Atheism, the Cross and Revelation

Many debates between a Christian and atheist go something like this:

Christian: “God exists because we see the influences of a Creator all around us. Only His existence can make sense of everything else.”

Atheist: “Okay, so God exists. Now why are you a Christian and not Jewish or Mormon or Islamic?”

Christian: “Ummm” (insert awkward relativism like: “For me Christianity makes the most sense”) …

If you don’t think this fumbling happens, I would encourage you to listen to the recent McGrath/Dawkins debate. When a Christian debates an atheist – as you hear in this and many other debates – there comes a moment when the debate takes an awkward turn. The question changes from the existence of God to why the Christian has chosen his/her religion over all the others. It’s an awkward moment because it reveals that the Christian was debating from rationalism, not pleading obedience to God’s revelation. This misunderstanding gets exposed with one simple question.

So you believe in God. What makes Jesus Christ your god of choice? It seems the only objective answer to this most pressing question is to say God is found in His Son as revealed in His Word. It’s here that the wisdom of God will get you laughed out of an academic debate. But Scripture makes this point clear in several places:

1 John 2:23 “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.”

1 John 4:15 “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.”

2 John 1:9 “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”

In other words, if you have not persuasively turned sinners toward Jesus Christ and the Cross you have not persuaded sinners to God! Even if you can prove God exists — if this is where you end — you have won nothing. When Christians dialogue with atheists/skeptics/agnostics, the discussion must move beyond the mere existence of a god (and the skeptic knows this!).

Attempts to prove the existence of God make it very easy to forget the message of the Cross of Christ. Keeping the Cross central in our conversations with atheists demands that we have a firm handle on the revelation of God that breaks into our hearts and is confirmed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I’m not supposing we should disengage the debates. Certainly not! The church must continue to engage culture (and atheism is a growing segment of our cultural fabric in America). I’m arguing that a successful debate cannot be defined as the persuading of others of the existence of God. Rather, God is here, He is angry towards sin every day and sinners must bow and repent from their sin. Especially when we enter the philosophical and academic centers of the world God calls us to follow in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:30-31).

If we have not (by God’s grace) persuaded skeptics to the Cross, neither have we persuaded them to God. The Cross — not Deism — is the goal.

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As I finished this post, Jon Bloom posted an excellent comment on another post that fits here. Thanks Jon!

“The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.” – Christopher Hitchens.

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children” (Matt 11:25). “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3). – Jesus

We will always be the infants of our species. Thank you, Tony!

Indeed, Jon. Thank you!

Sermon Notes: The Atonement

Sermon Notes: The Atonement

Last night I was graciously provided an opportunity to preach on the Atonement to a group of youth. I tried to make three overall points. First, a relationship with holy God demands perfect obedience to His Law (NPP debate). Thus, the Law silences every sinner in their guilt. Secondly, I tried to highlight the Old Testament atonement imagery in light of Christ’s work on the Cross. And third, I attempted to communicate the perfect sufficiency of the Atoning work of Christ. We see this sufficiency not only in being forgiven and “getting saved” but also in the Lamb Who is the source of the River of Life. The Atonement Lamb is both sufficient to cleanse from the guilt of sin AND sufficient to fill us with spiritual life, joy and hope! May the beauty of this Lamb soak our hearts!

The Atonement – 4/29/07 – Lesson Notes (pdf)
The Atonement – 4/29/07 – Lesson Handouts (pdf)
The Atonement – 4/29/07 – Lesson Audio (mp3) 19.6 MB

[see more sermon notes]

Atheism and Revelation

What I appreciate from Christopher Hitchens (and other atheist/skeptics) is the utter impossibility of the human mind to wrap itself around God.

“The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did. Still less can they hope to tell us the ‘meaning’ of later discoveries and developments which were, when they began, either obstructed by their religions or denounced by them. And yet—the believers still claim to know! Not just to know, but to know everything. Not just to know that god exists, and that he created and supervised the whole enterprise, but also to know what ‘he’ demands of us—from our diet to our observances to our sexual morality. In other words, in a vast and complicated discussion where we know more and more about less and less, yet can still hope for some enlightenment as we proceed, one faction—itself composed of mutually warring factions—has the sheer arrogance to tell us that we already have all the essential information we need. Such stupidity, combined with such pride, should be enough on its own to exclude ‘belief’ from the debate. The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species. It may be a long farewell, but it has begun and, like all farewells, should not be protracted.” [Slate mag]

All the more, this forces us back to the graciousness of God, that He discloses Himself. First, in the “theater” of creation and then more specifically in His Word — Jesus Christ (John 1) — and then confirms His revelation by the power of His Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:16). The answer is in Him, not my blog. As Tom Fluharty profoundly puts it, “I cannot be right and I’m never wrong because Christ is true!” Can the Church, following this revelation of God, be any less solipsistic?

1 John 5:9-10a says, “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself …” The testimony of men will prove to be a mass of contradictions, an unstable foundation for our eternal hope. But this is all we have until and unless God speaks and seals!

English Puritans on Meditation

My friend Amy Gant has a published new website devoted to the topic of English Puritan Meditation. The website complements her excellent MA thesis, “‘Beating a Path to Heaven’: Nathanael Ranew and the Puritan Art of Divine Meditation in the Seventeenth Century.” The thesis focused on Ranew’ book Solitude improved by divine meditation.

From the website:

“To the Puritans, divine meditation involved personal devotion and edification in the sense of thinking godly thoughts – thinking the type of thoughts that Jesus Christ Himself might think. Or, as Richard Baxter put it, “…meditation is but the reading over and repeating God’s reasons to our hearts, and so disputing with ourselves in his arguments and terms.” As scholar Richard Douglas Jordan has said, Baxter also “took a stand against enthusiasm in devotion and saw meditation as involved with reason and the written word. In his Christian Directory, Baxter spoke of the Christian’s delight in God as a ’solid rational’ experience.” These understandings stemmed both from Scriptural examples such as those in the Psalms and from biblically-based doctrines of salvation, sanctification, and more, which provide motivation for many of the Christian disciplines.

It required a great amount of personal self-control to focus one’s mind upon unseen realities such as God and Heaven. The motivation for such intellectual pursuits was based, again, in Puritan doctrine: they were committed to meditation because they understood the Scriptures to teach that it was God’s will for them to practice it. Yet the great emphasis, earnestness and time commitment which they gave to this task is best understood in light of the Puritan sense of urgency in performing all the spiritual disciplines, and in living a godly life in general. Because of their focus on the shortness of life, Puritans tended to abhor unnecessary wasting of the time that God had given them, as servants, to perform their duties on earth. For this reason, mental discipline came to be very important for the Puritans – and meditation was a large part of that process.”

You will find a great deal of biblical and historical information on the art of divine meditation. I would encourage you to take some time this weekend to look around.

Created by God, for God

I’m a sucker for witty prose. So Sam Harris’ endorsement of atheist Christopher Hitchens’ new book (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) caught my attention:

“If God intended reasonable men and women to worship Him without embarrassment, why did He create Christopher Hitchens? It was a fatal miscalculation. In God Is Not Great, Hitchens not only demonstrates that religion is man-made — and made badly — he laughs the whole monstrosity to rubble. This is a profoundly clever book, addressing the most pressing social issue of our time, by one of the finest writers in the land.”

- Sam Harris, Author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation

I know this endorsement was intended to be funny, but it raises interesting questions: Was the creation of Christopher Hitchens a “fatal misconception” by God or is there more to it?

What if God — to declare his power throughout the world — created Christopher Hitchens to consume his mind with Himself? What if Christopher was created by God to shake lethargic God-ignorers into more serious thought? What if God created this atheist for the purpose of one day shocking the world by his repentance and faith in Jesus Christ? Maybe God created Christopher to further evidence the indestructibility of His church? Maybe Christopher was created to help the church sharpen its understanding of God’s Word, spiritual battles and the beautiful marriage of science and faith? Or maybe God created Christopher in order to patiently wait for an opportunity to display His holy power and wrath (Rom. 9:22)?

It’s not possible right now to know exactly why God created Christopher Hitchens. But somehow, at some time, God will reveal His infinite wisdom. Bottom line: God created Christopher Hitchens — and Sam Harris — for His own glory. What infinite wisdom! “For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart’” (1 Cor. 1:19).

Christopher Hitchens was no “fatal miscalculation.” He bears the Potter’s fingerprints as much as anyone.

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Related: See Doug Wilson’s review of God is Not Great.

Todd Agnew: “Shepherd, your sheep are weary”

I wanted to take a moment this Friday morning to encourage preachers. You may even be taking a break from sermon preparation to read this and I want to say thank you for serving your flock by teaching them Scripture. I want to use this opportunity to remind you that your sheep come in “battered and bruised and torn” from a week spent seeking happiness and joy in the world’s false promises and illusions. Some of your sheep who will listen to your sermons are right now lost in the luring promises of worldly joy and they need someone to point them back to Jesus and His Cross. This work, this joy, this privilege, falls to you. Today I post the lyrics to a song called Shepherd by Todd Agnew (Grace Like Rain album) to help remind us of the important role pastors play in the lives of their sheep. Thank you for your diligent shepherding of eternal souls!

Shepherd by Todd Agnew

Shepherd, your sheep are weary
Cold and tired, battered and bruised and torn
Shepherd, your sheep are hungry
We got what we want but we still need something more

Chorus:
We need to hear your voice
Whatever You might say
We just need to hear your voice
Show us the way

Shepherd, your sheep are lost
We chased our wants that we thought were needs
Now we can’t get home
Shepherd, your sheep are longing
We ate and we ran, we played and we danced, but we’re empty

(Chorus) x2

Shepherd, these sheep are Yours
We tried to be king, but we don’t want to anymore

Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference > UPDATE

Preparations are in high gear for the Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference just over one month away. In the midst of this flurry, our good friend Steve Burlew has graciously promised a special tour of the Banner of Truth warehouse in Carlisle to all the “friends of The Shepherd Scrapbook” (we really should make some T-shirts).

We’re thinking the tour would be after lunch on Wednesday. We will fit as many friends in Steve’s new Maserati MC12 and configure other transportation as needed (sales of John Owen have been good!). So, please let me know if you plan to attend the conference on May 29-31 in Grantham, PA and especially if you want in on the warehouse tour. Actually “warehouse tour,” sounds pretty dull … let’s call it the “The North American Banner of Truth Gospel Distribution Centre Tour.” More details and registration information can be found at the Banner website.

If you’re a seminary student or a pastor looking to be encouraged, consider registration and then let me know if you plan to attend the tour on Wednesday (leave a comment below or shoot an email: tony AT tonyreinke DOT com). And remember, “friends don’t let friends not read John Owen.”

Looking forward to our fellowship in PA!

——– TOUR LIST TO DATE (4/29 PM) ———

1. Brandon Cozart
2. Larry Wood
3. Richard Rushing
4. Dwayne W. (Madison, WI)
5. you?

C.J. Mahaney: “Trinitarian Pastoral Ministry”

Friday evening (4/13/07)
General Session #5
C.J. Mahaney: “Trinitarian Pastoral Ministry”

GAITHERSBURG, MD – The year 2007 will be remembered as an important year in the careful study of John Owen’s theology. With the recent release of Kelly Kapic’s Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Baker: 2007) and the forthcoming release of Crossway’s retypeset edition of Owen’s Communion with the Triune God, I anticipate an increasingly balanced awareness of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This beautiful Trinitarian balance of Owen was echoed and applied pastorally by C.J. Mahaney in the concluding address of the 2007 Sovereign Grace Ministries Leader’s Conference.

Mahaney began by cautioning pastors from allowing culture to define the model of ministry. The form and substance of pastoral ministry is defined by the character and work of the Triune God. The character and work of the Triune Godhead is displayed in the final verse of 2 Corinthians: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (13:14). Mahaney detailed each character and work of the Three Persons of the Godhead. The order here (Son, Father, Holy Spirit) seems to be ordered by our experience of Him.

“The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ”

We first meet Christ. The Cross comes first. Paul never assumes the Gospel even up until the very last verse of 2 Corinthians. For Paul, everything comes back to the Gospel.

But to proclaim the grace of the Cross means we must proclaim sin. Proclaiming sin well – without concealing grace – takes a lot of work. Exposing sin is much easier than applying grace and exposing sin should never be done by men who cannot rightly apply grace. Grace is the message applied to sin. We can never take our eyes of Calvary. Once we lose sight of Calvary, we miss our path. In every sermon there will be a sighting of Calvary. That is Paul’s example in 2 Corinthians even as he confronts sin.

“The Love of God”

Secondly, the work of pastoral ministry is to convince others of God’s love, specifically God’s personal love for His children. Verbally and passionately position others to experience the Father’s love personally. Several other passages show the love of God in the salvation of sinners, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8) … “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 Jn. 3:1) … “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 Jn. 4:8). The love of God is displayed in the Cross and in adopting sinners into His family!

It was the Father’s love that motivated the Cross. Christ died because God loved us! God initiated the Cross out of love. Sinclair Ferguson says, “We should almost think God loved us more than He loves His Son.” God persuades us of His love in the Cross.

To be right with God (justified) is a great thing, so too is being adopted by God the Father. Read Sinclair Ferguson’s Children of the Living God, J.I. Packer’s Knowing God (on adoption) and Trevor Burke’s Adopted into God’s Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor.

How do I leave my people on Sunday? Do they walk away with a deep sense of God’s love towards them?

“The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit”

There is a life of participation with the Holy Spirit. We are dependent upon the Holy Spirit and so we pursue His presence and His power with eagerness. We are called to grow, desire and pursue the power of the Holy Spirit as governed by the authority of Scripture. There is a tremendous breadth and diversity of this fellowship.

(It was at this point C.J. explained why he prefers the term “continuist” over “charismatic”). The power of the Holy Spirit is broader than the miraculous. We should understand the Holy Spirit in this broad diversity. In the Corinthian church, as evidenced in the two Pauline letters, there was a minimizing of some of the Holy Spirit’s work. The Corinthians held a fascination with the gift of tongues. And so on the list of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:29 Paul places tongues last on the list of gifts. The spectacular does not happen every day and because of this we need to avoid the Corinthian error of being fascinated with some gifts and the minimizing of others. We need to celebrate the work of the Holy Spirit in its broad diversity without exaggerating the significance of one particular gift.

It’s important to become more perceptive to the work of the Holy Spirit in this diversity. For example, there is a proneness to placing authority in the prophetic gifts over Scripture. Beware of emphasizing one gift at the exclusion of the others.

The ultimate priority of the Holy Spirit’s work is to reveal the Savior and the blessings of the Gospel! The work of the Holy Spirit cannot be understood apart from the message of the Cross. As D.A. Carson writes, “To be spiritual is profoundly tied to the Cross.”

Conclusion

This final message from the Leader’s Conference left us with much for further meditation. The encouragement to work at presenting the Father in His love is a good challenge. It is easy to display God solely in His holy vengeance, so that for the Christian to think of Him as a loving, tender Father becomes (practically speaking) a foreign concept. I need to let my adoption by God capture more of my affection and experience, like the doctrine of justification has in the past. Mahaney’s statement that ‘exposing sin is much easier than applying grace, and exposing sin should never be done by men who cannot rightly apply grace’ continues to echo in my thoughts. It is a true statement and very humbling for this aspiring preacher. This message was a great challenge to define pastoral ministry within the balanced context of God’s Triunity.

I’m not sure who talks faster, C.J. or John Moschitta, so to get the full details I would once again suggest this message from the 2007 Sovereign Grace Leader’s Conference as worthy the sacrifice of a venti Americano.

Overall, the conference was an incredible experience. The content and structure of the breakout sessions and the general sessions were excellent. And to spend three nights being led in worship by Bob Kauflin, singing songs like “Before the Throne,” was certainly a glimpse into the eternal worship around the throne of the Lamb! Speaking of heavenly things, the bookstore was well-stocked and efficiently run. The conference carried an excellent blend of Bibles, theology, pastoral counseling, biography, children’s books and music. For me personally, the conference provided a great opportunity to grow closer to our friends who also traveled from Minneapolis and to see the generousness and loving care our church in Minneapolis continues to pour out on my wife and family! I can summarize the words of others, but trying to summarize the experience of the conference is really not possible. Thanks for reading the updates! -Tony

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Related 2007 SGM LC sessions:

 

1. 2007 Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference

2. R.C. Sproul: “The Holiness of God”

3. Rick Gamache: “Watch Your Devotional Life”

4. Mark Dever: “Watch the Past: Living Lessons from Dead Theologians”

5. David Powlison: “‘In the Last Analysis…’ Look out for Introspection”

6. C.J. Mahaney: “Trinitarian Pastoral Ministry”

7. 2007 Conference photographs

Review: Church History by Christopher Catherwood

Book Review
Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious
by Christopher Catherwood

Christopher Catherwood is a tutor for the Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education and the maternal grandson of preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981). You may own more of Catherwood’s books than you realize because while being recognized for his own authored books, he has edited a number of his grandfather’s sermons into printed volumes (Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John being one example of his editorial work). His latest book is titled Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious (Crossway: 2007) and I recommend it for several reasons.

As you can tell from its title, this book is a very easy-to-read history of the developments of the church from Christ until today. It is useful as a brief but engaging overview of church history and will fit well into a home schooling curriculum.

In Church History, he paints an engaging picture of the contemporary, global Christian church. For example, he lets the reader peak into Chinese Christian culture and the struggle between the underground church and the state-approved “Three-Self Patriotic Church.” Are Christians compromising their beliefs to be in the state-approved church? Questions like this specifically, and the state of the church in the East generally, are very interesting and worldview broadening.

Catherwood carefully explains the ever-changing contours of global Christianity. For example he reminds us of the North Africa town of Hippo – which was once an “overwhelmingly Christian” town made famous by Augustine – is now “overwhelmingly Muslim.” “We are so used to thinking of places such as Iraq (then called Mesopotamia), Egypt, and Syria as Muslim, we forget that they were once the heartland of the Christian world” (50). The shifting contours of the global Christian community are directly tied to waves of Islamic invasions that began in the seventh century. The influence of Islam upon church development is reiterated throughout.

Catherwood pinpoints key events in church history and lets them run out into contemporary lessons. For example, in 312 Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman empire, making it both safe and publicly fashionable to be Christian. However, negatively this act wed politics to the church. This danger continues to hold when (as in the United States) the church is regularly identified by its political clout (41-42). The reader may not agree with all the conclusions but there is no question Catherwood excels at tying key events in the long history of the church with contemporary events. He will make you think.

Being a reformed historian, Catherwood is theologically careful. He clearly defines the continuing doctrinal dangers of Roman Catholicism especially its “hagiolatry” (worship of saints) and its “Mariolatry” the teaching that Mary was the Mother of God, something that has only recently — since 1950 — become official dogma in Roman Catholicism (81). And, to my knowledge, this is the first Christian history that accurately categorizes Mother Theresa as a universalist (202). Even in light of Vatican II (1962-1965), “Theologically, from a biblical point of view, nothing really changed since the key Catholic doctrines to which Protestants have objected since the Reformation did not change” (198). But Catherwood also reminds us that each and every heart is susceptible to giving undue honor and worship to someone other than God. He calls us to search our own hearts, lest we be committing hagiolatry with St. Spurgeon or St. Calvin (80).

But for me this book is most helpful because it understands Christian history from a reformed perspective, making God’s sovereign grace central to the development of the church. While some historians point to the printing press or German nationalism for the spread of the Protestant Reformation, Catherwood understands “they are all secondary to the main reason – the work of God” (89). And later, “the return to biblical truth in the reformation was a wonderful act of God” (105). The reader comes away from this book with a deeper sense that God’s hands have shaped the church into what she is today.

Call me curious, but once I picked this book up I couldn’t put it down. Catherwood is downright engaging. You will not agree at every turn, but he will make you think as he broadens your perspective of the global church and how God has shaped the church by key events and people over the past 2,000 years.

———-

Title: Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious
Author: Christopher Catherwood
Reading level: 1.75/5.0 > easy
Boards: paper
Pages: 224
Volumes: 1
Dust jacket: no
Binding: glue
Paper: normal
Topical index: yes
Scriptural index: no (unnecessary)
Text: perfect type
Publisher: Crossway
Year: 2007
Price USD: $12.99 from Crossway
ISBNs: 9781581348415, 158134841x

2007 SGM LC: David Powlison

Friday morning (4/13/07)
General Session #3
David Powlison: “‘In the Last Analysis…’ Look out for Introspection”

GAITHERSBURG, MD – Reformed and always reforming. This sentence encapsulates the desire of the reformed church. Our confessions and doctrine should be structured by biblically accurate reformed theology. And — without taking our eyes off these doctrines — the church continues pressing on in diligent reformation.

From my personal perspective, no aspect of the reformed church has more reformed over the past 20 years than its handling of biblical counseling. And in this modern reformation of the church, away from secular psychology and superficial proof-texting towards a community of believers that are God-centered, heart-conscious and biblically-informed; few have played a more important role than Dr. David Powlison, professor at Westminster Theological Seminary.

As an aside, I recall reading Powlison’s excellent book, Seeing with New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture (P&R; 2003). On a red-eye flight I read these words,

“You will not go wrong if you plunge into Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Master it. Be mastered by it. Work Ephesians into your thinking, your living, your prayers, and your conversation. The Bible is vast and deep, and human life is diverse and perplexing. But in a pinch you could do all counseling from Ephesians. It’s all there: the big picture that organizes a myriad of details” (p. 17).

Powlision is not just talking about the later chapters of Ephesians and how they relate to marriage. He is arguing that God’s electing grace of the early chapters is essential to understanding marriage. This is why Powlison has, in another place, said that the solas of the reformation and the doctrines of Calvinism “will prove to be the redemption of counseling” (The Practical Calvinist, p. 504). Powlison’s reforms have been seen in moving away from proof-texting “biblical” counseling that has prevailed for so many years in the church. Large biblical contexts are essential for biblical care towards one another. This is why I love Powlison. Now, back to the introduction…

Powlison serves as editor of The Journal of Biblical Counseling (a quarterly publication no care group leader or pastor should be without). Justin Taylor has written more on Powlison’s impact on to the church (see his blog).

“Excessive introspection”

Sovereign Grace Ministries is a family of churches marked by excellence in ministering within care groups and equipping their congregations to handle many of the counseling sessions previously thought could only be handled by pastors. In a show of great leadership, C.J. Mahaney invited Powlison to address the family of churches over a potential emphasis on “excessive introspection,” of trying to find the root-of-the-root-of-the-root of every sin in one’s heart without moving beyond this.

Powlison began by restating the potential problem: an overemphasis on the cravings of the heart (idols and lusts) rather than on identifying the sin and moving on to simple obedience. The danger is “getting caught into a vortex of self-introspection.” Instead, analysis should be the doorway to obedience, repentance, and joy.

“Self-analysis leads to paralysis.” The goal of biblical self-knowledge is to push us outside ourselves into prayer and action (love, forgive, etc). Contemporary counseling emphasizes the idea that our actions are determined by the way others have hurt us in the past. Endless introspection — or “idol hunts” — are just as dangerous as the secular “hurt hunts.”

We know that the heart is filled with a deep darkness. In the corporate world there is a glass ceiling. We look up and see there is more without the ability to reach it. In the human heart there is a glass floor. We can see a darkness that goes deep, but without Scripture there is no way of discovering the depths. Hebrews 4:12-13 is the true MRI of the heart. But nowhere in Scripture does this understanding of the heart lead to an endless self-analysis. So the problem is a danger towards “excessive introspection.” An idol hunt in the heart is not the end goal. I know, Powlison said humbly, that at my death there will remain sin that has not been completely removed. I will die as a sinner in need of further purification/glorification.

Scripture helps us to see evil in relationship to our rebellion towards God Himself. Every sin is related to a turning away from God and turning inward to ourselves. In our sinful nature we have a centripetal force (pulling us back into ourselves) rather than a centrifugal force (pushing us outside ourselves). Biblical self-knowledge points us outside of ourselves and away from the “excessive introspection.”

“An accurate description of my sin is the doorway to God’s revelation of who He is.” This was incredibly helpful. Every sin leads us to understand God. If I seek to control things and become overwhelmed or nervous this shows a lack in my understanding of God’s sovereignty. If I struggle with idolatry, it shows a failure to see God’s preciousness. Powlison demonstrated this in two primary texts.

1 Timothy 6:9-16 and Jeremiah 17:1-14

So how do we avoid this “excessive introspection?” Starting from a biblically informed self-knowledge, we take those sins, “drown them” in God’s glory, and then act. This paradigm is shown in 1 Timothy 6.

9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. 11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time — he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Biblically informed knowledge leads us to acknowledge the idol of money (v. 10: “love of money”). This idolatry is drowned in the glory of God (cf. vv. 15-16 “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen”). This picture of God’s glory leads to action (vv. 11-12: “flee these things, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life”). The sinful temptation to “love money” is drowned by the glory of God! The affections set on money are now affections turned to the beauty of God’s majesty. Biblical self-knowledge leads us to drown our sins in the glory of God and this leads towards God-centered action. Be a man of God not a man of money.

The “love of money” here can be replaced with the love for any sinful lust. The love of entertainment, pleasures, excitement, food, good health, status, power, self-agenda, self-righteousness or a love of other’s affirmation, approval, love and worship.

Sin points us away from ourselves. As M’Cheyne reminds us, for every one look at our own sin, we ought to take 10 looks at the Cross!

In other words, let introspection lead into the depths of God. See Jeremiah 17:1-14. The heart is desperately wicked (v. 9), but specific sins are recognizable (vv. 1-6). Jeremiah rests in the majestic God for the change (vv. 7-8, 14). This is a picture of a faith that is not excessively introspective and one that leads to a joyous faith.

Summary

This session was very powerful to me personally. In addressing this potential problem and choosing the right man for the task, it showed the tremendous sensitivity of leadership by C.J. Mahaney over his family of churches. It’s also a testimony to how well this family of churches has taught their people to identify sinful cravings, an evidence of God’s grace. Powlison has helped me to view my own sinful cravings as having the potential — like that of a systematic theology — to open a doorway into the character of God. There is a distinct connection between my sin and my misunderstanding of God. It’s a great reminder that when I see my sin, I need to take that sin, drown it in God and His glorious Cross, and then act in love, repentance, pursuit, fight and joy.

Again, this is another session from the 2007 Sovereign Grace Leader’s Conference worth sacrificing a venti Americano.

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Related 2007 SGM LC sessions:

 

1. 2007 Sovereign Grace Ministries Leadership Conference

2. R.C. Sproul: “The Holiness of God”

3. Rick Gamache: “Watch Your Devotional Life”

4. Mark Dever: “Watch the Past: Living Lessons from Dead Theologians”

5. David Powlison: “‘In the Last Analysis…’ Look out for Introspection”

6. C.J. Mahaney: “Trinitarian Pastoral Ministry”

7. 2007 Conference photographs