The Thoughts of Ryan-C

Thanks to Matt Chandler this will be the title of a chapter in one of my books: Open your Bibles to Hosea, you whores.

Also, here is another thought from Matt Chandler… but its serious.

“I’m not talking about singing. I am talking about just living, breathing, thinking, eating worship…. Like fajitas and the fact that God created skirt steak, tortillas, guacamole, cheese, and the flavor that is all those things combined, should create an unbelievably worshipful experience… There is something about the softness of a woman that should create a sense of worship in her man. There is something about getting up in the morning and the strong smell of coffee with the coolness of the morning that should create worship in us; a pleasure in the Christ who created and spoke those things into existence. This is how we should live: with a constant pleasure in Him who did these things.”

That’s how I want to live, with a constant pleasure in Him who did these things.

Also, I am reading Hosea. It’s pretty freaking awesome.

And for your enjoyment…

Whenever I drive long distances I listen to sermons instead of music. I usually don’t have the attention span to listen to them in my room without getting distracted, so listening straight through whole ones in the car is a great thing for me. So a couple of things stood out to me over the past couple of days and I figured I would post them for your enjoyment and edification.

John Piper talking about prayer…

“Prayer should be the visible engine of your church. The visible engine of your church is reliance on God by puting your face in your hands and saying ‘I can’t do this…’ We need to pray a lot, but American’s don’t believe in prayer, we’re too pragmatic; it just feels inefficient. You’re sitting at your desk… and doing nothing? Just talking to God and asking Him to change the world. I like to get in Calvinists face and say things like, ‘You have not because you ask not (James 4)’ meaning if you would have prayed God would have saved that person… Calvinists don’t like that, that doesn’t fit election… well it does… it really does.”

Matt Chandler talking about some problems in missional churches that can be solved…

“As mission has been removed from our people and has been protect yourself from sin (in this context he is referring to the sin of those around us, not our own), sanctification has slowed to a halt. Because sanctification occurs as you engage a lost and dying world in the neighborhoods and workplaces in which you have been placed.”

Those just really stuck out to me.

My friend Jimmy just wrote a great concise blog, go read it.

Mark Driscoll out of Mars Hill Church in Seattle recently came out with a book series called A Book You’ll Actually Read. These books are all under 100 pages and as the title says, you will actually read these books without tearing your eyes out. Currently there are four books in the series, but I believe he is going to expand them to more topics. The current ones are A Book You’ll Actually Read: On Who Is God, On The Old Testament, On The New Testament, and On Church Leadership. I own and have read all of them but the one on church leadership and they are written extraordinarily well.

More after the jump…

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This is the newest book coming from Mark Driscoll that hits stores and the internet on September 30th. I already pre-ordered a copy and so far the cheapest place to buy it is the Westminster Bookstore where it is $13 instead of $20 (Amazon also has it for $13).

Check out this awesome trailer….

…and I have decided to stop doing my chapter by chapter book reviews. I know that they were good and all, but they were a little too labor intensive. I will be reviewing books and whatnot, just not huge indepth chapter by chapter reviews… more like overviews while focusing on main points that I enjoyed.

I probably won’t post any more on The Reason for God, but know that it was a good book and that you all should read it. Up next is either The Rise of Christianity or something by Piper or Driscoll.

A week ago a few friends we discussing the topic of habitual sin and discipline within the Body of Christ. At the time I was pretty blah on the topic and just wanted to have happy thoughts, but tonight God led to me the same passages that were being discussed that night and gave me some pretty powerful insight on the topic.

The scripture discussed that evening were 1 Corinthians 5 and 6 (with some others here and there). As Paul is writing to the Corinthians he sees a large flaw in their congregation. He sees how they have no form of discipline and how they fail to deal with sin within the body. Paul knows that the church has no authority to judge those outside the body because that is God’s duty, but he knows that the inside the body believers are to come together in love for one another to rebuke those who do not live according to their title of ‘Christian’. The way it works out in the church at Corinth is that since they didn’t have any plan for discipline, there was no discipline. When you have a lack of discipline you create a breeding ground for sin and this is exactly the opposite of what the church should be. Paul writes about rebuking those in sin and purging the evil from among you and this got me thinking.

If we don’t confront our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ concerning their sin which they flaunt, then we are only furthering their sin’s progression. Also according to the scriptures we are not supposed to act like everything is okay around and we aren’t supposed to have fellowship with them until they decided to clean up their act (5:9-13). I know a lot of people that read this will be shocked/angry/confused but it is what we are called to do, but we often fail to do it because it is hard to do and because we are afraid of the repercussions. Recently I have been in the position to confront friends on their sin and have done nothing about it. I sat back and let them do as they pleased, hopefully I can help those around me who need me and do what I should do in the future. I hope we all do.

So, yesterday my lovely girlfriend, Lauren, told me about a new sermon from Mark Driscoll that she was listening to. It is called ‘Pray Like Jesus’ and it is totally amazing. Out of all the spiritual aspects of my life I know that prayer has always been the hardest to stay consistent with and boy does Mark give you his standard encouraging punch in the face with this one. He went through a ton of verses covering the entire gamut of scripture on the topic. I really like how he presents the topic. Prayer doesn’t have to be some crazy ritual with formalities and what-not it just needs to be open communication. It is very similar to the relationship between a father and his child. We are to present Him with our whole lives and all we have to say, because as a father He wants to listen to us and hear from us. Also we are to pray because we love God and we love people and prayer is a logical conclusion and combination of the two.

So if you want me to pray for you just post it in a comment and consider it done (I could use the practice). Also if you want to pray for me that’d be great. You can pray for me and Lauren and you can pray for school and for strength in temptation. I love you guys.

If you want to listen to this sermon you can check out the Mars Hill Church podcast in iTunes.

So on the way home last thursday, I listed to a sermon by C.J. Mahaney in which he gave some thoughts on grace and 1 Corinthians. So I decided to read some of 1 Corinthians today and take a look for myself. Basically what it comes down to is one interesting thing. In the opening of the book, Paul gives thanks for the grace given to them and the work that Christ is doing in them, but once you get into the book you see that the church in Corinth was totally jacked up and had a messload of problems. But what it comes down do is that God does not leave any work unfinished and that He who started a work in you will complete it. This was rather encouraging to me.

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. -1 Corinthians 1:4-9

We often overlook these passages of scripture because we take them as a standard greeting and opening of an epistle, but on further inspection it has implications of hope that are so very comforting.

Chapter 10 is entitled The Problem of Sin. Keller begins the chapter by defining sin as Soren Kierkegard did. Sin is: in despair not wanting to be oneself before God….Faith is: that the self is being itself and wanting to be itself is grounded transparently in God In non-philisophical terms he is saying that sin is trying to get an identity apart from God. If you find your personal value in things apart from God this is sin. Most people think of sin as “breaking divine rules,” but the first of the Ten Commandments states to have no other gods before the true and living God. Throughout movies and even our own lives, we see people constantly defining who they are by their accomplishments and this simply leads to failure. Ultimately this will let you down. If you define yourself by how you are as a parent, then if something happens to you child then your identity is crushed, or if you define you life on a spouse and something happens to them or they let you down, then your identity is lost. Its a cycle of disappointment.
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