Great quote from Tim Keller

I heard this from a message TIm Keller gave, bought the MP3 and transcribed it. Any errors are my responsibility. Enjoy1

"You and I were created to sing. If secular people are right, then we are an accident, and love and hate and good and evil are how you are hard-wired, but they do not really exist. But if you were created by someone then you were created for someone. If by God, then created for God, if by the king, then for the king. We were created to make Him our king. Until you are, true to your original nature – you are like a fish on the ground; like a seed of a tree left on the windowsill. You need to plunge into the Lord Jesus Christ to become who you were meant to be. When the trees come into the full presence and lordship of God, they will be able to sing and dance – they are mere shadows now, they will be fully themselves then – and if that is true for them, then what about for us?"

The Shoulders We Stand On

Yesterday I read, along with some friends, a portion of a sermon written in the 1700's by Jonathan Edwards. We thought that, in acknowledgment of the U.S. Thanksgiving, we would drink deeply from our history as Christians. We were moved, awed, melted and stirred by his description of the 'Safety, Fulness, and Sweet Refreshment to be Found in Christ.'

We could not believe the depth of his love for Christ, the grandeur of His sense of God's majesty, and the penetrating scope of his theological exposition on what Christ's death actually accomplished for us. There may be a book written this year that begins to compare with this one sermon for it's power to edify and instruct Christians, but I doubt it. If you want to be renewed in your sense of the love that God has for you, the glory of His grace, the fulness of Christ's saving work, and your freedom from any condemnation, look no further. You can find it online here.

We stand on the shoulders of giants. We drink from wells dug centuries ago. We would do well to remember, to be thankful, and to return to these ancient paths for sweet refreshment. They did not know a different Saviour, but they seemed to know Him differently. And we would do well to learn something about Him, from them.

Why the church needs the city- and vice versa

Tomorrow night we have a Mezzanine event, one of a series of events run out of our Grace Centre for the Arts. It is a first-rate, professional jazz gig. The artists are from a diverse spiritual spectrum. People are constantly confused and amazed that we have these kinds of art events. They don't quite understand why we are having this 'conversation' between artists of Christian and non- Christian persuasion. Most Christian art endeavours are about the making of Christian art, by Christian artists, for Christian people.

We need that work, desperately. We need to learn to make new art, for the glory of God. I applaud that. But we also need to make artists new, for the glory of God. And we need to make both Christian and non- Christian artists new by the renewing power of the gospel.

The city needs the gospel because it is only in the gospel that it's hopes are realized, it's fears banished and it's dreams consummated. Only the redeeming work of Jesus can free us from the idols of work, success and wealth that threaten to enslave us. So the city needs the church which confesses the gospel of Jesus.

The church needs the gospel because the church, like the city, is threatened with the slavery of the same idols. We are alike, because the church and the city are filled with the same basic building block; people. People who are beautiful and broken, who are made for God but want to live independent of God.

The church speaks the gospel to the city, but we sometimes forget that the city speaks the gospel back to the church, if we have ears to hear. How? In this way: the city reminds the church to live up to it's beliefs.

You see, the city loves the ethics of Jesus. The city loves His emphasis upon love, justice, mercy and grace, forgiveness and charity. They don't want to come under the authority of the person of Jesus, it is true. They need the church to call them to repentance of that reduction of the gospel. But they understand intuitively that if the gospel is true, it affects everything. That is indeed what gives them pause.

The church loves Jesus. But we often reduce our faith to Sunday- morning faith; a set of beliefs without public consequence. We believe in the person and fail to apply His commands. This is where the city prophetically calls us to repent. And we need to hear them. Mezzanine is about this mutually beneficial conversation, this transforming dialogue between church and city, that helps both of us understand the gospel better.

The lost girls of Mumbai

If you read my post at our church blog here, you know that I was I was shocked, appalled, and outraged by the degradation of women in the mean streets of Mumbai. God hates exploitation. God hates sexual slavery. God hates the abuse of women. God hates indifference in the face of injustice. So talk to me; what can we do for these lost girls of Mumbai? Here is perhaps a start: let's raise some money and get some help to the organizations that are ministering to them. One of them, that some missionary friends whom I trust visited and spent significant time with, are an oasis of God's love in the midst of this darkness. We can partner with them; they are called Project Oasis and their specific ministry is 'The Aruna Project.' See their web page here. But we know they help women directly; they have rescued women, and they have workers who are former sex slaves who have been rescued and are now transformed. So if you give to us, we will forward the money to them on your behalf, and receipt you for it. Simply designate your gifts 'Mumbai' and we will do it. And pray with us. Stand in the gap for them. Raise a voice for those who have none.

Mumbai and the Heart of Darkness

I am sitting in a conference that is interested in planting a movement of the gospel in the city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). We just heard a report on the sex slave trade in Mumbai. Did you know that:

- 40,000 sex trade slaves ply their trade in a 2 square mile area in the middle of the city- and nobody in the police or government is trying to help them;

- pimps get over $200 million per year from this trade;

- girls are sold into this trade (mostly by their families) at age 10 or so;

- girls this young, because they are a flight risk, are held captive in hidden rooms and cellars, tied to their prisons, raped repeatedly, and tortured with among other things live electrical wires, until they are 'broken' and won't flee;

- People who try to help them are targeted by the local mafia

This is not acceptable. This is monstrous, horrifying sin. This is the heart of satanic darkness. Pray for light to break this darkness. Pray for God to break this vicious cycle. Pray for the church to stand up and fight this. This is THE issue of our time.

Pray, and pray for a way to make this thing END.

Come Apart and Rest, or Come Apart

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the Christian faith is under deep spiritual assault in our day. I am not talking about the headlines that chronicle political and cultural changes. I am talking about personal conversations with pastors, friends, missionaries, and others who are seeing havoc being wreaked in their ministries right now. Why? Nothing new; marital divisions, family breakups, impurity, greed. All the usual suspects.

All of this need fuels my desire to be a fix-er. My desire is to ride in and try to be the cavalry. Except for one thing; the cavalry rides unarmed. We - and I feel this personally - go into battle weak, weary, tempted and inadequate for any kind of real spiritual battle. If we do not go in the strength of the Cross, boasting of our weakness -we will surely ride in vain and become statistics ourselves. At least I will.

And so, at this time of great spiritual assault, I think I need to go and meet with Jesus, and get some rest, and realign myself with Who actually is doing the riding, and the delivering, around here.

The great enemy of true Christian spiritual formation today is, in my mind, how busy we are. And how busy we think we need to be. Busy-ness is a synonym for idolatry in me. Being busy makes me feel important; irreplaceable - in short, God-like.

The busier I get, the less effective I think I become. Certainly, the less like Jesus I think I become.

I need a Sabbath rest from myself. I need a Sabbath rest from my workaholism. I need a Sabbath rest from my driving need to be useful, important, significant.

And I might just get one; sort of. The staff of our church are all going to a conference together. We are driving together, hanging together, learning together. Building some community, some team, some fun and some reality into the surreal overdrive that is ministry today.

Jesus said to us come apart and rest awhile. I think I need to come apart, lest I come apart.

Wrestling to worship...to mission.

These past few weeks we have been looking at the Psalms, and seeing how real, how relevant, how raw they can be. This past week we talked a little about how God wants us to move from wrestling with Him, to worshipping Him. We saw how the journey of faith must actually have a destination. We were made to find home. We were made to worship something, and in the absence of worshipping God, we will worship little 'g' gods - idols, functional gods who cannot handle the weight of expectations that we put on them.

Wrestling to worship. We were made to delight in, to glory in, to find our joy and satisfaction in, God Himself. Only God can carry the weight of our infinite desires. Only God can actually satisfy the depth of our needs and dreams. We were made for perfection, and He alone can quench our thirst for infinite beauty, infinite wisdom, infinite justice and infinite joy.

But it goes further than that. Worship will inevitably, and must irresistibly, lead to mission. You cannot worship God, delight in him, and enjoy him properly without wanting to share him contagiously.

That is why we, at Grace Toronto, are framing our next series of sermons on the person of Jesus. We are going to take this next semester and talk about two things: Understanding Jesus, and Following Jesus. Taken from the gospel of Luke, we are going to gaze deeply into the person, and the work, of our dear Saviour.

This will be an excellent opportunity for us not only to deepen our understanding, but to bring people who do not yet understand the gospel, into a thoughtful, deeper conversation about who He is and what He means to them. A great opportunity to bring friends and co-workers, family and neighbours to hear about the God who became one of us. So that we might become like Him; a beloved child of the Father.

I am hoping and praying for an ingathering of interested skeptics, seekers, and explorers to come and hear.