Pastor's Conference

Theology can be either so esoteric that its useless for anything but discussion or it can be so simple that it loses its trancendancy

theology that does not tuch life is great information you can do nothing with

Ecclesiology;

The law of first mention takes us to Matthew 16 because it is the first mention of the church both by chronology and the first mention of the church by it's head.
(Ephesians is Paul's exegesis of the church).

Matthew 16:13-20- you here is plural
who do "y'all" say I am.
Peter answers a question which wasn't addressed strictly to him. ... Peter, he says, is the leader of the group and thus he answers as a group representative.

Simon means pebble
Peter means stone
Rock means a collection of smaller stones coalesced together.

The most important thing you can do is to build a leadership team.

ecclesia is an elected body who would make legislative decisions for the benefit of the people whom they represent.

The Gates of Hell: Throughout the OT the gates is a place of legislation, the elders would meet at the gate for business.

The ecclesia is going to make legal decisions which the gates of hell cannot override.

It's not about sovereignty against free will. It's sovereignty saying at he beginning "Let them rule" Thus it is our will wrapped inside of he sovereignty of God. It's football field. God sovereignly defines the field and we run around on it wherever we want, we just can't cross the lines.

2 peter 3:9 God won't move until we seek him.

Matthew 16:19
bind means to stop, restrict
Loose means to permit,
I'm going to give you the right to say what will and won't work. This is a legal issue.

This is why holding God to his word is critical.

I feel like a lion in a den of Daniels

five F's for ministry

1. Remember your Foundation.
Mark 7 - a wise man builds on the rock.
your foundation is the scriptures (but I say no foundation is laid but Christ 1 Cor.)

All scripture is God breathed.
God breathed life into Adam

how long can you go without breathing? How long can you go without inhaling God's word? No wonder we are so weak.

doctrine without practice is dangerous, but practice without doctrine is deadly

Men wrote as they were blown along by the holy spirit.

Paul tells Timothy: Preach the Word.

2. Shepherd His Flock
(I'm a sheep in charge of sheep - Tom)
Peter do you love (3x) take care of my flock, feed my sheep tend my flock.

"I exhort you elders as fellow elder to shepherd the flock."
1 peter 5. " Don't lord it over your flock be an example."

3. Nourish your Family.
You're called to be a shepherd and you're privileged to be a husband/father - these do not conflict. May God help you know which one to pour yourself into at the moment.

4. Focus on the Future
We are so wrapped up in this life but it really is so short.
2 Peter 3 - a thousand years like a day ...
5th chapter, 'when the chief shepherd appears you'll get the crown..."

5. Rest in your Faith.
Mark 11:22 have faith in God (present tense command form) make it your habit to always be having faith.

Faith is the disposition (tendency to act in a certain way) that allows the object of your faith to do something for you. (Charles Price?)

"... Don't be afraid Jairus - Just believe me..."

I guess he's been preaching through the Song of Solomon and trying to maintain his dignity. :-) I can't wait to hear that series.
Message: Planning Without God
James 4;13-7

Augustine: God was wise to disguise the future (failing the future from our eyes)
God hides the future from our eyes that we might live in confidence of hope.

Though we cannot know the future we cannot plan for it without God.
James warns us of three mistakes. This instruction is desperately needed by us today.

1. Experiencing Life without God. James 4:13, 15

I. James' readers have planned out their lives but have failed to consult the maker of it.
The passage isn't a diatribe against planning. The problem is leaving God out of the equation.
A. We can create plans without God "today and tomorrow we will..."
B. We can choose places without God,"we will go to such and such a city."
C. We can calculate periods without God. "We'll spend a year there..."
D. Consider purposes without God, "We will buy and sell" Set up a little emporium and do business.
E. We can compute profit without God. "and make a profit".

Their aspirations were high but not high enough. We're told that without Christ we can do nothing but here James is saying these things are possible as far as planning goes. The fact isn't that it's not possible but that it's not of God.

II. Examining life without GOD James 4:14,16
James' readers make three mistakes which people make who do life without God also make.
A. They fail to comprehend the complexity of life. How can anyone dream of knowing the complexities of such an enterprise? How foolish of us to make plans for the future but not have God in the planning process.!

I'm sorry about this one folks the notes aren't very good, but the message sure was!

The church is starving because of the absence of Biblical meat.

Luke 24:13-32
We are a storied people. Wet use stories to tell anything of significance.
Meta-narrative: the grand story which contains all stories.
We as preachers have got to get away from the pitit-narrative that is, the small stories and move into the meta-narrative.

The story of The Emmaus Road is Jesus imposing the meta-narrative into their pitit-narrative.

Look at the key juxtaposition of what is going on here. These men are sad in the presence of Jesus because they did not recognize him - because they did not comprehend the scriptures.

Like the disciples: one of the great challenges for us as evangelical preachers is people who know a lot but know nothing. Will our own people miss the point? Do they have the scriptures but not understand what they truly mean?

Consider their statement, "didn't our hearts burn within us as he explianed the scriptures?" This is the prayer I [Albert Mohler] Bring into the pulpit. That people's hearts will burn within them as I preach.

The great Meta-Narrative of scripture is contained within the framework of
CREATION
FALL
REDEMPTION
CONSUMMATION

We cannot understand even ourselves without this meta-narrative. Until we encounter the reality that we are CREATED by God. If we take the other major Meta-narrative of "in the beginning nothing exploded into everything" than we are nothing but an accident and therefore life is indeed without meaning.
Neither can we truly understand ourselves without the concept of FALL. We are fallen creatures in a fallen creation.

One day reading the text decided not to wear his glasses and skipped several pages without knowing; and somehow moved from prayer to circumcision without warning. Later, my daughter asked me why I didn't wear my glasses and I Complained that it made me look old. And she said well dad, not wearing them makes you look illiterate.

One of the problems with teaching is that we move from prayer to circumcision without warning. We fail to put that which we are preaching in it's legitimate context.

Too often we just skip around in the OT for stories. And turn them into morality tales, but they are so much more than that. We have got to put those narratives into the covenantal history of Israel in the word of God.

We do the same thing with the parables. We turn them into morality tales when they are about the in breaking of the kingdom. Jesus' hearers didn't have a problem with morality but they still had a problem with his parables. These stories, really upset his audiences enough to want to kill them. They were not about mere morality.

In Matthew 13 Jesus spoke in parables so that people wouldn't understand.

If you read a parable and you are not troubled, you haven't understood it.

LK 16:19 is not less than a parable.
The rich man is the neuvo riche - new money because he has to show it.
Lk 16:20 Lazarus' friend's don't care for him they dump him at the gate of a rich man in vain hope that he'll get anything good, but he doesn't (lk 16:21)
.. (Dr. Mohler walked through the rest of the parable/picture highlighting the theme of the great reversal in vv22-26)
The end lesson is that this is not a mere morality tale.

The point of the parable is the potency of God's word.