you show me?”

The words came again. Just as clear as before, but increasingly specific: “I turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot. There they rejoiced in me—who rules by my might forever.” Suddenly I realized God was taking me back several thousand years to the time when he dried up the Red Sea and the Jordan River. I was being transported by his word back into history to those great deeds. This is what he meant by “come and see.” He was transporting me back by his words to those two glorious deeds before the children of men. These were the “awesome deeds” he referred to. God himself was narrating the mighty works of God. He was doing it for me. He was doing it with words that were resounding in my own mind.

There settled over me a wonderful reverence. A palpable peace came down. This was a holy moment and a holy corner of the world in northern Minnesota. God Almighty had come down and was giving me the stillness and the openness and the willingness to hear his very voice. As I marveled at his power to dry the sea and the river, he spoke again. “I keep watch over the nations—let not the rebellious exalt themselves.”

This was breathtaking. It was very serious. It was almost a rebuke. At least a warning. He may as well have taken me by the collar of my shirt, lifted me off the ground with one hand, and said, with an incomparable mixture of fierceness and love, “Never, never, never exalt yourself. Never rebel against me.”

I sat staring at nothing. My mind was full of the global glory of God. “I keep watch over the nations.” He had said this to me. It was not just that he had said it. Yes, that is glorious. But he had said this to me. The very words of God were in my head. They were there in my head just as much as the words that I am writing at this moment are in my head. They were heard as clearly as if at this moment I recalled that my wife said, “Come down for supper whenever you are ready.” I know those are the words of my wife. And I know these are the words of God.

Think of it. Marvel at this. Stand in awe of this. The God who keeps watch over the nations, like some people keep watch over cattle or stock markets or construction sites—this God still speaks in the twenty-first century. I heard his very words. He spoke personally to me.

What effect did this have on me? It filled me with a fresh sense of God’s reality. It assured me more deeply that he acts in history and in our time. It strengthened my faith that he is for me and cares about me and will use his global power to watch over me. Why else would he come and tell me these things?

It has increased my love for the Bible as God’s very word, because it was through the Bible that I heard these divine words, and through the Bible I have experiences like this almost every day. The very God of the universe speaks on every page into my mind—and your mind. We hear his very words. God himself has multiplied his wondrous deeds and thoughts toward us; none can compare with him! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told (

Psalm 40:5

5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told. (ESV)

).

And best of all, they are available to all. If you would like to hear the very same words I heard on the couch in northern Minnesota, read

Psalm 66:5-7

5 Come and see what God has done:
he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.
6 He turned the sea into dry land;
they passed through the river on foot.
There did we rejoice in him,
7 who rules by his might forever,
whose eyes keep watch on the nations—
let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah (ESV)

. That is where I heard them. O how precious is the Bible. It is the very word of God. In it God speaks in the twenty-first century. This is the very voice of God. By this voice, he speaks with absolute truth and personal force. By this voice, he reveals his all-surpassing beauty. By this voice, he reveals the deepest secrets of our hearts. No voice anywhere anytime can reach as deep or lift as high or carry as far as the voice of God that we hear in the Bible.

It is a great wonder that God still speaks today through the Bible with greater force and greater glory and greater assurance and greater sweetness and greater hope and greater guidance and greater transforming power and greater Christ-exalting truth than can be heard through any voice in any human soul on the planet from outside the Bible.

This is why I found the article in this month’s Christianity Today, “My Conversation with God,” so sad. Written by an anonymous professor at a “well-known Christian University,” it tells of his experience of hearing God. What God said was that he must give all his royalties from a new book toward the tuition of a needy student. What makes me sad about the article is not that it isn’t true or didn’t happen. What’s sad is that it really does give the impression that extra-biblical communication with God is surpassingly wonderful and faith-deepening. All the while, the supremely-glorious communication of the living God which personally and powerfully and transformingly explodes in the receptive heart through the Bible everyday is passed over in silence.

I am sure this professor of theology did not mean it this way, but what he actually said was, “For years I’ve taught that God still speaks, but I couldn’t testify to it personally. I can only do so now anonymously, for reasons I hope will be clear” (emphasis added). Surely he does not mean what he seems to imply—that only when one hears an extra-biblical voice like, “The money is not yours,” can you testify personally that God still speaks. Surely he does not mean to belittle the voice of God in the Bible which speaks this very day with power and truth and wisdom and glory and joy and hope and wonder and helpfulness ten thousand times more decisively than anything we can hear outside the Bible.

I grieve at what is being communicated here. The great need of our time is for people to experience the living reality of God by hearing his word personally and transformingly in Scripture. Something is incredibly wrong when the words we hear outside Scripture are more powerful and more affecting to us than the inspired word of God. Let us cry with the psalmist, “Incline my heart to your word” (

Psalm 119:36

36 Incline my heart to your testimonies,
and not to selfish gain! (ESV)

). “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (

Psalm 119:18

18 Open my eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law. (ESV)

). Grant that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened to know our hope and our inheritance and the love of Christ that passes knowledge and be filled with all the fullness of God (

Ephesians 1:18

18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

Ephesians 1:18

19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (ESV)

). O God, don’t let us be so deaf to your word and so unaffected with its ineffable, evidential excellency that we celebrate lesser things as more thrilling, and even consider this misplacement of amazement worthy of printing in a national magazine.

Still hearing his voice in the Bible,

Pastor John

What do you think about all of this?  Please leave a comment.

Talking with some people about our joining this church has brought some unnecessary yet expected criticisms. My aim here is show that the criticism is unwarranted and un-biblical. The problem that some see with this church is that it is a satellite church. The pastor is not in the room preaching, and in fact is a recording of a message that he had given earlier that same morning at the main campus. The complaint I heard goes something like this “the bible says that the pastor has to be in the same room preaching [or else it doesn't count]”.

Let me just say right up front that the Bible does not say that, and in fact it shows something quite the opposite. If it were true that a man had to bring the message of Christ or else the message was void, I would want nothing of this gospel. Think about it, if the message of Christ were only as powerful as the man who brought it, it would be worthless. No matter how good a man can be, he cannot be perfect, and because of that, his message cannot be perfect. The purpose of the preacher is not to bring an inspiring message from his own wisdom, but to bring the truth of God. A pastor should not be standing on the platform telling us what he thinks, but rather what God says. The preacher is just the messenger. And it is the message that saves. The messenger isn’t what is sacred, but rather the message.

says that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Notice that it is the message of Christ that saves not the message of the preacher.

The problem with this understanding of the gospel is that it limits the power of God’s word and His Holy Spirit for salvation. This belief suggests that God’s word could not sustain itself without man. And that it is man who saves man, not God who saves man. Paul says in

that “1Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Notice that Paul says “the gospel which i preached… by which also you are saved.” It is the gospel that saves, not the preaching of it.

Yes, it is our duty as Christians to: (

) “19Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” But, nowhere does the Bible teach that the message is so week that it can only be sustained by the direct word of mouth. In fact the opposite is true.

says that “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” We are the jars of clay, the message of Christ is the treasure. We must understand that this treause of the gospel is more glorious than these jars of clay, that can crack and break. The gospel can not crack and break and turn to dust over time, but we will. The message is bigger than us and more glorious than we can contain, this just proves that it is the power of God who gives life (saves) and not us, who are frail and could break at any time. In

Paul says “I planted [the seeds of the gospel], Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. 7So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.”

Compared to the glory of God and His message of salvation, we are nothing. Our duty as Christians is to get the message out; to shout it from the mountaintops and to hold our light up for all to see. We must reach the world in any way possible. We must use tapes, cds, books, magazines, the Internet, television, and yes, even satellite transmissions to get this message out. If we were to say that a pastor had to be in the room for the message to count, it would put more emphasis on the messenger rather than the message. And if the word of God only counted when it was brought by someone standing in the same room, it would invalidate all of the theologians and biblical scholars that have come before us. We would have to throw away any cds or tapes that had preaching (or worship for that matter as you obviously could not worship personally today with a recording of an event that happened years ago). This belief would even invalidate the very truth of the bible. The Bible was written many years ago, and if the only way the word of God counted was to be given by a pastor in our midst, the bible would be worthless, after all none of us has ever met the apostle Paul, let alone heard him preach.

Hearing the word of God being preached from a man standing in the same room does not make the gospel any more true than reading the bible by yourself in a quite room does. The gospel is always true, not matter how it is brought, or who brings it, because God is always true. God’s message does not depend on man’s preaching. The message will be just as true if I’m sitting in the main campus watching the pastor as he preaches live, or sitting in the north campus watching a recording of the pastor. The message is still true.

I pray that God would use Alina and I to help get the message out.