Theology

Keller & Driscoll: Desiring God Videos

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Tim Keller & 9/11 Remembrance Message

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Michael Keller has provided a transcribed version of Tim Keller's "Sermon of Remembrance and Peace for 9-11 Victim's Families", given on September 10th, 2006.  It's a "must read," and I've included the full text below as well.  The White House transcribed it and sent it to the Keller's because Bush (who was present) asked Karl Rove for a written copy. 

Michael's intro to the sermon...

Below is a sermon that particularly resonates with me on multiple levels. First, it is a sermon delivered by dad to 9/11 victims’ families and national dignitaries (Bush, H. Clinton, Bloomberg, Pataki, Giuliani, etc) about suffering and what they can do with their very personal suffering that still exists. It impacted me because I saw concisely in the sermon the power the resurrection has to those suffering. Secondly, it was a sermon given at an interfaith memorial (8 min long) and therefore as a student currently studying presentation to multiple audiences, I was impacted at both the kindness he had towards the “resources” of other faiths, but also the honesty and clarify that he still spoke from his own convictions. This is the way, to affirm others, and still not lose the distinct Gospel voice that we deem as so powerful in today’s society. Lastly, it impacted me because while many others would have used the pulpit in front of so many political figures to espouse either their own political views, or some well meaning, yet hopelessly ill-timed, alter call type message- dad focused on those suffering and in pain and tried to speak to them in their loss of their loved ones with the message that there is a God, the God, who knows exactly what it feels like and can therefore relate to them in their pain. Way to go dad.

Below is the transcribed version of the sermon done by individuals at the White House who also apparently liked it.

-Michael

Here's the full sermon text...

SERVICE OF REMEMBRANCE AND PEACE
FOR 9-11 VICTIMS’ FAMILIES
Ground Zero/St Paul’s Chapel Tim Keller
Sep 10, 2006      

As a minister, of course, I’ve spent countless hours with people who are struggling and wrestling with the biggest question - the WHY question in the face of relentless tragedies and injustices. And like all ministers or any spiritual guides of any sort, I scramble to try to say something to respond and I always come away feeling inadequate and that’s not going to be any different today. But we can’t shrink from the task of responding to that question. Because the very best way to honor the memories of the ones we’ve lost and love is to live confident, productive lives. And the only way to do that is to actually be able to face that question. We have to have the strength to face a world filled with constant devastation and loss. So where do we get that strength? How do we deal with that question? I would like to propose that, though we won’t get all of what we need, we may get some of what we need 3 ways: by recognizing the problem for what it is, and then by grasping both an empowering hint from the past and an empowering hope from the future.

First, we have to recognize that the problem of tragedy, injustice and suffering is a problem for everyone no matter what their beliefs are. Now, if you believe in God and for the first time experience or see horrendous evil, you rightly believe that that is a problem for your belief in God, and you’re right – and you say, “How could a good and powerful God allow something like this to happen?”

But it’s a mistake (though a very understandable mistake) to think that if you abandon your belief in God it somehow is going to make the problem easier to handle. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail says that if there was no higher divine Law, there would be no way to tell if a particular human law was unjust or not. So think. If there is no God or higher divine Law and the material universe is all there is, then violence is perfectly natural—the strong eating the weak! And yet somehow, we still feel this isn’t the way things ought to be. Why not? Now I’m not going to get philosophical at a time like this. I’m just trying to make the point that the problem of injustice and suffering is a problem for belief in God but it is also a problem for disbelief in God---for any set of beliefs. So abandoning belief in God does not really help in the face of it. OK, then what will?

Second, I believe we need to grasp an empowering hint from the past. Now at this point, I’d like to freely acknowledge that every faith - and we are an interfaith gathering today – every faith has great resources for dealing with suffering and injustice in the world. But as a Christian minister I know my own faith’s resources the best, so let me simply share with you what I’ve got. When people ask the big question, “Why would God allow this or that to happen?” There are almost always two answers. The one answer is: Don’t question God! He has reasons beyond your finite little mind. And therefore, just accept everything. Don’t question. The other answer is: I don’t know what God’s up to – I have no idea at all about why these things are happening. There’s no way to make any sense of it at all. Now I’d like to respectfully suggest the first of these answers is too hard and the second is too weak. The second is too weak because, though of course we don’t have the full answer, we do have an idea, an incredibly powerful idea.

One of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God identifies with the suffering. There are all these great texts that say things like this: If you oppress the poor, you oppress to me. I am a husband to the widow. I am father to the fatherless. I think the texts are saying God binds up his heart so closely with suffering people that he interprets any move against them as a move against him. This is powerful stuff! But Christianity says he goes even beyond that. Christians believe that in Jesus, God’s son, divinity became vulnerable to and involved in - suffering and death! He didn’t come as a general or emperor. He came as a carpenter. He was born in a manger, no room in the inn.

But it is on the Cross that we see the ultimate wonder. On the cross we sufferers finally see, to our shock that God now knows too what it is to lose a loved one in an unjust attack. And so you see what this means? John Stott puts it this way. John Stott wrote: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” Do you see what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us! It can’t be that he doesn’t care. God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it. And therefore the Cross is an incredibly empowering hint. Ok, it’s only a hint, but if you grasp it, it can transform you. It can give you strength.

And lastly, we have to grasp an empowering hope for the future. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and even more explicitly in the Christian Scriptures we have the promise of resurrection. In Daniel 12:2-3 we read: Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake….[They]… will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and…like the stars for ever and ever. And in John 11 we hear Jesus say: I am the resurrection and the life! Now this is what the claim is: That God is not preparing for us merely some ethereal, abstract spiritual existence that is just a kind of compensation for the life we lost. Resurrection means the restoration to us of the life we lost. New heavens and new earth means this body, this world! Our bodies, our homes, our loved ones—restored, returned, perfected and beautified! Given back to us!

In the year after 9-11 I was diagnosed with cancer, and I was treated successfully. But during that whole time I read about the future resurrection and that was my real medicine. In the last book of The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee wakes up, thinking everything is lost and discovering instead that all his friends were around him, he cries out: "Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead! Is everything sad going to come untrue?"

The answer is YES. And the answer of the Bible is YES. If the resurrection is true, then the answer is yes. Everything sad is going TO COME UNTRUE.

Oh, I know many of you are saying, “I wish I could believe that.” And guess what? This idea is so potent that you can go forward with that. To even want the resurrection, to love the idea of the resurrection, long for the promise of the resurrection even though you are unsure of it, is strengthening. I John 3:2-3. Beloved, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope purify themselves as he is pure.” Even to have a hope in this is purifying.

Listen to how Dostoevsky puts it in Brothers Karamazov: “I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.”

That is strong and that last sentence is particularly strong…but if the resurrection is true, it’s absolutely right. Amen.

Pocket Guide to the Bible

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I'm long overdue for some comments on Jason Boyett's Pocket Guide to the Bible: A Little Book About the Big Book.

1. The Boring Details. 

Boyett_1 This book, at just under 200 pages, comes in five parts...
    - The Biblicabulary (a glossary of terms)
    - Know Your Characters (a biblical role call)
    - The Bible at Breakneck Speed (an ill-advised plot summary)
    - Versions and Perversions (a guide to modern translations)
    - The Brief History of Holy Writ (an exhilarating timeline)

2. The Point.

From the introduction...

...a handy, easy-to-read, occasionally amusing guide to the Bible and its characters, events, translations, and history.

...the bible is the all-time best-selling book, one that most people own but apparently don't read, that lots of people read but apparently don't understand, and that people allegedly understand but in a way that makes them jerks....Let's see what the Pocket Guide can do about that. (p. xii)

3. The Skinny.

It's true.  Boyett has succeeded in putting together a Bible handbook for people who typically wouldn't read the Bible.  I found much of the content helpful and well-stated.  I occasionally didn't like the way he worded something, or presented the content.  But not more than most any other book.  And more often than not I was impressed with Boyett's ability to make the truth simple and concise.

It's funny.  I had to be careful where I read this book.  I caught myself laughing out-loud at Starbucks in front of people on more than one occasion.  At times the humor goes a little too far, but I typically enjoyed it and felt it not only made the book entertaining, but often aided in understanding.

Example entry from Biblicabulary...

BLOOD
    You know what blood is, so quite acting all uninformed.  Biblically speaking, blood becomes one of the most important symbolic concepts of the Jewish and Christian faiths.  Blood smeared on the doorframe protects the Israelites during the Passover.  Priests sprinkle the blood of sacrificial animal on the altar, and the people of God (in the Old Testament, at least) are prohibited from eating blood.  The blood of an animal -- because it represents life -- is the necessary ingredient in the process of atonement.  Which leads to the New Testament, in which people gain atonement for their sins through the innocent blood shed by Christ on the cross.
PLEASE USE IT IN A SENTENCE OR TWO: At the Last Supper, Jesus tells the disciples that the wine represents his blood.  But good Southern Baptists know that, though he says "wine," he really means "grape juice."
BIBLICAL EXAMPLE: "The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Exod 12:13).

4. The Warning.

Look, if you spend all day trying to invent new ways to misrepresent and broadbrush young Christians as goatee-wearing hipsters who must be theologically liberal because their clothes weren't bought at the Men's Warehouse or they read magazines that have a sense of style, then this book isn't for you.  It will just make you mad because you probably really, really like to get mad at things that help younger generations learn the Bible in non-traditional ways.  So just move on and call LifeWay for less helpful resources (apologies to my many friends at LifeWay, who should do more to get the bulletin shell creators to stop putting soldiers on the cover every other week).

5. The Recommendation.

If you dare encouraging others to laugh and enjoy learning truth at the same time, get this little book for your young friend who needs a handy reference as they learn to read the Bible.  Some of the humor may be over-the-top for youth, so I recommend it for all twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, but only thoughtfully for high-schoolers.

I also recommend Michael Spencer's 12 reasons to buy this book. 

I'm looking forward to reading Jason Boyett's other Pocket Guide books (Adulthood, Apocalypse) as well as A Guy's Guide to Life. 

The World Reconciled

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From whales to waterfalls, the whole created order has in principle been reconciled to God.  Like a sovereign making a proclamation and sending off his heralds to bear it to the distant corners of his empire, God has in Jesus Christ proclaimed once and for all that the world which he made has been reconciled to him.  His heralds, scurrying off to the ends of the earth with the news, are simply agents, messengers, of this one antecedent authoritative proclamation.

N.T. Wright in TNTC: Colossians and Philemon (on Colossians 1:23), p 85.

The Task of Evangelism

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The task of evangelism is...best understood as the proclamation that Jesus is already Lord, that in him God's new creation has broken into history, and that all people are therefore summoned to submit to him in love, worship and obedience.  The logic of this message requires that those who announce it should be seeking to bring Christ's Lordship to bear on every area of human and worldly existence.  Christians must work to help create conditions in which human beings, and the whole created world, can live as God always intended.

N.T. Wright in TNTC: Colossians and Philemon (on Colossians 1:19-20), 79-80.

Sermon Cloud

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My buddy Drew Goodmanson has some good news about Sermon Cloud.  This is a cool idea you need to check out.  Here's some info...

Sermon Cloud is a website for a community to interact with sermons. What are the powerful sermons people are listening to? Who are the up-and-coming preachers of the day? Where are the messages about themes that you need to hear? How can you find a great preacher in your home town? Sermon Cloud was designed to help you with all of these questions.  Sermon Cloud users help let each other know which sermons they amen. An 'amen' is a recommendation of the sermon. Users can post comments about their interaction with these sermons (even the comments can be designated as helpful or unhelpful). Sign-up for free to begin interacting, commenting and recommending sermons
today!

For Churches and Preachers: Sermon Cloud offers churches FREE Advanced Sermon Syndication & mp3 services. Are you interested in podcasting, syndicating and using all the other 'Web 2.0' buzzwords for your church? Sermon Cloud Features include Resampling mp3's to be optimized for the internet, Syndicating content (Integrating directly into iTunes store, syndicating through RSS feeds.), Displaying recent sermons on your church website, Podcasting mp3, Sermon Streaming capability in our Jukebox player, Tagging System, Commenting on sermons, Community recommending sermons, Searching for sermons and more...

SWBTS & Tongues

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Gotta love the SBC.  Dude shows up at Southwestern Seminary to preach at their chapel service.  He drops the prayer language (tongues) bomb on Paige Patterson and the bunch.  Hilarious man.  Who could have called this one?  So Paige "rebukes" him and refuses to make the video of the message public like other chapel sermons.

Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson has issued anextraordinary rebuke to the Rev. Dwight McKissic, a seminary trustee and prominent Arlington pastor, for acknowledging during a chapel service that he sometimes speaks in tongues when he prays.

Burleson responds,

Private prayer language is not the issue. The issue to me is that a man who holds a position that is well within the bounds of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message Statement is being silenced and censored.

We’ve got to create a climate within the Southern Baptist Convention where dissent is welcome, where dialogue is open and where disagreements can be accepted.

The Suburban Christian

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HsuI just got Albert Hsu's The Suburban Christian and immediately read about half of it last night.  I'm really enjoying it.  What I find fascinating is the way Hsu speaks of suburbia in much the same way some speak of the city.  Here are a couple of quotes.

Suburbia has become the context and center of millions of people's lives, and decisions and innovations made in suburbia influence the rest of society.  If Christians want to change the world, they may well do so by having a transformative Christian impact on suburbia and the people therein. (27-28)

While an individual suburb might not be a microcosm of the total city, it is an essential slice of the larger metropolis that cannot be partitioned off or seen in isolation, just as a traditional local urban neighborhood is an essential component of the whole city. (29)

Links Matter

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A few links...

John Piper has written a manuscript responding to N.T. Wright's view of justification.  Who knows if/when we will see it since he is seeking the thoughts of others on it, but the conversation at Justin Taylor's blog about it is already interesting.  Piper wrote this on his summer sabbatical at Cambridge.

Brian Spears writes on the 10 things you'll learn by visiting other churches.  Always helpful for those of us who too rarely get to visit other churches.

The Church Planting Resources site is looking good, and is now considered to be 83% sexier (according to Drew Goodmanson).  It's a site for "free exchange of information to help build the Kingdom and ultimately spread the gospel." 

Comback Churches has some good stuff from Ed Stetzer, including his "Stirring the Waters" articles.

And have I mentioned before the PeopleGroups website?  Some good, basic demographic stuff for you.

Core Values

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I'm preaching through a series on Core Values for my church.  We have five: Truth, Beauty, Redemption, Community, & Mission.  This Sunday the Core Value is community. 

The series has been phenomenal, for me as the pastor-teacher and for the congregation.  It's been a great discipline to derive some values for our church in our context, prepare the messages, and watch our people respond.  The response has been exciting.

This has been a more difficult series in some ways for me.  I typically preach through books of the Bible, so this is harder work.  I also realize that once I define the values they are considered defined.  I feel obligated to be comprehensive yet simple.

One thing I have done is to not only apply the values so we know how we live them out, but also to have one significant and challenging application each week.  I want our people to respond concretely to each value. 

So, for example, the first Core Value was truth.  For our concrete application we took an offering for Bibles that we could buy in bulk and have for giving to friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors.  If we value truth, let's get the Word out!  The offering allowed us to buy 120 ESV Bibles (Outreach Edition, both OT and NT).  It's fun to watch our church respond and see something tangible happen because of it.  The Bibles arrived early this week.

This week as I prepare to talk about community, I've realized how helpful it is for our community of believers to think through what we value together.  God is doing some great things.

Reform & Resurge: Chandler

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Chandler_1What are you doing right now?  Whatever it is, it's not important.  Stop it. 

Now, go and listen to Matt Chandler's message from Reform & Resurge called Gravity: The Weight of Pastoring and the Knowledge of Christ (video).  One of the most important and helpful messages I've ever heard.  It sparked a very sober discussion with my buddies in Seattle, and I hope the trend continues. 

Matt Chandler is the pastor of The Village Church in Highland Village, Texas.

UPDATE: I just finished listening to the message from Matt Chandler again and I almost broke down.  It's directed toward pastors and people in ministry, but it's relevant to you no matter who you are.  I'm working hard to not get too dramatic, but please, seriously, listen as soon as you can.  It just may save your life, or your marriage, or your church or ministry.

Crisis in Generica

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Read Mark Van S' post on the Crisis in Generica (his name for suburbia).  A blurbia...

These days, when we think of Genericans, we think of vacuous, vapid,consumers. Lonely plastic-people who pretend that everything is all right. Urban folk, and rural folk, both are suspicious of such plastic people. In our cities and towns the problems are obvious. The poor folk aren’t hidden. Our lives are lived in public. When we go to the streets of Generica (those streets with deceptively pretty names), everything looks the same…the pleasant exteriors betray the brokenness of their residents.

And in response, the Suburban church–the Church of Generica seeks to save these people by catering to their broken impulses. We feed the individualism by giving them individualized sermons (David Fitch can detail this phenomenon much better than I can). We try to attack the isolation by introducing small groups (which are usually pretty anemic and unoffensive…being centered on things like the Purpose Driven Life). And so the Generican Church tends to have the same ailments as the Generican people–and all their blessings as well (like resources and a value of excellence).

A spiritual crisis is growin in Generica. The people are dying there. They have money, but it has secured their sense of disillusionment. Materialism grows, but the people cry out for substance. They moved out to the burbs to find sanctuary, but they crave relationship.

But as missional pioneers emerge–those uniquely envisioned folks that can utter prophetic voice to their brothers and sisters in Generica–they flee to the cities with their obvious problems. Urban has its own challenges, to be sure, but it is easier to be missional in the city, in many ways, than it is to be missional in the burbs. Generica needs missional leaders. Missional leaders who reject the homogeneous unit principle (the idea that folks don’t like crossing cultural boundaries so we should do church in a way that appeals to particular cultures rather than being mulit-ethnic in our approach), who reject consumerism and materialism, who embrace authentic community, who care about the poor and the marginalized should come back to the suburbs and minister there. Generica is growing in its diversity. Generia has its poor. And most of the churches in Generica tend to assume that issues of race and poverty and crime are urban issues. But new churches must come to Generica.

Churches that value social justice.

Churches that cross cultural boundaries.

Churches that challenge consumerism.

Churches that build authentic community amidst fracture.

Who will respond to the cries for healing in the broken land of Generica?

Read Crisis in Generica.

Joe Thorn: Akin on Alcohol

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Joe Thorn has a biblical response to Danny Akin's Baptist Press article: The Case for Alcohol Abstinence.  A blurb...

There has been a lot of talk about “wisdom” in the middle of thisdiscussion. I agree we must pursue, and pray for wisdom. But “wisdom” is not law, and it is often subjective. What is wise for one man, may not be wise for another. I will agree in saying that abstaining from alcohol may be “the wise thing” for some people, but to suggest that it should be the behavior of all people is not only unwise, it is unbiblical.

Go to Joe's post and discuss it.

Alcohol and Biblical Greek

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Here's a little light-hearted fun for your afternoon.  Please tell me what is wrong with this statement from the Summer 2006 issue of the Southern Seminary TIE (first found at Mere Comments 1 1/2 years ago).  Russ Moore writes...

I do know Greek, but I still believe that "teetotalism" is the best option for my church in the contemporary cultural context. I'm a convinced Protestant who believes in sola Scriptura and sola fide without reservation.