Impossible Task

HT: Tim Challies

Jamming the Love

A "Sermon Jam" by Matt Chandler on the Love of God:

Free Audio Book - "The Explicit Gospel"

ChristianAudio.Com is offering a free download of the audio version of Matt Chandler's The Explicit Gospel. during the month of June.  I read it last year and thorougly enjoyed it. Go here to get it.

Did I mention it is FREE?

Jaming on Prayer

Jaming the Gospel

A 4 minute "sermon jam" from Matt Chandler on "what is the gospel."  Good stuff!

Over the Top Forgiveness

Powerful "Sermon Jam" from Matt Chandler. Listen and let it sink in that "God is not disgusted with you."


Hat Tip: Provocations and Pantings

Leading by Following

"...gospel-centered leadership is essentially leading by following."

"We are first followers before we are great leaders."

"Non of us ever graduate from the gospel to move on to something else; rather, we continue to grow into the fullness of the gospel more and more. A gospel-centered leader continues to trust wholeheartedly in the provision and sufficiency of the gospel, leading others to do the same. The natural pipeline for leadership is first learning to be led by Christ ourselves, then leading others, then leading other leaders, and finally learning to lead with other leaders."

 -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  pages 168 -169 (italics in the original)

Primary Driver

"Vision that is birthed in the heart of the leader is sourced in the heart of the triune God. In this case, the gospel becomes the primary driver for a particular vision or cause, rather than a certain vision or cause being the primary driver. Gospel-driven vision leads our church to be sustaining or persevering, while cause-driven vision can be temporary or faddish. Gospel-driven vision will undoubtedly lead you and your church to tackle weighty causes, but not all cause-driven vision will lead you and your people to the gospel. What drives your vision is essential."

   -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  page 167

Jesus-Centered Leadership

From Creature of the Word, here is the best definition of Christian leadership I have ever read:

"Jesus centered leadership is God-focused, Christ-exalting, and Spirit-led influence toward a kingdom agenda." (page 164)

Also the best definition of the goal of Christian leadership I have ever read:

"...the goal or aim of gospel-centered leadership is the formation of Christ in people who long to see the formation of Christ in other people" (page 176)

Can't top that!

Changing Places

"The essence of sin is our attempt to take the place of God; the essence of the Christian faith is God taking our place. He lives the Christian life for us. We simply surrender to Him and follow Him with all we are."

      -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  page 151
   

The Need for Continual Reminders

"...church cultures void of the gospel are empty and worthless. Church cultures, apart from the grace of Jesus, are utterly broken...if we do not embrace a consistent, refreshing, gospel-centered culture, our churches will automatically drift toward a system of mindless and worthless religious feasts that disgust God.

If mission engagement is in the culture of a church without continual gospel reminders, the tendency will be to drift toward mission as a way to cleanse the conscience rather than as a response to God's mission for us.. If expressive worship is in the culture of a church without continual gospel reminders, the tendency will be to focus on what is done for God rather than remembering what He has done. If transparency and honesty are in the culture of a church without continual gospel reminders, the tendency will be to discuss the sinfulness without repentance."

 -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  pages 102-103, italics in the original

Escape the Lame

"Over the years, we have run into people who think the city in which they live is lame, their job is lame, their church is lame., their neighborhood is lame. Everything...lame. How different would they feel is they knew that God had called, equipped  and set them free to be part of His mission of reconciliation in their own workplaces, neighborhoods, cities, and churches -- the very things with which they're so very discontent!"

    -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  pages 89
   

No Pay Back

"If we are not careful, serving can become a way we try to earn the love we've already received from God, to 'pay Jesus back' for His generous grace. While churches preaching the grace of god would never suggest that serving or volunteering contributes anything to a person's salvation, a subtle tendency among us leads us to believe that serving is a way to stay 'in good' with God.  therefore, unless serving is continually and unapologetically connected to the gospel, it can become a burden, a manipulator, a guilt reliever, or a back-handed method we employ to just keep serving ourselves...."

"...Serving as an attempt to pay God back for His grace is futile - not only because our best efforts would prove woefully inadequate in paying Him back- but because there is nothing to pay back. the gospel reminds us that the debt of our sin has already been paid in full..."

 -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  pages 68-69 (italics in the original)

Deeply United

"The gospel is the deepest foundation for community. What connects believers is the reality that we were all very messed-up people, broken before a holy God, yet rescued and given new life in Christ  What unites believers is deeper than anything that can divide."

       -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  page 50
    

Bigger than Just Me & Jesus

"Not only does our worship as rescued sinners reflect an eternal reality, God also supernaturally utilizes our corporate gatherings to mature and encourage His people in ways not available anywhere else. God designed our faith to be communal and interdependent - and markedly supernatural. When believers gather together as a worshiping community, we benefit from all the spiritual gifts of the body of Christ. Worship reminds us that the Church is bigger and more beautiful than any one person or a few leaders alone. Each of us, worshiping together, is used of God to build each other up in Jesus."

     - Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  page 41

Run to Your Healing

"The cross should continually testify to us that God fully knew we would need to be justified. Therefore, unconfessed sin is actually the foolish decision to run away from our healing and growth rather than toward it. We hang on to things we believe will satisfy us, thinking we need those more than what God offers to provide...

....When people walk in honesty about their fears, shortcomings, and needs - not in thoughtless disobedience, but in grace based freedom and forgiveness - they reveal a deep understanding of the gospel. to confess our sins to one another is to violently pursue our own joy and the glory of God...and to exponentially increase our rejoicing and worship, both individually and corporately."

 -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  page 31 (italics in the original)

Individual Transformation & Corporate Identity

"Try this sentence on for size. A church that understands where its power comes from is a place where individuals are transformed and empowered to join God's corporate family and participate in God's plan to reconcile all things to Himself. Did you see all the pieces there? Individual salvation and transformation leads to a corporate identity., which is then used by God to redeem, restore, and reconcile all things in heaven and on earth by making peace through the blood of the cross.

And all by the gospel."

   -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  page 21 (italics in the original)

Avoiding Gospel Amnesia

"...We seem to have developed gospel amnesia, forgetting that the gospel not only creates and sustains the Church but also deeply shapes the Church. Present and future.

All of the Epistles in the New Testament were written to Christians, and they each contain a heavy emphasis on the gospel and its implications for the people of God. This suggests that for churches who believe the gospel, the Spirit of God repeatedly wants to bring them back to the gospel. It means the Church is gospel-centric, in its existence. She must not move on from the gospel, must never graduate from the gospel. The gospel, in fact, provides our ongoing, day-by-day motivation to pursue holiness and to experience the reality of what God claims we already are in Christ: perfect, spotless, and blameless."

   -Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church,  page 17 (italics in the original)

Created by the Promise

"The church was born by the word of promise through faith, and by the same word is nourished and preserved. That is to say, it is the promise of God that makes the church and not the church that makes the promise of God. For the Word of God is incomparably superior to the church, and in this Word the church, being a Creature, has nothing to decree, ordain, or make, but only to be decreed, ordained and made. For who begets his own parent?"

    - Martin Luther,

Quoted in Matt Chandler, Creature of the Word: The Jesus Centered Church, page 15

Not Always Spectacular, But Always Supernatural

"Worship gatherings are not always spectacular, but they are always supernatural. And if a church looks for or works for the spectacular, she may miss the supernatural. If a person enters a gathering to be wowed with something impressive, with a style that fits him just right, with an order of service and song selection designed just the right way, that person may miss the supernatural presence of God. Worship is supernatural whenever people come hungry to respond, react, and receive from God for who He is and what He has done. A church worshipping as a Creature of the Word doesn’t show up to perform or be entertained; she comes desperate and needy, thirsty for grace, receiving from the Lord and the body of Christ, and then gratefully receiving what she needs as she offers her praise— the only proper response to the God who saves us. "

- Geiger, Eric; Chandler, Matt; Patterson, Josh . Creature of the Word: The Jesus-Centered Church 

Another book on my wish list!

Hat Tip: Vitamin Z