7 Lies We Tell Our Children

Posted on June 28, 2016 by Dana Dill

talk_kids_scary_newsRecently, Barnabas Piper recorded seven lies we tell our kids. I enjoyed the list because it consisted of things that many parents say to their kids but don’t really think about.

I will just post the “lies” below and if you’d like, go check out the blog and see his explanation for each one.

1) You can do anything you set your mind to.

2) It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks.

3) Good grades matter most.

4) Don’t worry about the results; it’s effort that counts.

5) It’s the thought that counts.

6) Good job, buddy.

7) It will be ok, I promise.

Want to know his explanations? Go read the whole blog.

Whatever you think about his points and explanations, at very least, the list should cause us to think twice about the things we say to our kids and avoid simply parroting what other parents say to their kids. In the long run, it could do more harm than good.

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The Key Question of Your Prayers

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Dana Dill

635981993614990024-525084035_6358169017277303072023092714_lightstock_112702_medium_user_2407322An essential aspect of our prayers is the motivation with which we pray. More important than the words of our prayer is the heart that prays them. The efficacy of our prayers depends on the desire of our hearts. As James once wrote:

You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:3

Commenting on this passage Matthew Henry observes:

If we…seek the things of this world, it is just in God to deny them.

But, if we seek any thing so we may serve God with it, we may expect he will either give us what we seek or give us hearts to be content without it, and give opportunities of serving and glorifying him some other way.

(Taken from Henry’s commentary on James).

God always loves to answer the prayers of his children and his children always love his answers whether they’re “yes,” “no,” “later,” or “not in the way you’ll expect it.” The great question, then, of your prayers is this: are you ultimately saying, “My will be done” or “Your will be done”? The answer to that will determine the answer to your prayer.

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Christian, We Are Not Musical Boxes

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Dana Dill

il_fullxfull.477642084_fctqAlthough preachers specifically are being referred to, the truth is equally applicable to Christians of all kinds.

Charles Spurgeon:

(Christians) sent from God are not musical boxes, being once wound up, will play through their set tunes. They are trumpets which are utterly mute until the living breath causes them to give forth a certain sound.

(Taken from Lectures to My Students, p. 312-313).

How are you going about your day? Your week? Are you living as a musical box or a trumpet? Remember the words of Paul when he said, “Be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18b). Every day, be filled with His Spirit so your life plays the melody of His salvation for all to hear. 

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The Saturday Post(s)

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Dana Dill

Saturday Post

You Are Not Your Sexuality. “Jesus teaches us, and in His life He shows us, that sex and romantic fulfillment is not the key to making ourselves complete. Jesus was, after all, the most fully human and complete person who ever lived, and yet was celibate.”

The Trinity Debate. Cripplegate has offered a really helpful chronological summary of the current Trinitarian debate happening on Interwebs. Check out part one and part two. Also, check this out for a simplified breakdown of the issues being talked about.

Seven Biblical Truths That Can Bring Us Great Happiness. Keep these tucked away.

Four Ways to Kill Church Leaders. Some solid gold leadership stuff. I found this particularly helpful and challenging for me as a youth pastor with lots of leaders under my care.

I’m a Single-Issue Voter Multiple Issues & So Are You. “Single-issue voting is not the idea that being right on any single issue qualifies a candidate for office. Single-issue voting is the idea that being wrong on a single issue may disqualify a candidate from office. In this latter sense, every voter is potentially a single-issue voter. Unless you have no moral or political principles at all, then you must be a single-issue voter in this sense. The question is simply what single issue rises to that level of importance to you.”

If We Love God Most, We Love Others Best. “When we (or anything else, if that’s possible) become our supreme love instead of God, love becomes distorted and diseased. Love ends up devolving into whatever we wish for it to mean. ”

8 Passages Every Christian Should Memorize. “Many believers don’t know where to start when they are memorizing the Bible, so here are eight passages that are central to understanding the message of the Bible and the basics of the Christian life. While there are many more Bible verses to memorize, these eight provide a great starting point.”

What is a Baptist? A great little description of my people.

Is Your Worship Upside Down? “Our church worship gatherings ought to be welcoming and comprehensible to unbelievers who are present, but many churches actually structure the entire worship service around them. There is no real biblical precedent for this, and furthermore, it’s not the most effective way for your church to reach lost people, anyway.”

Commitment Killed Part of Me. “As my feelings settled to the bottom of Lake Michigan, I now realize I was actually dying. Do you see? Commitment feels like death because it is death. In order to make a commitment we always lose something. We lose self as we have known it. When two people become one, it only happens through death. We must die to ourselves because we are being fashioned for and to and with each other. We are becoming new, together.”

Awkward High 5’s. This will make you feel good.

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I Killed Jesus

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Dana Dill

86_tskj01_01_lg_ikq6-nz_grandeOur church is almost done with our annual VBS (see some great pictures here, here, and here). As always, it has been excellent. Our children’s team and our massive crew of volunteers are exemplary; faithful, hard-working, and overflowing with love for the little ones.

Each year, at said VBS, I get the privilege and opportunity to play Jesus for the various skits or object lessons. I like to think they ask me because I’m so mature and holy and stuff. But I think it’s only because I can sometimes pass for a man of Mediterranean descent and I can grow a beard in about 32 seconds.

This year, one of the rooms I participated in had me hide behind a black sheet through which my silhouette alone would be visible to the kids. There was a cross with me behind the sheet and, as the narrator explained the unfolding drama, the lights would turn on and I would walk to the cross where I was then “crucified.” It was replete with hammer sounds and everything. Watch out Hollywood.

I did that about four or five times in a row as different groups made their way through the so-called “Bible Room.” As I stood there and listened to the narration again and again, I noticed my heart swelling with both a mixture of sorrow and joy.

It read:

Jesus had never sinned. But he was willing to take the punishment for my sins. And your sins. It was our sins that nailed Jesus to that cross.

When we betray or desert a friend, we nail Jesus to the cross.

When we hit or hurt someone, we nail Jesus to the cross.

When we mock or make fun of someone, we nail Jesus to the cross.

Jesus hung on that cross for hours. In agonizing pain. Then, at about noon, Jesus finally died. It was over. It was the end. The Light of the world was dead.

Think about what Jesus went through. All of the pain he felt. Think of how he could have stopped it, but he didn’t. He knew he had to die. For you. And for me. (Taken from Group’s Cave Quest VBS Curriculum).

As I stood there and heard these words again and again, the old truth hit me with fresh power. My sins caused his suffering. My sorrows became his. I killed Jesus. I hurt him. I tortured him. I made him bleed, suffer, and die.

The whole thing reminded me of what John Stott once wrote:

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us (leading u to faith and worship), we have to see it as something done by us (leading us to repentance). Indeed, “only the man who is prepared to own his share in the guilt of the cross,” wrote Canon Peter Green, “may claim his share in its grace.” (Taken from The Cross of Christ, p. 59-50).

Also, as Stuart Townend once sang:

Behold the man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders;
Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
Call out among the scoffers.
It was my sin that held Him there
Until it was accomplished;
His dying breath has brought me life –
I know that it is finished.

What great sin I have that would cause such suffering. What great love does He have to willingly endure it. That I would mourn about the sin that made Him suffer so. May I, even more so, rejoice in the love that would choose to suffer.

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The Honor of Being a Helper

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Dana Dill

tumblr_mw70uelTbR1rmhz68o1_500Currently, I am taking our church’s youth group through a series on relationships. Last week we covered the topic of marriage from Genesis 2:15-25. In this passage, as God sees Adam all by his lonesome, we read:

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” (Genesis 2:18).

The passage is simple enough. Adam is alone in God’s very good world (Genesis 1:31) and that, in God’s eyes, is not a good thing. God’s creation of humankind stood incomplete with lonely Adam. This isn’t to say that people are incomplete without a spouse (that would mean Paul and Jesus were incomplete), but it is to say that Mankind is incomplete without Womankind. There was another to bring into the mix and it would be a she; and she would be a “helper.”

At this point, a lot of people get their jimmies rustled. Objections like, “How degrading! Woman are not made to be men’s ‘helpers!’ How patriarchal! How misogynistic! How primitive!” To our developed and enlightened eyes, the concept of wives being “helpers” to husbands is nauseating.

But it shouldn’t be. In fact, it should be the exact opposite. The title of “helper” given to Eve (and all wives after her) was not a title of degradation, but dignity.

Richard Phillips explains it well:

The Hebrew word for helper is ezer. What is said of how a woman will function in relationship to man is also said of God as the Ezer of Israel.

  • God was a help to Israel most powerfully as Jehovah God, their Redeemer. As helper, he powerfully delivered Israel from their enemies.
  • On one occasion he is called helper when he gently fed a prophet, a widow, and her son.
  • This is again said of God when he was a patient shepherd to Israel in the wilderness.
  • Psalm 121 puts it in especially beautiful language: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (vv. 1-2).

We could continue with the examples, but you get the point. To call a woman a helper is not to emphasize her weakness but her strength, not to label her as superfluous but as essential to Adam’s condition and to God’s purpose in the world. Helper is a position of dignity given to the woman by God himself. (Taken from Hold Hands, Holding Hearts, p. 26-27).

So, dear wives, you have been created and called to be God’s helper to your husband. Revere its high calling. Praise God for your privilege. Be humbled and amazed that God would so honor you and make you a helper like Him. In short, know your role and rejoice in it.

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iPod Preachers & Your Soul

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Dana Dill

BibleEarbuds-750x500I’ll start with this line:

I am thankful that technology makes good preaching accessible to many people.

I’m pumped to know that faithful sermons are being preached and distributed around the world. Whenever God’s life-giving Word goes out with power and clarity, you’ll get nothing but thumbs up from me.

However, there is a dark side to podcast preachers; not from the preachers or the practice of podcasting, but for listeners themselves. Sometimes the very good thing of faithful podcast preaching can become a bad thing for the heart.

Barnabas Piper expresses it well:

A few years ago my iPod was filled with sermons from the usual gospelly suspects, and I listened to them fairly regularly. But I realized something wasn’t quite right. I was even more critical than usual. I was subconsciously grading my pastor’s sermons. My enjoyment of worshiping at church diminished. So I quit listening to sermons from famous guys.

And this is what I noticed. My own pastor’s preaching became enormously important to me. I went to a non mega-church with a faithful pastor named Chris. He is not a celebrity. He is a preacher it would have been too easy for me to judge or ignore when my mind was filled with iPod sermons, not because his preaching falls short but because his last name doesn’t give him cache. My own bent towards being critical and critiquing played a significant role in this as well. But Chris is a wonderful pastor and preacher, and I was missing it.

Since then I have moved states and switched churches. My current church has an interim pastor who does an excellent job. Would I think it was excellent if I was “grading” him? Probably not. All the worse for me and my soul.

By doing away with my mental dependence on supplemental sermons I have gained the ability to go into church with an appetite for the preached word of God that isn’t choosy or finicky. I have been able to set aside so much of the comparison or criticism that once plagued my listening. Sunday mornings are not an exercise in homiletic or exegetical judgment for me. They are a meal for a hungry heart, and I usually head home with a take-out bag of truth to keep me fed through the week.

Do you benefit from podcast preachers? Praise God! Just make sure that benefiting from their ministry doesn’t make you unhelpfully critical towards or ungrateful for the pastoring/preaching ministry of your own local church pastors. Don’t let a good thing go bad.

Read the whole post here.

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Dads, Remember Your Influence

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Dana Dill

man-person-cute-youngVoddie Baucham:

Fathers are incredibly influential, both directly and indirectly. Children were created to respond to the influence of a father. A man can have a complete lack of influence in his personal and professional life, but the day he becomes a father, all of that changes. Children neither know nor care how influential Dad is outside the home. As far as they are concerned, he is the most influential man in the world. This is true regardless of a man’s intentions, or even his presence…

This is important for new fathers to know. As the old saying goes, “much more is ‘caught’ than taught.” In other words, your children won’t just learn the things you teach them intentionally; they will glean much more from the things you have no idea you are teaching. This includes your mannerisms, sense of humor, temperament, and habits, to name a few. Even your presence (or absence) is influential. This truth is echoed in the wisdom of the Proverbs: “My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways” (Proverbs 23:26).

Don’t forget those watching eyes!

Read the whole post here.

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The Saturday Post(s)

Posted on June 19, 2016 by Dana Dill

Saturday Post

Dads, Your Children Need You. “Fathers are incredibly influential, both directly and indirectly. Children were created to respond to the influence of a father. A man can have a complete lack of influence in his personal and professional life, but the day he becomes a father, all of that changes. Children neither know nor care how influential Dad is outside the home.”

Two Words Father’s Should Say to Their Children. “If we want our children to develop godly habits we need to (say), “Watch me.”

This is Going to Be An Issue. “Biola University, located in Southern California and one of the country’s most well-known and prestigious evangelical colleges, now finds itself arguing for its right to be evangelical.”

Leading in Love. What does it look like when men “lead” their homes? Theologian Wayne Grudem gives a great picture of just that.

Apprehending Divine Love. This post highlights perfectly a major reason I love the Puritans. The Bunyan quote exemplifies the kind of writing I love. “Love in Christ decays not, nor can be tempted so to do by anything that happens, or that shall happen hereafter, in the object so beloved.”

Sermons on Marriage. Alistair Begg is the man and his sermons are boss.

How Do You Spell Dad? Like this.

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What’s Jesus’ Message to Homosexuals?

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Dana Dill

Jesus-Homosexuality-1A few days ago I was hanging out at the beach with about ten high school students from our church. As we were baking in the sun, one of our new students asked me, “Pastor Dana, what does the Bible say about homosexuality?” This student had friends at school who profess to be homosexuals and was trying to figure out what being faithful to Jesus looked like in those relationships. She loves her friends and she has been growing more serious about following Jesus. For her, it was time to get her thoughts in order.

A marvelous talk ensued. The other students immediately joined the conversation with enthusiasm and interest. Lots of good questions were asked and – with Bibles open – lots of good answers were explored. God’s hand was all over it because God’s Word was everywhere in it.

At the end of our conversation, among the many things we talked about, I made sure the students understood that, at the end of the day, there was one message that Jesus had for homosexuals and everyone else: repent and believe.

Sam Allberry, the author of Is God Anti-Gay? and a Christian pastor who himself struggles with same-sex attraction, unpacks the message well.

“Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Mark 1:14-15

Repentance means turning around, to change course. The implication is pretty clear and a little uncomfortable: we’re not heading in the right direction. We’re like the elderly man I read about recently in our local newspaper: in a moment of confusion in the middle of the night, he’d ended up driving a mile or so on the wrong side of the motorway. Thankfully at the hour there was hardly anything coming the other way; if it had happened when the commuters were up, it might have been a very different story.

Jesus is claiming that we’re heading in the wrong direction, and that the rush hour of God’s purposes is heading toward us. We need to change direction and line up with what God is doing. And that means believing the gospel: the announcement that, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can be put right with God; that we are being offered a fresh start to begin to live as God always meant us to. This is his message.

And it’s his message for all people. When Jesus burst onto the scene, he didn’t subdivide humanity into categories and give each one a separate message. One for introverts; another for extroverts. One for left-brain types, and one for right brain folk.

God’s message for gay people is the same as his message for everyone. Repent and believe. It is the same invitation to find fullness of life in God, the same offer of forgiveness and deep, wonderful,  life-changing love. (Taken from Is God Anti-Gay?, p. 7-8).

Jesus’ message to homosexual sinners is the same message he offers every other sinner in the world: repent from your sin, stop traveling the wrong direction, and trust in Him as Savior and Lord (John 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11). This message is not for any special category of people or certain type of sinner, but for all people, all sinners, everywhere. He loves you and wants you to turn away from a self-ruled life so you live under the restful, peaceful, and delightful rule of Jesus. Yes, turning to Jesus may be a train wreck for you, denying self always is, but it will lead to glorious life.

Some Resources on Homosexuality

If you would like to read more about how Christians should think and speak about homosexuality, the following should be helpful.

  1. “How Should We Speak About Homosexuality” by Denny Burk (Article)
  2. “50 Resources for Equipping the Church on Homosexuality & Same-Sex Marriage” by Joe Carter (Article)
  3. “Why We Always Lose (the Homosexuality) Debate” by Trevin Wax (Article)
  4. “How I Wish the Homosexuality Debate Would Go” by Trevin Wax (Article)
  5. “How Do I Talk to My Kids About Homosexuality?” by Seth Stewart (Article)
  6. “Not That Kind of Homosexuality” by Kevin DeYoung (Article). This leans toward a more scholarly end and addresses the many revisionist arguments issued by proponents of homosexual practice within Christianity.
  7. “Is God Anti-Gay?” by Sam Allberry (Book, 83 pages)
  8. “What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality?” by Kevin DeYoung (Book, 160 pages)
  9. What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung (Sermon)
  10. Livingout.org (Website)

For further reflections from Sam Allberry, check out the video below.

Sam from Living Out on Vimeo.

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