My First SBC Annual Meeting

I just got back from my first SBC. Overall it wasn't life changing experience But there was one thing that I will never forget, one thing that will stand out in my memory when all the rest of it fades. I got to be there to see Southern Baptists elect their first African American convention president, Fred Luter. It took about 165 years, but it finally happened and I got to be there for it.

In my last year at Union, Dr. Luter came to Union as a chapel speaker. I didn't know anything about him or who he was, but I got to pick him up at the airport in Memphis, take him to dinner, and drive him back to Jackson. He was (and is) one of the nicest guys I've ever been around. As I've learned more about him and his incredible story, I grew to have an new appreciation and respect for him. I am so excited to have him as the head of the SBC and have every confidence in him because he is a man devoted to God, to His gospel, and to His Word.

Later in life when I don't remember anything else about the 2012 convention, I'll remember that Fred Luter was elected president, the first African American president of the SBC. Dr. Luter's election was certainly a historic moment for the SBC, and is a testimony to God's continual work of sanctification in the hearts of His people.

Book Review

Church Membership: How the World Knows who Represents Jesus

Jonathan Leeman

Crossway Books

132 Pages

At the church plant I attend, we are working through the development of church membership. It has been exciting for me to help in that process, because the topic of the church and what it should look like is one that I enjoy discussing and thinking about. This book helped me think about church membership in a richer and deeper way. It helped solidify and emphasize the significance of being united to a local body of believers.

Jonathan Leeman, who is a member of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D. C. and part of 9Marks ministries, makes a very good and helpful distinction between membership to a club and membership to a church. In some ways, the cultural understanding of the word membership hinders our understanding of what a Christian's relationship to the local church should be. A huge point Leeman makes is: "Christians don't join churches; they submit to them." The local church is not intended by God to be a take it or leave it, come and go as you please social group. A church is an outpost or embassy of the kingdom of God. As such it is made up of citizens of God's kingdom who represent Him here on earth. All those who identify themselves with Christ must necessarily also identify themselves with a local church. 

The book is very easy to read. The pages are small, so 132 pages is equivalent to about half that many in a normal size book. It is straightforward and will be transformative and shaping in the way you view membership to the local church as perhaps the most significant and distinct way you represent Jesus to the World. 

1 Chronicles 16:41

Today in my quiet time I read 1 Chronicles 16:41 and it almost left me speechless.  It says, "With them were Heman and Jeduthun and the rest of those chosen and expressly named to give thanks to the Lord, for His steadfast love endures forever." I don't think I have ever considered the significance of this verse before. The enduring and faithful love of God is so great that Israel had people assigned just to give thanks for it. That blew me away as I contrasted that idea with how often I neglect to be thankful for His love.

Further, this was happening before the cross.  Romans 5:8 could not be written yet.  "But God shows His love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us." We have seen the love of God expressed in the sending of His Son. We have seen God's glory in His Son made flesh (John 1:14). We who are Christians have experienced the transformative power of the Gospel by the work of the Holy Spirit. How much more should we, a people not covered by the blood of bulls and goats but covered by the blood of Christ, continually give thanks to God. How much more should each of us consider ourselves as one "expressly named to give thanks to the Lord."

Book Review

God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men
Jonathan Edwards
Great Christian Books
48 Pages

There is no one I am aware of who makes the sovereignty of God appear so sweet and glorious as does Jonathan Edwards.  This doctrine is laced through all of his writings and is the focus of God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men.

The book is a little hard to read at the start. The older English is hard to understand on occasion and laying the foundation is a little tedious. It is work the work at the front to experience the glories of God's sovereignty explained in the last three chapters the way only Edwards can. Edwards argument is that God cannot do something that would damage any of His attributes. The way God keeps from injuring his attributes in saving men is through the sufferings of Christ.

"It is sufficient testimony of God's abhorrence against event the greatest wickedness that Christ, the eternal Son of God, died for it."

"Let the contempt be ever so great, yet if so honourable a person as Christ undertakes to be a Mediator for the offender, and the mediation suffer in his stead, it fully repairs the injury done to the majesty of heaven by the greatest sinner."

"Justice cannot require any ore for any man's sins, than those sufferings of one of the persons in the Trinity, which Christ suffered. "

The final chapter asks, "Why does God exercise His sovereignty?" The answer is fairly simple: God's design is to manifest to his creation the glory of each of His attributes through the exercise of them. "He glorifies His power in the exercise of power. He glorifies His mercy in the exercise of mercy. So he glorifies his sovereignty in the exercise of sovereignty. In the case of sovereignty, the greater the being it is exercised over, the greater the glory of the sovereignty. "God's sovereignty over men appears glorious, that it extends to everything that concerns them" even the destiny of their souls. Edwards puts it best in saying, "The infinite greatness of God, and His exaltation above us, appears in nothing more, than in His sovereignty."

To some this is a fearful thought. And the truth is that "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). Yet, with David we can say, "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercy is very great"           (1 Chronicles 21:13). 

Edwards conclusion is ultimately a hopefully one. "God can bestow mercy upon you without the least prejudice to the honor of His holiness, which you have offended, or to the honour of His majesty, which you have insulted, or of His justice, which you have made your enemy, or of His truth, or of any of His attributes. Let you be what sinner you may, God can, if He pleases, greatly glorify Himself in your salvation." And that should be our joy: God's glory.

Therefore, "Let us with the greatest humility adore the awful and absolute sovereignty of God."