"College Doesn't Change Your Heart, It Reveals It"

Sammy Rhodes has a good article over at desiring God. In the "heart" of the article, he gets to the biblical truth that we all need to take note of:

Woody Allen once famously said that “the heart wants what it wants.” Thomas Chalmers would agree. The problem isn’t that we desire, it’s what we desire, and why. Our hearts are fickle things, and more than anything, that’s what college reveals. As Paul Tripp might put it, it’s not that college changes your heart as much as reveals it. It isn’t the secularity, or the immorality that is to be feared. According to Jesus, it’s the propensity of our hearts to either want the wrong things or try to anchor themselves in the wrong places. All the while, Jesus is simultaneously the one we’re running from and looking for.

 I encourage you to read the whole article.


 HT: Challies

Acts 17 Sermon for the University

As school starts up again, I thought this rendition of Acts 17 is a good reminder to be actively sharing the gospel and bringing it to bear on the "gods" of our day. You'll remember that, in Acts 17, Paul is preaching an evangelistic message to the pagan culture of his day. He is speaking to the philosophers on Mars Hill (the place of learning and scholarly debate). Here is how it might have begun if he came to one of our universities today:

"Men and women of the university, I see that in every way you are very religious. As I walked around the university, I observed carefully your objects of worship. I saw your altar called the stadium where many of you worship the sports deity. I saw the science building where many place their faith for the salvation of mankind. I found an altar to fine arts where artistic expression and performance seem to reign supreme without subservience to any greater power. I walked through your residence halls and observed your sex goddess posters and beer can pyramids. Yet as I walked with some of you and saw the emptiness in your eyes and sensed the aching in your hearts, I perceived that in your heart is yet another altar, an altar to the unknown God who you suspect may be there. You have a sense that there is something more than these humanistic and self-indulgent gods. What you long for as something unknown, I want to declare to you now...." (Daniel Denk as quoted by Derek Thomas in Acts, pg. 503).

And give them the good news of Jesus who fulfills the standard of perfect righteousness and whose death took the punishment for sin so that any who trust in Jesus as their Savior-King will have his righteousness and the forgiveness of sins. Show them that the idols they have willing worshiped are empty and that that God calls all people everywhere to turn away from idols and to him, the one, true God.

"Dispatches from the Front"

Bible study begins this Wednesday. We will spend our first few weeks seeing Christians around the world and hearing their testimonies of the power of the gospel. We will hear of the Kingdom of Christ and its expansion in some of the most difficult to reach places (because of geography and because of resistance and persecution). We will do all this by watching several DVDs in the series "Dispatches from the Front." These videos will expand our vision of the Kingdom of Christ. Below is a video about the series:

You can find "trailers" for the episodes here: http://www.dispatchesfromthefront.org/

A Means to Wisdom

In my sermon on Psalm 71 on the struggle of aging, I made application to younger folks. If the older people in the congregation are to proclaim the might of God to us (Ps. 71:17-18), then we should listen to older, godly men and women talk of God's faithfulness and Word and power.

Psalm 90 reminds us of how short life is on this planet, and, in the midst of such reflection, the Psalmist cries out,

"teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” Ps. 90:12

Could it be that one means to our gaining wisdom is hearing about God from older saints? They have known God's Word, obeyed it, and seen his faithfulness for more years than we have been alive. If that doesn't help us gain wisdom what else will? If you want to know how to use your time and energy so as to fear and honor God (wisdom), then listen to some older believers who fear God.  

Happiness in God Alone Spares us Much Anxiety

Spare yourself some anxiety and believe that God is able to make you happy without anything but himself:

O what a blessed thing it is to lose one's will. Since I have lost my will I have found happiness. There can be no such thing as disappointment to me, for I have no desires but that God's will might be accomplished. Christians might avoid much trouble if they would only believe what they profess, viz., that God is able to make them happy without anything but Himself. They imagine that if is such a dear friend were to die, or such and such a blessing removed, they should be miserable, whereas God can make them a thousand times happier without them. To mention my own case, God has been depriving me of one blessing after another, but as every one was removed He has come in and filled up its place, and now, when I am a cripple and unable to move, I am happier than ever I was in my life before or expected to be, and if I had believe this twenty years ago I might have been spared much anxiety.

--Edward Payson, quoted in More Love to Thee by Sharon James

This is not the end of desires as a means to avoid anxiety. It is not the mystical thought of killing wants and desires. No, it is actually finding our full desire met in God as our ultimate joy. If he is the best Being the universe then the best gift he can give is himself. In believing that, and delighting in him through Jesus Christ, we find unshakable happiness.

Don't Date a Fool

Here is an article that looks at some Proverbs to help you evaluate if you are dating a fool (or a fool who is dating). Don't date a fool.

"Biblical Theology and the Sexuality Crisis"

Al Mohler has a great article over at 9Marks on how understanding the big picture of the Bible is key in understanding human life and sexuality (and in turn dealing with the modern push to normalize all sorts of sexual immorality). Here is a teaser:

As the church responds to this [moral and sexual] revolution, we must remember that current debates on sexuality present to the church a crisis that is irreducibly and inescapably theological. This crisis is tantamount to the type of theological crisis that Gnosticism presented to the early church or that Pelagianism presented to the church in the time of Augustine. In other words, the crisis of sexuality challenges the church’s understanding of the gospel, sin, salvation, and sanctification. Advocates of the new sexuality demand a complete rewriting of Scripture’s metanarrative, a complete reordering of theology, and a fundamental change to how we think about the church’s ministry.

 I hope you'll read the whole thing.