How Grace Changes Men !

Catching up... Orlando thanks, ATL coming, getting more joy.

Some Conference catch-up
Wow, what a great Orlando gMan conference. Thank you speakers Bryan Chapell, Ray Cortese, Pete Alwinson, and a great local boy to us, Joe Bucha.
Thank you men who came. Thank you men who donated bucks. Thank you guys at Man in the Mirror... David, Brett, & Pat ... who helped us get the word out in Orlando.
Thank you Willow Creek Church... Heather, Jeff, Pete, Charlene, Jeff, our dear deacon brother, Julie, & Jinks.
Special thanks to the gMan conference staff - David & Lisa, Bill & Jane, Bob, & my dear Karen. What a gift.
We're working on the audio/video in the weeks ahead.
And we are working on being back in Orlando next Spring 2010.

Atlanta ahead - April 24-25, 2009 gMan Atlanta : Ivy Creek Church
Please come hear Nate Larkin, Scott Roley, Richard Pettit, & Charles Garland
Go here to register: http://thegospelman.com

gMan Flickr views!
posting gMan Conference pics here now !

Recovering Joy in the Gospel... Piper says he saw it Augustine.
You just gotta love John Piper... so much to love.
I especially like his dogged effort to press the notion that if you are low or missing joy in your Christian life, maybe you have a different or corrupted or partial Gospel. I know those adjectives don't say it well.
Most christian men I have known do not have Gospel joy. I would obviously include myself.
If that sounds too strong to you, then go ahead and answer the question for yourself: How many Christian men do you know in whom you see real joy in their lives and walks?
I know its hard times these days. Hey, I was laid off and am selling my house. It's a miserable time for many of us.
I think Piper got Christian hedonist on us through his studies of Scripture & the saints before us.
Let me point you to one excellent bio read on Augustine.
I'm reading Augustine's Confessions . His title means more than the confessing of his sins; it's his confession of his appreciation for God Himself. He addresses God throughout the book. He is talking to God and speaking to God and himself the truth about both... as he has learned it in the Scripture.

There's a satisfaction when I do my duty. And I believe I could have a lot of it if I were more dutiful. Some of you are. Much better than me. And I know Christ has already made me a better man in 32 years since he began humbling me and connected me to His cross. But I am also a worse man. The remaining presence of sin does that to you too. It continues to rob.
So to have joy, I will have to drink elsewhere than my moral performance. Joy awaits me in the Gospel. An identity grounded in forgiveness, adoption, imputed righteousness, a life controlled by the sovereign goodness of God.
I love reading of a man growing in joy in God. The Confessions are a good tonic, and Piper is a skilled doctor to prescribe Augustine for us. Go get more joy, dear brother.

Men Who Know God

At least once a year, I rummage back through J.I. Packer's Knowing God.

It will always be one of the great books of my life. Besides C.S. Lewis like any Christian who reads, Packer and Frances Schaeffer have been my prime shapers in my early years. The cool thing about Packer is how he always leads you on deeper into the Bible and deeper into the Puritans.

In the second chapter of Knowing God entitled "The People who Know their God", Packer gives two cautions and what he calls "four propositions".

The Two Cautions:
1. One can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of Him.
2. One can know a great deal about godliness without much knowledge of God.

Four Propositions:
1. Those who know God have great energy for God.
2. Those who know God have great thoughts of God.
3. Those who know God have great boldness for God.
4. Those who know God have great contentment in God.

Energy for, thoughts of, boldness for, and contentment in.
The absence of or the motives for these things have always been good for me to ponder.
I have spent way too much of my life since being brought to Christ wanting the benefits of God rather than the beauty that He is ... I mean way too much.

Gary Yagel, a gospelman and co-helper of our conferences, wrote a paper on "Grace Based Men's Ministry" for his D.Min. It's worth taking the time to read: Download (in PDF).

And on a personal note... I been out of town watching my son's basketball team which he coaches and witnessing the birth of our grandson on Tuesday morning.  His name is Silas.
"Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers," (Acts 15:22)

May Silas be by the grace of God a man who knows God.

Have a blessed Sabbath.

Listening towards change... love me, kill me, heal me.

When one is baby-waiting & traveling (our first grandson is due any day), there is nothing better than being inspired by the surprising love of God in Jesus.

Tim Keller preached a series of sermons on Luke 15 (subject of his Nov 2008 published book, The Prodigal God) for Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYCity.
His application is to take the truths of the Gospel amplified in Luke 15 and ask, "How does the Gospel make us a community of grace?"

These links can be found at The Prodigal God website and are being made freely available by Redeemer it appears. Thank you Tim & Redeemer for your ministry to all of us out here.

I can't encourage you more strongly enough to give this book to friends and give them the links or MP3's of these sermons. And do listen in the order listed.

In having great hopes of growing as Gospel Men, we must (I least I have to absolutely do this due to my hard heart so I use the word "must".) continue to pursue the Spirt reminding us that we are deeply loved in Christ, therefore we can deeply look at our passivity, our sin, our insecurities, and our weak desires. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself, but that is not my experience.

Listen to these several times and may the Spirit soothe, break, and sooth you again.

Listen to the Sermon Series:
"The Fellowship of Grace"
Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Fall 2008 (Right-Click to Save)

1 Give Me Mine - Luke 15:11-14
2 He Came to Himself - Luke 15:11-20
3 To Be Called Your Son - Luke 15:21-24
4 And Kissed Him - Luke 15:11-24
5 We Had to Celebrate - Luke 15:17-32
6 The True Older Brother - Luke 15:17-32

And from the Archives, “The Prodigal Sons”, September 2005:
MP3 download (Right-Click to Save

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And Justin Taylor posts a John Piper comment here about the pursuit of prayer as legalism or relational, joyful necessity. Nice.

Friday's In's & Out's

Matt points to Kevin DeYoung's definition of what it means to be reformed. Well said.
So how does that work it's way out in how I act?
At work, at play, in church, my fight against sin, my fight to believe the objective theological facts thoroughly?

""We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think." (The Prodigal God, p.15-16, Tim Keller)

Conservative: check. Oxford Button-Down: Check. Moralistic: Oh Tim, you dirty dog you.

Resource of the Day/Year/Decade

Maybe the best individual/small group Bible study on the Planet: Keller's Galatians... get the Leader's version... yeah, it's long... 13 chapters... divide each chapter into 2 meetings... so 26 weeks. Will change your life and the life of anyone you go through it with. Trust me on this.

"I have learned never to trust a man who has not had a head-snapping, bone-crushing collision with his own depravity." (Nate Larkin, Author of Samson & The Pirate Monks)

I don't pray well enough for my wife and marriage. How 'bout you?

Pat & Dave encourage: The Marriage Prayer : Download a reminder card with prayer.

Welcome...

Such begins the How Grace Changes Men blog. Thoughts, ancedotes, and pointers to how grace (as Steve Brown says) gets us home and radically changes us. This effort focuses on how God's grace in Jesus works it's divine magic in men's lives, and how it is both an adventure and a misadventure... maybe not for you, but so, so clearly for me.

In two weeks (March 6-7, 2009), we have our first 2009 Spring Gospel Man conference in Orlando at Willow Creek Church. It's free, and we will pass the KFC bucket. You can register here for Orlando ! Please bring an army. Speakers include Bryan Chapell of Covenant Seminary; Ray Cortese of Seven Rivers Presbyterian in Lecanto, FL; Pete Alwinson of Willow Creek Church; PCA, Joe Bucha, Counselor & Campus Crusade staff; & Gary Yagel of Forging Bonds of Brotherhood.

Our second Spring Conference is in Atlanta on April 24-25, 2009 at Ivy Creek Church in Lawrenceville. It's $59 and register here. Speakers include Nate Larkin, author of "Samson & The Pirate Monks"; Scott Roley of Christ Community Church in Franklin, TN; Richard Pettit, attorney; Charles Garland of Ivy Creek Church; & Gary Yagel.

If you haven't read Tim Keller's The Prodigal God, please do. There are some sermons on TPG website that you just must listen to... how Luke 15 transforms people who can then foster a community of grace.

Between Two Worlds also points today to a Marvin Olasky article that explores TPG applications.

The gMan (easy short for The Gospel Man with apologies to former gmen) Fellowship's website is what you might expect: www.thegospelman.com .

Have you seen this? Nate @ iamsecond.com . You'll be glad you clicked.

And thanks to David for the kick.