Annex Basement
How Can I Know There Is A God?
Provocative response from D.A. Carson… It’s a helpful reminder that unbelief is not really an intellectual problem, but a moral problem.
Date Night Tips
From Mark Driscoll -
Parents, if you can’t afford a sitter, is there a way to set up a rotation with three other families to take turns each week watching kids for date night?
Husbands, when is your date night? Your wife needs it. You do, too. Grace and I have enjoyed Friday date nights for about 20 years.
Husbands, don’t waste every date night at a movie where you can’t talk. Use the time to visit with your wife, draw her out, and study her like you do the Bible.
Husbands, plan out your date nights. Ask you wife in advance what sounds good, see what your options are, and make a plan. She’ll be thankful.
Date night killers: no plan, selfishness, laziness, letting technology keep interrupting, and doing the same old predictable thing.
Time with other couples now and then is OK, but if most date nights involve other people, there is likely an intimacy disconnect in the marriage.
Dads, moms who stay home all day with the kids need to get dressed up, taken out, and have some adult conversation with their husbuddy.
Husbands, what can you do to find some creative ways to make date night fun and endearing even on a tight budget?
Husbands, what can you start doing days or hours before date night to build the expectation of connection with your wife? Flowers, cards, calls, texts?
When life gets crazy, the kids are sick, etc. is there any way to sneak in a bit of a date night at home with say a soak in the tub together, glass of wine etc. after the kids go to sleep?
Sometimes sending the kids out to someone’s house and having a date night at home can be cheap and fun if planned right.
Men, you don’t pursue a woman to marry her and stop pursuing her. You pursue a woman to marry her and pursue her with more passion and creativity than ever. How’s it going husbands?
Men, you don’t need to understand women. You will be doing better than most men to understand just one woman. Date nights are to ask inviting questions, listen, and learn about her. It’s also a night to open up and let her do the same.
Men, if you don’t date your wife, someone else may eventually volunteer for the job.
Ladies, sometimes it’s a great gift to go into your husband’s world for a date night by doing something like putting on a jersey going to a game and eating a hot dog. His love language may just be hot dog.
Men: find a shirt with buttons, try two eyebrows instead of one, find a breath mint or 20, show up with a gift, don’t ogle other women, and go to a restaurant that does not have a spork.
HT: VitaminZ
What’s Wrong with the King James Bible
Have you ever wondered why some of the verses in the King James Bible are different from modern verses? Here’s a helpful explanation…
Annex Construction – Week 2
Here’s a preview just so nobody is shocked on Sunday…
Over-Churched Kids
Loving Your Spouse
What is love? What does love look like in marriage? What should this description of love do to us? Read it here…
HT: JT
Preparing for Sunday
I read this quote from John Piper a few months ago – “There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning.”
And here’s some advice on preparing for Sunday…
In his book Expository Listening (read my review) Ken Ramey offers a list of ways you can “Plan Ahead, and Schedule Your Week Around the Ministry of the Word.”
“For the majority of people, even church members, church is not the priority of their week. Too often school, work, sports, and other activities take precedence over going to church. They make the mistake of letting their time be ordered by the world, which views the weekends as a time to relax, to play sports, to stay up late and sleep in. For Christians, however, Sunday should be the most important day of the week. You should try to schedule your work, activities, get-togethers, and vacations around church. You should live by the principle that Sunday morning starts Saturday night.”
He offers several practical suggestions on how to prioritize the Lord’s Day:
- Make it a habit to be home on Saturday night.
- Be careful not to do, watch, or read anything that will cause lingering distractions in your mind the next day.
- Get things ready on Saturday night to alleviate the typical Sunday morning rush (lay out clothes, set the table, write the offering check, stock the diaper bag, etc).
- Get a good night’s sleep so you can be sharp and energetic to worship and serve God. It’s hard to listen when you’re nodding off.
- Eat a simple but adequate breakfast that will hold you until lunch. It’s difficult to hear over the grumbling of your stomach.
- Work together with the other members of your family to get ready, and to establish and maintain a godly atmosphere on the way to church. Listen to music, sing, and pray together.
- Arrive at church ten minutes early instead of ten minutes late so you have enough time to find a parking spot, drop the kids off in the nursery or their Sunday school classes, get a cup of coffee, visit with your friends, and find a seat.
“When you fail to plan ahead,” he warns, “Sunday morning ends up becoming a chaotic crisis, and by the time you get to church, you are frustrated and frazzled and your heart is in no condition to receive the Word. But when you plan well and are able to arrive in a relaxed, leisurely way, you will be in a much more receptive frame of mind.”
HT: Challies
Annex Demolition
The day finally arrives. Click the album below to see pictures or watch the videos…
No Ordinary People
Our text from this last Sunday’s sermon included 2 Corinthians 5:16 – “From now on, we regard no one according to the flesh“. C.S. Lewis sheds light on what Paul means in Lewis’s famous address, “The Weight of Glory” -
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be daily laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”
Do you have this perspective? We all need it.
Raising Boys to Men
Here’s a quote and prayer from Darrin Patrick. I think this issue is a serious concern for the Church in the coming decades. It is a serious matter of prayer for me with my son…
We live in a world full of males who have prolonged their adolescence. They are neither boys nor men. They live suspended between childhood and adulthood, between growing up and being a grown-up. Let’s call this kind of male Ban, a hybrid of both man and boy… Ban is a frightening reality in the church, but he is the best thing that ever happened to the video game and porn industries…
I have a son, Drew, and because of my keen awareness of and pastoral interaction with Bans, I know that my work is cut out for me when it comes to raising a godly man. I recently wrote a little prayer that reflects the kind of men we need. Drew and I pray this prayer together almost every night, for him and for me.
“God, make me a man with thick skin and a soft heart. Make me a man who is tough and tender. Make me tough so I can handle life. Make me tender so I can love people. God, make me a man.”
Stop Sinning
I’m going to copy a post from my friend Andy Lutz, quoting Dr. Lloyd-Jones -
I do not know of a single scripture—and I speak advisedly—which tells me to take my sin, the particular thing that gets me down, to God in prayer and ask him to deliver me from it and then trust in faith that he will.
Now that teaching is also often put like this: you must say to a man who is constantly defeated by a particular sin, “I think your only hope is to take it to Christ and Christ will take it from you.” But what does Scripture say in to the man who finds himself constantly guilty of stealing, to a man who sees something he likes and takes it? What am I to tell such a man? Am I to say, “Take that sin to Christ and ask him to deliver you?” No, what the apostle Paul tells him is this: “Let him that stole, steal no more.” Just that. Stop doing it. And if it is fornication or adultery or lustful thoughts, again: Stop doing it, says Paul. He does not say, “Go and pray to Christ to deliver you.” No. You stop doing that, he says, as becomes children of God.
I wonder if he would have liked Newhart
Resisting the NFL
I will admit – I like to watch football…when I have time. I will occasionally turn on the TV on Sunday afternoons for a few minutes to catch the score. I will watch Monday night football. But it is my preference and I believe that it should biblically be the preference of all Christians, to prefer the fellowship of Christians and the worship and prayers of God’s people on Sunday. Here is a quote from Ray Ortlund, who also quotes Dr.Lloyd-Jones…
The NFL season starts soon. Great. I love football. But if only it were that simple. The NFL in its televised grandeur and inflated drama claims too much for itself. It claims too much of our attention on Sundays especially. Let’s get ready now to resist its over-reaching. Let’s get ready to put it in its true place, under Christ. So it’s like this, as August is soon upon us: “Hey Mr. NFL, good to see you again. Glad you’re back. Sure, I might be able to fit you into my iPhone calendar somewhere here. Umm, no, that’s filled. And that won’t work either. Uhhh — Oh, here’s an opening. Sure, I might have some time here . . . .”
Jesus, community, mission — I submit to these claims. I manage all others. Jesus alone is Lord. Jesus alone is joy. I will set no limits on him. I will set proper limits on everything else …
[Lloyd-Jones said] “But what happens when people are baptized with the Holy Spirit — as you read throughout Acts — is that they want to keep together, to get together as often as they can — they continued daily, steadfastly, talking about these things, singing together, praising God together. This was the thing that was first above everything else. Everything else came second; even their work was something they had to do. It was right that they should do their work, of course, but this was the thing that meant life to them, joy and salvation.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable (Wheaton, 1984), page 102
Pursue Hospitality
In Romans 12:13, we are told “Seek to show hospitality”. It’s actually an unfortunate translation. The verb means ‘practice, pursue’ – pursue hospitality.
The word hospitality is actually a “love” word in the Greek. It means literally “love for strangers, love for those distant from you, different from you”. It’s not just a duty word, as in ‘have people into your home.’ It’s the opening of your heart, the opening of your life, and then the opening of your home to people.
Hospitality is actually one of the most important values of the Christian life. For instance, hospitality is a value specifically required of the leaders of the church, those who teach and model Christianity to others – see 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:8. Those who teach and model Christianity to others model it in their opening of their homes and lives to others.
Hospitality in the Bible is almost always connected directly to love. Hebrews 13:1 says, “Let brotherly love continue; do not neglect hospitality.” 1 Peter 4:8-9 says, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins, showing hospitality to one another without grumbling.”
Alexander Strauch, in a little book called The Hospitality Command, says, “Hospitality may well be the best means we have to promote close brotherly love.”
Hasn’t that been your experience? People have you into their home and into their lives and affection begins to grow. You see and learn something of the Christian life from them.
The Apostle Paul tells us, “Pursue this.” It is a positive call to action, not a begrudging duty. It is when there are reasons in your life mitigating against it that the force of the verb “pursue” needs to be heeded. As a church, we have lots of reasons mitigating against hospitality. We have lots of kids. We live very busy lives. It’s easy to say, “It’s too much. I’ve got to protect myself and home.” No! You’ve got to give yourself away! Pursue hospitality!
If you’re intimidated by having a family over with 4 kids, get over it! Pursue hospitality.
If you’re intimidated because you say, “I’ve got 6 mouths to feed every day, and I don’t know if I can bring someone else in” — do it anyway! You may not want to. But after you do it, you will find that you will be glad that you did. And you know you’ve experienced that before.
Pursue hospitality. After all, what is the Gospel of God’s grace but a story of God’s hospitality, his love and compassion for strangers. Romans 15:7 says, “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” The theme of the Bible is a theme of the hospitality of our God. Psalm 23:5-6 says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Outdo One Another In Showing Honor
In Romans 12:10, we are told, “Out do one another in showing honor.” The NIV translates it “Honor one another above yourselves”, which is a thought communicated several other places in the NT. It requires humility. But the word here really means “to lead before”, to be a leader in honoring.
It’s like Paul is saying, “The only competition that should be among Christians is a competition of honoring others.” Now that doesn’t literally mean, “Play a game of honoring others”, like a forced or faked thing. It’s to be the genuine expression of your heart – to honor others more than yourself, think of others more than yourself. If the Apostle Paul could say, “I am less than the least of all the saints” – that should be our attitude as well. We should all consider others better than ourselves. How does that make sense? The Scripture says, You know your own sins, you know the depth of your own sins in your own heart better than you know it in anyone else’s heart. So you should be the worst sinner you know (in a manner of speaking). You have more acquaintance and intimacy with your own pride and sin than you do with anybody else’s. If there are areas that you see that you have a higher maturity than others, then you also know that you’ve received more grace in certain areas, and so you have more responsibility in those areas. Maybe you grew up in a better family situation than some others; you grew up in a home that more grace; you had certain things that God brought into your life that gave you more perspective and maturity in those areas. That’s not something to be proud of. It’s something to say, “What do I have that I have not received.” So when we look at others, in shouldn’t be in comparison of pride or self-pity, it should be always looking at others and celebrating grace in them, seeing the graces that are coming out of them, and honoring them for it.
We live in a sarcastic and cynical culture. Honoring doesn’t come naturally to us. Honoring is not a natural part of our speech patterns. And for that reason, I like the analogy of competition – that we need to “outdo one another in showing honor”. We need to go overboard in appreciation and praise.
If you’ve ever done any acting (and I’m not saying that this is pretend honoring), but there is a difference between stage acting and screen acting. Screen acting is up close, stage acting is from a distance. So stage directors will tell stage actors to over-act, over-emphasize your movements, your expressions and gestures, and the audience will just see them as normal.
Normally it wouldn’t be wise to say that we need to go overboard and be out of balance in something. But here’s an area I think it’s okay to be out of balance, because it’s really not out of balance.
A pastor friend of mine once told a story about his two teenage daughters. They were both swimmers, and were often paired together in races, but the older (who was older and more mature) always beat the younger daughter. But one race, when they were actually next to one another lane by lane, the younger daughter actually out-paced her older sister. And when the race was over, and they both realized the results, the older immediately and with joy reached over to embrace her younger sister. This friend commented that nothing warms the heart of a parent than to see your children from the heart honoring one another. And the heart of our heavenly father is warmed when his people ‘outdo one another in showing honor’.
