Get to Know David Brainerd

You will never regret taking an hour to listen to John Piper's biography of the unstoppably passionate missionary to American Indians in the 1700s David Brainerd (click here to read or listen or download it). It is amazing to read how many pioneering, paradigm shifting missionaries his life deeply impacted.

Let me leave you with this insights from Brainerd's journal, which Jonathan Edwards published, and Piper's message...

"He was gripped with by the apostolic admonition: "Redeem the time for the days are evil." (Ephesians 5:16) He embodied the counsel: "Let us not grow weary in well doing, for in due time we shall reap if we do not faint." (Gal. 6:9) He strove to be, as Paul says, "abounding in the work of the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58)."

April 17, 1747. "O I longed to fill the remaining moments all for God! Though my body was so feeble, and wearied with preaching and much private conversation, yet I wanted to sit up all night to do something for God. To God the giver of these refreshments, be glory forever and ever; Amen." (p. 246) February 21, 1746. "My soul was refreshed and comforted, and I could not but bless God, who had enabled me in some good measure to be faithful in the day past. Oh, how sweet it is to be spent and worn out for God!" (p. 366)

Among all the means that Brainerd used for pursuing greater and greater holiness and usefulness prayer and fasting stand out above all. We read of him spending whole days in prayer (p. 172), and sometimes setting aside six times in the day to pray, (p. 280), and sometimes seeking out a family or friend to pray with. He prayed for his own sanctification. He prayed for the conversion and purity of his Indians. He prayed for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ around the world and especially in America. Sometimes the spirit of prayer would hold him so deeply that he could scarcely stop.

Once, visiting in a home with friends, he got alone to pray: "I continued wrestling with God in prayer for my dear little flock here; and more especially for the Indians elsewhere; as well as for dear friends in one place and another; till it was bed time and I feared I should hinder the family, etc. But oh, with what reluctancy did I find myself obliged to consume time in sleep!" (p. 402)

Unimaginable Peace

Here's the video from this weekends' 11am service at Compass Bible Church (it seems they missed the first couple minutes though). If you can't watch it here, go to our live stream and click the video marked "Unimaginable Peace."

I preached on how to experience real comfort during life's pain from Philippians 4:4-9. I pray it serves you. Like I told people all day, I'm really just stunned that God graciously uses such a sinner like me to encourage His precious people.

Please Pray for Me...Again

I wish I would've put this up sooner--just thought of it now, but I'm preaching our 3 weekend services at Compass Bible Church, the church I serve as a pastor to the young adults.

As always it seems, I'm very nervous and fearing man WAY too much, so please pray that God is honored, my heart is right and His people truly served.

Thank you, and in case you're wondering, I will be preaching on Philippians 4:4-9:

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

I'm at the DG Pastor's Conference!!!

After being snowed in at O'Hare in Chicago for 24 hours and braving some 20 degree weather (see some pics here), we finally made it to the 2008 Desiring God Pastors' Conference. Honestly, I sat there for the first session this morning and tears came to my eyes as I thought, "I can't believe God brought me here. What a blessings! What a kind and gracious God!"

Aside from hanging out with the staff and seeing some guys from seminary (and eating Giordano's famous pizza) the highlight for me as definitely been John Piper's biography of his father. You should hit that link and listen to it as fast as possible--I thought the best part was the conclusion!

However, the one thing I wish Dr. Piper would've talked about was his mom. His dad was a traveling evangelist, meaning he was gone all that time, so it seems to me that his mom did most of the parenting.

I'd love to hear a tribute to her as well, so I wrote this as a question and dropped it in the drop box. Hopefully, they'll choose it for the Q & A tomorrow. Who knows? We'll see!

2008 Truth & Life Conference

Just a quick entry to say Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. As a result of your prayers, God truly blessed the seminar I gave at the Truth & Life Conference last week at The Master's College.

I spoke on "How to Fail at Life and Ministry" with the thesis that the bad reputation many doctrinally sound, Bible believing circles have for being cold, unloving, elitist, confrontational, disrespectful and self-righteous is directly tied to God's reputation in this world.

MANY are flooding away from our circles for other religions and cults, the New Age and occult as well as more liberal forms of Christianity either in mainline churches or the emergent movement / conversation, not because of prolonged exposure to God's Word, but because of interaction they've had with us.

By the way, the biblical way of talking about giving God a good name, a good reputation is a very common saying in our circles. Giving God a good name with our lives is EXACTLY the same as saying I'm living for the glory of God.

So, if our reputation is bad because of us (and not because of our message), we're not glorifying Him no matter how theologically rich we are, how much we love the Bible, how much we love preaching, the gospel and the local church. If you're still not convinced that God cares about our reputation, read Romans 2:24. In short, it is not optional for those who love the Word of the Spirit most to go above and beyond to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit most.

We'll see what the fall out ends up being on a message like that (especially when the podcast goes online), but as of now I've received nothing but positive feedback from everyone, and pray that God will use it to give us a better reputation since nothing less than His glory is on the line.

Compass on Ustream.tv

For a couple months now our church has been live streaming our weekend services here. They're also there to watch after the fact if you don't watch the life stream. When you watch, let me know what you think.

2008 Truth & Life Conference

Here's the website outlining the seminars at the Truth & Life Conference--ugh!

Please, please, please pray for me about this, that I'd be clear, accurate, passionate, pursuasive and practical, bringing just the right message in the right way for the spiritual benefit of the TMC students who attend. Thank you.

Spurgeon on Humility

Here's a sermon by Charles Spurgeon on our ever present and constantly opposing enemy, pride, and our always necessary and always wanted friend, humility. I was reading C.J. Mahaney's book Humility yesterday and he mentioned this sermon, but the online footnote he gave in the book no longer exists.

I'm reading a lot on this topic, not only because I want to be humble, but because I'm giving a seminar on it at this year's Truth and Life Conference at The Master's College. If you think of it, PLEASE pray for me about this. I feel completely out of my league as a speaker for a conference like this one, and completely out of my league on the topic of humility. Also, aside from your prayers, any resources would be helpful too.

Christmas Funny

My niece, Ella, just a few minutes ago:

"I tricked Santa Claus this year. He thought I was good, and I wasn't."

I hope you've had a very Merry Christmas!!!

I'm on iTunes :|

The chapel message I gave at The Master's College last month has been added to the "Chapel @ TMC" podcast--it's really weird being on the worldwide web for everyone on the planet to hear.

In order to download this sermon, subscribe here or go the the iTunes music store in iTunes, type "chapel tmc" in the search field in the upper right. The podcast will be the first one that comes up. Click the podcast's picture and then click "Get Episode."

P.S. I'd also suggest you download and listen to Francis Chan's message right under mine on the power of the Holy Spirit. It was extremely good!

Don't Waste Your Life

I preached last week on John 17:4-5, giving the wonderful people in my young adults' ministry 3 Ways to Avoid the Distracted Life by looking at Jesus' life, which was totally obsessed with the glory of God.

While working on that message I was constantly being reminded of one of the best sermons I've ever heard, Dr. John Piper's "Don't Waste Your Life" (you can read and download the sermon here).

I actually bought the book that comes with the DVD of the sermon, and it is so good. After I spoke for a little while we watched half the sermon tonight, and will watch the other half on Jan. 1st as we assess the direction of our lives on the day many make resolutions for the coming year.

Mac Addicted Bibliophiles Listen Up!!!

For those of you addicted to books like I am and are enamored with Apple computers as I am, there is a library program I have to make you aware of, which I just learned about a couple hours ago, called Bookpedia (download a free version here, but eventually you'll have to pay $20 for it, which you can do here).

As someone who has a list of all his books in a couple 20+ page Word documents it may take some time to upload my books, but Wow is it an amazing program to catalog and categorize everything!

Please Pray Tomorrow Morning

Hi everyone!!! I'm very sorry I haven't been updating this very frequently. I have had quite the week, and it's not letting up at all as the weekend draws near.

I'm posting now to ask you, again, to pray for me. Aside from weekly preaching, which I'd also love your prayer for, I am speaking tomorrow at our church's MOPS ministry (if you've heard of that) called Navigating Motherhood.

This is an evangelistic ministry at our church so tomorrow morning I'm scheduled to make a case for the deity of Christ before about 50 to 80 unbelievers who come to Compass every Friday morning. Just so you know, I just found out there are even Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons in the crowd, aside from many who think they're Christians but probably aren't.

Please pray for my preparation time, which is going to start right now, that it would be fruitful and protected from distraction as well as that tomorrow I would be clear, accurate, passionate, practical and persuasive in what I say.

I am supposed to start speaking around 10am, so I thank you in advance for what God's going to do through your prayers tomorrow morning.

Thanksgiving 2007--Ugh!!!

This was an interesting year. It started off normal, hanging out with my family (the half that will have me over at least) to enjoy each other along with turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes, etc. It was nice. I talked with a couple single guys from my mom's small group while trying not to eat everything.

It was not a very joyous night, at least not for me, because there was a gaping hole in our guest list--the first Thanksgiving without my grandpa. Last year he had lost 30 pounds and was not eating much at all (not hungry when a tumor the size of a large grapefruit is in your stomach), but he ate so incredibly well on Thanksgiving--if I remember correctly that was the last night he drove himself too. I miss him so deeply it hurts...a lot.

Anyway, after dinner I went to a movie--a pretty good one called August Rush--but when I came out to my car I found my cell phones (one personal & one from the church) stolen along with my iPod. It wasn't until today that I realized my wallet was stolen too, and that was only after a man called who found a lot of my stuff in an alley about a mile away from the theaters.

Needless to say, this holiday can take a hike, but I was thankful for a couple things. That iPod is invaluble to me because of all the information I had stored on it. All of it's gone, but I'm thankful I didn't freak out, get mad, scream, cuss, etc. I was calm, and I can only attribute that to the grace of God. Oh yeah, all the contacts on my personal phone are gone too, which really sucks, but thankfully, I've been relatively calm and collected about that too.

The hardest part for me is not that someone was in my space, but that I just don't know what God's idea was in doing all this. I thank Him that my car wasn't ruined (you can't even tell anyone broke in), no one was hurt, and so far as I can tell there has been no movement on my accounts (even my social security card was found!). In fact, and I don't say any of this to brag but to demonstrate God's kindness to me, I've been praying for the salvation of the person(s) who did this much more than that I'd get my stuff back.

Actually, I don't remember praying to get my stuff back (though I had to have while pacing back and forth out side of Best Buy looking for my stuff in the hands of those camping in line for this morning's 5am rush), but praying that I'd trust God in the midst of this and not be so attached to my stuff that I care more about my joy in it than my joy in God.

I don't know why I wrote all that--maybe just to get it off my chest and definitely to tell you about how great God's been to me through this. It's late and I'm going to bed. Ciao!

Preached @ TMC!!!

Hi Everyone!!!

I just wanted to let you know that God REALLY used your prayers today at The Master's College. When I got there the guy who plans the chapels, Pete, said "When John MacArthur found out a TMS grad was speaking he decided to be here," to which I literally screamed "What!?!" as my stomach dropped. He was just kidding though (ha ha, reeeeeeally funny!)--thank God (you notice yet that I struggle with the fear of man?).

Just so you know, I scrapped Psalm 100 (I just couldn't make it work no matter how hard I tried) and instead spoke from John 13:34-35 on the absolute, unquestionable necessity of Christians to love every Christian...period! I tried really hard (which means I got little sleep last night) to be accurate with what I was saying about the text, as well as clear, passionate, persuasive and practical.

Well, in God's kindness I got some good feedback from a small handful of students, my friend Austin who made this all possible got some good feedback and Pete told me he and the school really needed that message and he told me he'd love for me to come preach again next semester.

He and I got to talking more about some of his church experiences and some of my experiences at TMS, and then out of the blue he asked if I'd speak at the Truth & Life Conference in January--a yearly conference for college students that he told me attracts between 1 and 2000 (this year's line up is John MacArthur, David Wells and James MacDonald). So, it looks like I'll be doing a workshop there next year!

All the while, Pete's asking me to speak at Truth & Life and explaining the conference and I'm thinking "What in the world is happening right now?" I don't know what God's up to and I do not consider myself worthy in the least to be doing any preaching from God's Word, let alone at this conference or any conference, but I want to make sure all of you know how grateful I am for you, your prayers and your support.

In a very real sense, you were a blessing to the students and faculty of TMC this morning too because of your prayers for them and me.

Messages on the Trinity

Just in case you were wondering how my recent 2-week series at The Refuge on the Trinity went, I wanted you to know that it did not turn people off or away.

Rather than hurting the ministry, which is conventional "wisdom" for pastoral ministry today when it comes to teaching doctrine to Christians--let alone those in college & their 20s--just the opposite has happened.

Actually the ministry grew, newcomers came back for more and the Christians have a renewed zeal to study the Bible and reach out to, rather than run away from, cultists (Oneness, JWs, Mormons) and false religions (Jews, Muslims) who explicitly deny the Trinity.

Thank God for His marvelous grace for blessing His Word when we talked about Him--Father, Son and Holy Spirit!!!

Preaching @ TMC!!!

Hi Everyone!!! I am blogging right now to let you know that I will be preaching at The Master's College chapel this Monday morning and I am thoroughly TERRIFIED!!!

By a "fluke" of providence my friend Austin was walking past the man who plans chapels yesterday. Earlier this semester Austin had asked him about getting me in there for a chapel, so Austin asks if he'll be able to fit me in, to which he replied something along the lines of "I was looking at him for next semester, but we had a cancellation for Monday. I know it's short notice, but do you think he'd do it."

Austin told me he'd call me and ask, and then it came out that the cancellation was JOHN MACARTHUR who is to address the students and faculty on Faculty Day (I don't know if this is a special day or whether every Monday is Faculty Day). After I regained consciousness, my training under Prof. Alex Montoya kicked in so all I heard ringing in my ears was "You NEVER turn down a chance to preach! EVER! You don't call in. You crawl in!"

I put all this here, both to make you laugh, but also to beg you for your prayers, not only for me and the preaching (at around 9am Monday morning), but for the students and faculty in attendance.

As of now (Thursday night) I'm going to preach on Psalm 100, but I'm open to changing it should my studies reveal something I think would be more appropriate for the audience. I chose this text because I want to really challenge the very well-taught students and faculty as to their emotions for God. Psalm 100 has 7 imperatives, 7 commands for our emotions as we relate to God, many if not all of which are sadly disobeyed on a constant basis.

Any suggestions for something better? Let me know, but more importantly PLEASE PRAY!!! (especially since I just went to the TMC site and saw a couple professors on it and had a short moment of panic--I'm such a man-fearing sinner so please pray for my heart too)

Pictures from Hawaii

In case you'd enjoy them, I wanted you to know I uploaded some photos from my recent trip to Kauai here.

Update, Thank You & The Trinity

I've been swamped since getting home from Hawaii so I'm sorry for not blogging more regularly. I got off the plane Tuesday morning at 5am at LAX, ran home to shower and go right to work to help oversee the setup for our Fall Fest, Compass Bible Church's fun and safe alternative to / attempt to redeem Halloween. I preach Tuesday nights so I left the Aliso Viejo Towne Center around 4pm to prepare for The Refuge at 7pm (the singles ministry for the college students and those in their 20s that I oversee).

I was back at the Towne Center at 8am the next morning and went home around 11pm, but God richly blessed our efforts as we saw some 4000 people show up on Wednesday night and we gave out some where around 1 ton of candy. The Fall Fest was a great way to introduce the church to the community, and Lord willing many will come visit us. Thursday I was back at the Towne Center to help oversee clean up for about 7 hours, and then crashed!

Now that the weekend is over, I'm in the office preparing to preach tomorrow night on the Trinity. I'm doing a short series I called Mythbusters where we'll bust some myths about Christianity (topics are truth, the Trinity and the Deity of Christ). From there, we'll move into expositional, verse-by-verse preaching through John 17 (there may be some short Mythbuster series in the midst of that too) and then we'll jump into more exposition, this time the whole book of Galatians.

The idea is to spend a considerable amount of time on the person and work of Christ (John 17) before moving into a explanation of the Gospel and its implications for life (Galatians)--don't want to create legalists who live like Christians apart from a real deep focus on Christ first.

However, my work on the Trinity this weekend reminded me that at the beginning of this blog last year I posted four times on the heresy of modalism as embodied in Oneness Pentecostalism (by the way, did you hear about the new movement called Pentecostal Scientology?)--a false doctrine alive and well and making considerable inroads into evangelicalism. They are here, here, here and here.

Many blessings to all of you, and thank you for your prayers for me in Hawaii. It was a very difficult trip for me--not a vacation at all--because every square inch of Kauai reminds me of my grandparents. I pray the Lord will be pleased to bless the short and feeble words I gave at my grandparents' memorial service. Hope you liked the pictures I took!

I'm in Hawaii

I just flew into Kauai today. I wish I could say I'm here on vacation, but I'm not. I am doing my grandparents funeral and grave side services this weekend.

I'm not looking forward to this at all. I still miss them both terribly. I think about them every day, and being here does help since I've been here 5 or 6 times and eveyrwhere I look is a memory with them.

I say all that to say, please pray for me. My uncle ran an ad in tomorrow's local newspaper for the service so many could show up. Please pray that my presentation of the gospel in both places will be clear, accurate, passionate and persuasive. Thank you.