In this post I want to tell you about my favorite book from 2011: Tim Keller’s King’s Cross

It’s hard to really articulate how much I’ve appreciated this book.

The flow of the book is as a very short commentary on the Gospel of Mark.

In short, Keller goes through Mark, and writes a few pages of exposition on each story told.

But more comprehensively, he turns the traditional understanding of almost every story on its head.

He shows how every story is really about us, and our need for the Gospel, and how Jesus consistently pointed our need for something that only He could every provide.

This book is so densely saturated in the Gospel!

Even after reading through the whole book, I can still pick it up, turn to almost any page, and find a challenge to my pride and yet a hope for my soul.

I keep writing and then deleting examples because any one paragraph doesn’t get the point across…

For what it’s worth, here’s an example from today:

He’s in the end of Mark 10, where the disciples – James and John in particular – ask Jesus if they can sit on His left and right hand in glory.

Basically, they are asking to be vice president and CEO of Jesus’ Kingdom.

Jesus responds that they do not understand what they are asking. He asks, “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptized with?” Of course, we know that He was talking about going to the cross, but the disciples didn’t, and they responded affirmatively.

Keller goes into some detail dissecting this, but he eventually ties this passage to humility. Referring to how the disciples didn’t understand that Jesus was going to establish His kingdom not through power, but through sacrifice, he says:

Because God’s manner of revelation is characterized by hiddenness, reversal, and surprise, those who follow Jesus find themselves repeatedly failing to understand the will of God… [therefore] there can be no place for smugness or dogmatism…

If our sensibilities are formed by this narrative, we will learn not to take ourselves too seriously; we will be very self-critical and receptive to unexpected manifestations of God’s love and power…

When you see how James and John respond [to Jesus], and you realize how hard it is for anybody to take in the magnitude of what the cross really means, you will be on your way to attaining the gift of humility.

At some level, your normal assumptions, your pride and your egotistical way of thinking, are blinding you to the truth.

The application that Keller comes back to over and over again is simply: stop looking at yourself and your circumstances and the people around you and start focusing on Jesus and His redemptive work.

Surrender to grace.

I know I will read this again and again.

He said something along the lines of, “Growing up, somewhere between the picture books and flannel graphs, I got the impression that Jesus was a feminine hippie with a lot of hair product. One day, I realized: I don’t have respect for this guy because I could beat him up.”

He went on to point out that, even during Jesus’ first visit to Earth, he had many ‘manly’ characteristics. He was a carpenter, so likely strong and rough. He spent most of his time camping with His disciples, and the pharisees made Him so angry that he consistently mocked them to their face.

But, more to the point, when He comes again, there will be nothing soft or ‘hippie-ish’ about Him. He’s coming to start (and finish) a war.

Revelation 19:

Then I saw^(W) heaven opened, and behold,^(X) a white horse! The one sitting on it is called^(Y) Faithful and True, and^(Z) in righteousness he judges and makes war. ^12(AA) His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are^(AB) many diadems, and he has^(AC) a name written that no one knows but himself. ¹³He is clothed in^(AD) a robe dipped in^[d] blood, and the name by which he is called is^(AE) The Word of God. ¹⁴And the armies of heaven,^(AF) arrayed in fine linen, white and pure,^(AG) were following him on white horses. ^15(AH) From his mouth comes a sharp sword^(AI) with which to strike down the nations, and^(AJ) he will rule them with a rod of iron.^(AK) He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. ¹⁶On his robe and on his thigh^(AL) he has a name written,^(AM) King of kings and Lord of lords.

So, just a quick recap: A warrior on a horse with a sword coming out of His mouth, with a robe dipped in blood, a name tattooed on His leg, and itching for a fight with everything evil.

Add an announcer and you have a scene from WWF smack-down.

Put that on a flannelboard….

I’m writing this because I’ve been reminded of it lately as Josiah has grown up a little bit.

The other night, at the dinner table, Josiah looked up and said, “Dad, I love good people. But I don’t love bad people. I will KILL them!”

Now, clearly, we have some serious work to do. I need to teach him that there is no such thing as a good person, and that Jesus already died FOR the bad people.

But he explained himself. I asked him, “What kind of bad people?“. And he said, “Like Goliath“.

What my son was saying that day was, “Dad, I want to be brave and I want to stand up against the bad guys! I’m not afraid. I’m a warrior!”

It’s in his DNA as a little boy.

Just like Kharis gets all of her shoes out and tries them on even though nobody taught her to, Josiah beats up imaginary bad guys with invisible swords.

There’s some part of my parenting instinct that winces every time he does. I can see him at the playground getting carried away with “playing swords” with some kid who doesn’t understand the game and then trying to explain it to their parents.

But the last thing I want to do is try and suppress that natural desire that God gave him to be brave, strong, and to fight against “the bad guys”.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks…

Josiah and I were driving to the store and we were rocking my new favorite windows-down-and-radio-up song, The Lord Is A Warrior by Matt Papa.

In it, he simply celebrates how God is the ultimate warrior and the ultimate Savior – both by dying for our sins and then by promising to destroy all evil that rejects His reign. It’s basically the resurrection plus Revelation 19 put to music.

You can listen to it here:

(And once you realize that it’s awesome, you should go buy it.)

Anyways, back to the story:

Josiah asked me, “What’s he singing about?”

I said, “He is singing about how the Lord is a Warrior. Do you know what a warrior is?”

“No.”

“A warrior is like a strong fighter.”

“Jesus is a fighter?!!?!?!?”

“Yeah buddy. Jesus is the strongest fighter. He is the best hero ever.”

“YEAH! The best HERO! And whenever the bad guys want to hurt you, He will KILL THEM!”

We came home and Josiah ran in and told his mom, “Mom! Jesus is a fighter and he gets ALL the bad guys and He ALWAYS wins!”

Theologically, my son is learning (and very excited about) God’s sovereignty and justice.

Now we just have to figure out how to communicate about grace, sacrifice, and love….

But I think most of us could use a little more of that perspective.

When is the last time you went up against something scary (illness, difficult relationship, financial hardship, etc) and pictured Jesus the warrior riding in front of you to fight your battle?

Kind of makes me want to break out my action figures….

He gave what was probably one of the top-five best sermons I’ve ever heard.

Carve out an hour and check this out:

Our pastor often refers to him as ‘Yoda’, and I have to agree.

This stood out to me this morning:

Imagine sitting down with a sever-year-old and saying to her, “I’d like you to write me an essay on what you think it’s like to fall in love and be married.”

When you read the essay, you will say it isn’t very close to the reality. A seven-year-old can’t imagine what love and marriage will be like.

When you start to follow Jesus, you’re at least that far away. You have no idea how far you’ll have to go.

He just released a new single called It Is Finished.

Put on your headphones, sit back, and meditate on these lyrics:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyKwgYhP6I

the earth shook and trembled

the sun bowed its head

the veil of the temple was open for man

as Jesus went down in the cold of the grave

defeated the darkness when He overcame

the keys of the kingdom were placed into hands

of children and priests and of fishers of men

through all generations His will be heard

creation resounds the victorious words:

IT IS FINISHED

IT IS DONE…

Events like ServeRDU are designed specifically to build intentionality into how we interact with the world and put Jesus on display.

This month, the Summit church is partnering with Pregnancy Support Services of Wake Forest through an event called 4,000 Steps.

Our small group has formed a team with the goal of raising $1,000 by the end of the month.

This is where you come in:

There’s already a slick little website setup where you can contribute to this goal. If every reader of this blog this month gave just 10 bucks, we would blow our goal out of the water!

AND if you sign up to give a repeating monthly gift, it will be doubled by an anonymous donor (and that isn’t code for me and Steph). That means that your $10 per month commitment would add up to $240 towards the goal this year!

So, please give it some thought, and when you’re ready, head on over to this link and click “support Zack”.

Thanks!

If you read this blog much, you know that I spent most of a year in Uzbekistan, and that the situation there is not a good one.

Islam Karimov is a murderous thug who rules through fear and intimidation, and millions of people suffer every day because of him.

Christians are routinely arrested and harassed, and prisoners are treated terribly.

This is an unexagerated reality for anyone who has spent any time there, yet the United States continues to maintain that they are our “partners in trade” and “partners in freedom”.

The recent wikileaks release of diplomatic cables shows that Karimov’s corruption is well-known among those who deal with him.

Check out this article where diplomats compare Karimov to a mafia thug.

Or this one, which includes a section from an actual cable:

Corruption is rampant in the GOU. Tenders and government positions can be fairly easily secured by paying the right amount of money to the appropriate individual, leading to a situation in which unqualified individuals have every incentive to engage in further corrupt activity to pay off the large debts they usually incur making down payments on the jobs.

Or this one, which begins:

The post-Soviet state of Uzbekistan is a nightmarish world of “rampant corruption”, organised crime, forced labour in the cotton fields, and torture, according to the leaked cables.

But the secret dispatches released by WikiLeaks reveal that the US tries to keep President Islam Karimov sweet because he allows a crucial US military supply line to run into Afghanistan, known as the northern distribution network (NDN).

Did you catch that? Basically, Uzbekistan is one step above North Korea, but our government says we need to be nice to them and ignore it all so that we can have a military supply line.

Sigh…

Please pray for this broken country, plagued by an evil ruler and hundreds of years of demonic oppression.

Pray for the thousands of believers who suffer daily for their courage to follow Christ.

Pray for 30,000,000 lost people with no good access to the Gospel of Christ’s saving work.

And pray for God to destroy the work of Karimov’s hands and open doors for a flood of missionaries and aid groups to come bring life to this dark place!

]]> http://www.therieslands.com/2010/12/13/wikileaks-reveals-uzbekistan-human-rights-abuse/feed/ 1 http://www.therieslands.com/2010/12/06/jesus-is-the-only-way/ http://www.therieslands.com/2010/12/06/jesus-is-the-only-way/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:34:45 +0000 Zack http://www.therieslands.com/?p=5154

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYVj1FDq4hc

Mark Driscoll with six minutes on some fundamentals about Jesus.

The money quotes:

Spirituality without Jesus is Demonology.

You cannot -- you WILL NOT -- connect to God apart from Jesus.

Your sin NEEDS to be atoned for.

If you disagree with what  Mark says here, then I respect that. I respect you, and love you.

But you really do need to know this:

if what is said here offends you, then Jesus should offend you.

You need to know that.

If you are one of my many friends who thinks “Jesus is cool. To each his own, you know?” then you can’t possibly understand who Jesus is… who He claimed to be and why He said He came.

I beg you to open your Bible and read the Gospel of Mark.

It’ll take you about 30 minutes.

I think you will find that Jesus only offers to be

1) your Savior

or

2) your Judge

That’s it.

He loves you too much to let you marginalize Him.

Think about it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkNa6tLWrqk

In the past few years, my understanding of God and the Bible have changed dramatically.

In this 3-minute video, Tim Keller explains what I have been learning: The Bible isn’t about me. or you. It’s about Jesus.

The whole thing is about Jesus.

It isn’t about what God can do for you.

It isn’t about right and wrong.

It isn’t about good and evil, or a proper understanding of morality.

It isn’t just history.

It’s primarily about Jesus.

The WHOLE thing.

(If your pastor isn’t making the clear, do me a favor and kick him in the but.)

I’ve had seasons of growth, seasons of dryness, seasons of ‘active ministry’, seasons of ‘rebellion’…

Heck, I’ve been a ‘professional christian’ in various capacities.

But right now, at 27 1/2 years old, with no important-sounding titles like ‘pastor of _______‘ or ‘_________ leader‘, I can honestly say this:

I love the Bible more than I ever have.

I LOVE, the scripture: It is such a masterpiece of a book.

It is one BIG Story composed of lots of smaller stories that even gives shape and context to my story.

And it communicates the same Truth – and sub-truths – in dozens of various ways.

You can read the 4,000-year-old story of Joshua and learn about the courage that comes from trusting in God. Or you can read the 2,000-year-0ld story of Stephen and learn the same lesson.

You can see our need for a Savior in the ancient stories in Genesis, or in Paul’s detailed argument in his letter to the Romans, penned thousands of years later.

Written by so many different people over so many centuries… and still faithful and consistent in the Story of God

The Bible is a miracle.

As I’ve been reading in the Bible this year, I’ve had a question develop in my head:

Only a very small percentage of the Bible actually tells the literal story of Jesus (Matthew 1 – Acts 1). From the middle of Acts 2 through the end of the Bible, all we get are various commentaries and explanations about Who Jesus is and what He accomplished.  So I’ve been wondering how my perception of God and my understanding of the Gospel would be different if all I had of the new testament were the stories of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts)

(2 Clarifications: I’m including Acts because it tells us a lot about the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ life, so we’ll just go ahead and say that it makes more sense to group it with the Gospels than with the Epistles. Secondly, the light that the old testament shines on our understanding of the Gospel is profound, and how much of the Gospel we could understand without it would make a fun discussion, but I’ll save it for a later post. So for now, we’ll leave the O.T. alone. We’re just talking about losing most of the new testament.)

I believe that there is more than enough in these five writings to come to a sufficient understanding of the Gospel and it’s place in our lives, but many of the passages that give me the greatest clarity and encouragement would be gone.

So, I want to ask you:

Just for kicks, pretend that Matthew-Acts was the entire New Testament. What book/chapter/passage/teaching would you miss the most? Why?

I LOVE our church.

I LOVE our church.

I freakin’ LOVE our church!

19 services. 178 baptisms*. The Gospel preached. The Kingdom expanded. History made.

Check out this recap of Easter Sunday:

Easter Recap from The Summit Church

Jesus is moving in RDU. Watch out Granville county: you’re next.

*give or take about 5… they change this number every time I hear it

Sometimes with a good will a man wills something which God does not will….For example, a good son wills that his father live, whom God wills to die.

Again, it can happen that the same man wills with a bad will what God wills with a good will.

For example, a bad son wills that his father die; God also wills this.

That is, the former wills what God does not will; but the latter wills what God also wills. And yet the filial piety of the former, even though he wills something other than God wills, is more consonant with God’s good will than the impiety of the latter, who wills the same thing as God does.

There is a great difference between what is fitting for man to will and what is fitting for God, and to what end the will of each is directed, so that it be either approved or disapproved.

For through the bad wills of evil men God fulfills what He righteously wills.

Piper taught for an hour on what he has learned from C.S. Lewis over the course of his life.

Almost every single sentence is quotable and I STRONGLY encourage you to go download it or watch it (for free, of course).

But if you only have five minutes, watch this clip, where Piper explains how a sense of duty in the christian faith is not only a waste of time — it’s just about the OPPOSITE of the Gospel:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00199dEipc

Remember this series of posts from several months ago?

I wrote about the book “Religion Saves (and 9 other misconceptions)” by Mark Driscoll, head pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle.

The book is based on the sermon series by the same name (which you can watch, listen to, or download for free).

Well, this month, like every month, ChristianAudio.com is giving away an audio book, and this month it’s the audio version of ‘Religion Saves’! It’s completely free!

Just follow this link during the  month of February, and you can download the book in mp3 form!

I especially recommend the book for those who consider themselves to be skeptics or opponents of Christianity. I think the book does a great job of clearing up several common misconceptions about the teaching of the Bible.

If you get it, please let me know what you think of it!