A Gospel-Movement in a City

Tim Keller:

Can we produce a gospel city movement? No. A movement is the result of two sets of factors. Take for example, a garden. A garden flourishes because of the skill and diligence of the gardener and the condition of the soil and the weather. The first set of factors---gardening---is the way we humanly contribute to the movement. This encompasses a self-sustaining, naturally growing set of ministries and networks, which we will look at in more detail below.

But the second set of factors in a movement---the conditions---belong completely to God. He can open individual hearts ("soil") to the Word ("seed") in any numbers he sovereignly chooses. And he can also open a culture to the gospel as a whole ("weather"). How does God do this? Sometimes he brings about a crisis of belief within the dominant culture. Two of the great Christian movements---the early church of the second and third centuries and the church in China in the twentieth and twentieth first centuries---were stimulated by crisis of confidence within their societies. The belief in the gods of Rome---and belief in orthodox Marxism in China---began falling apart as plausible worldviews. There was broad disaffection toward the older "faiths" among the population at large. This combination of cultural crisis and popular disillusionment with old ways of belief can supercharge a Christian movement and lift it to greater heights than it can reach in a culture that is indifferent (rather than hostile) to Christians. There can also be catastrophes that lead people of a culture to look to spiritual resources, as when the Japanese domination of Korea after 1905 became a context for the large number of conversions to Christianity that began around that time.

In short, we cannot produce a gospel movement with the providential work of the Holy Spirit. A movement is an ecosystem that is empowered and blessed by God's Spirit.

What is the ecosystem that the Holy Spirit uses to produce a gospel city movement?

Read the rest for his rationale.

Tim's book, Center Church, releases tomorrow. Reserve your copy today.

On Revival

“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Luke 6:36-38

Ray Ortlund:

Surely, this is one of our Lord’s ordained pathways into revival.

He is not saying we can earn a good measure of divine blessing. But his grace leads us into more than a position of mercy before God. His grace also leads us into participation in the mercy of God: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

A merciful heart feels for the offender. A merciful mind enters the experience of the offender, to understand his or her weakness. A merciful will chooses a generous outlook. Our Father is like that. That is what we believe and teach. And gospel doctrine always creates a gospel culture.

Read the rest.

If you think you really understand the gospel – you don’t

If you think you really understand the gospel – you don’t. If you think you haven’t even begun to truly understand the gospel – you do. As important as our ‘gospel theologizing’ is, it alone will not reach our world. People today are incredibly sensitive to inconsistency and phoniness. They hear what the gospel teaches and then look at our lives and see the gap. Why should they believe? We have to recognize that the gospel is a transforming thing, and we simply are not very transformed by it. It’s not enough to say to postmodern people: ‘You don’t like absolute truth? Well, then, we’re going to give you even more of it!’ But people who balk so much at absolute truth will need to see greater holiness of life, practical grace, gospel character, and virtue, if they are going to believe. 

Traditionally, this process of ‘gospel-realizing,’ especially when done corporately, is called ‘revival.’ Religion operates on the principle:I obey; therefore I am accepted (by God). The gospel operates on the principle: I am accepted through the costly grace of God; therefore I obey. Two people operating on these two principles can sit beside each other in church on Sunday trying to do many of the same things – read the Bible, obey the Ten Commandments, be active in church, and pray – but out of two entirely different motivations. Religion moves you to do what you do out of fear, insecurity, and self-righteousness, but the gospel moves you to do what you do more and more out of grateful joy in who God is in himself. Times of revival are seasons in which many nominal and spiritually sleepy Christians, operating out of the semi-Pharisaism of religion, wake up to the wonder and ramifications of the gospel. Revivals are massive eruptions of new spiritual power in the church through a recovery of the gospel. In his sermon on Mark 9 Lloyd-Jones was calling the church to revival as its only hope. This is not a new program or something you can implement through a series of steps. It is a matter of wonder. Peter says that the angels always long to look into the gospel; they never tire of it (I Pet. 1:12). The gospel is amazing love. Amazing grace.

- Tim Keller

When Revival Comes

Mike Pohlman:

I went to the vault this morning and found an instructive, brief commentary by D.A. Carson titled, “What to Do If Revival Comes” from the January/February 2003 issue of Modern Reformation magazine (many thanks to Andy Naselli for making this available in the exhaustive D.A. Carson bibliography!).

In the article Carson recounted a conversation he and his wife had in 1975 with an elderly woman in a Calvinist Methodist church in southern Wales. The woman spoke excitedly of how she had been converted during the Welsh Revival of 1904 to 1905. Carson used this exchange to draw out a lesson from church history:

It was an inexpressibly glorious half hour, and equally sad. For apart from the fruit of that Revival in the lives of those who were immediately touched by it, almost nothing was preserved. That Revival started so well but soon became more eccentric and forced. Worse, despite small efforts later in Swansea, almost nothing was done to capture or develop theological schools, multiply Bible teaching, or train a new generation of preachers.

My interest in revival has not waned with the passing years. Wider reading, and some humbling personal exposure to what God has done in various corners of the world during the past half century, have conspired to forge an unshakable resolution within me. Should the Lord in his mercy ever pour out large-scale revival on any part of the world where I have influence, I shall devote all my energy to teaching the Word, to training a new generation of godly pastors, to channeling all of this God-given fervor toward doctrinal maturity, multiplication of Christian leaders, evangelistic zeal, maturity in Christ, genuine Christian “fellowship.”

This conviction captures well what we are trying to do at The Gospel Coalition. Lord willing, when Revival comes we will be ready to compliment the efforts of the local church to preserve the outpouring of God’s grace for future generations of gospel ministry.