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When Sen. John Kerry was a candidate for president in 2004, the word nuanced was used a lot to describe the senator’s positions on a number of issues. To some, Kerry’s nuanced arguments displayed great intellect and sensitivity. To others, he sounded like a non-committal pantywaist.

This past Thursday the church militant lost one of her least-nuanced members, one who was anything but non-committal, one steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord–ruling elder John T. Goodner of the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Auburn, Alabama. John was 53 years old, a native of Birmingham, a scuba instructor at Auburn University, and owner of Adventure Sports in Auburn and Montgomery. He also served as a key leader on the boards of Women’s Hope Medical Clinic and Camp Maranook. John was a deacon at Covenant while I served as assistant pastor there from May, 1994 to January, 1999.

But back to the nuance thing–John was as nuanced and subtle as a Johnny Cash song. He had that great Presbyterian gift of being both ‘tight as a tick’ with money and yet remarkably generous. He was plain-spoken in praise or criticism and yet unfailingly charitable and kind. He was serious about the advancement of the kingdom of God and yet he always made you laugh. If you put him up in front of a congregation to pray, he was prone to ramble and talk way too long before actually praying, but then his short prayer would be full and substantial and centered on Christ.

His family and mine have remained close through the years. John and his wife Aileene had seven children–sons John, Jr., Drew, Gray, Straley and Will; daughters Mary Beth and Cate. Needless to say, their home was always lively and bordering on chaotic. And there in the midst of it all would be John, always barrell-chested and usually shirtless and red-faced from all the time he spent outdoors, displaying firmness without harshness, seriousness without ever failing to smile at the goodness and grace of God.

Death is an outrage; it is nasty and brutish; but the captain of our salvation has burst through that boundary and come out on the other side. He is risen from the grave; and in his resurrection we see that, though we live in a vale of tears now, where death seems to hold the trump cards, there is a day coming when we know that we and all the loved ones who have gone before us in Christ will rise to be with Christ. His death was agonizing but it could not hold him; ours will no doubt be terrible and traumatic; but because of Christ, death will not hold us either.

In saying ave atque vale [hail and also farewell], let’s give the Lord Jesus the last word from John 6:37-40:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of hall that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

The late Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones never wrote a book on prayer. He never preached a series of messages on prayer, for all his books are transcripts of his sermons and lectures. But when he speaks of prayer in the midst of preaching, it’s gold. In his book Preaching and Preachers he says that prayer is not simple, and that a biblically-informed self-awareness is vital. Dr Lloyd-Jones confesses,

“I have often found it difficult to start praying in the morning…I have come to learn certain things about private prayer. You cannot pray to order. You can get on your knees to order; but how to pray? I have found nothing more important than to learn how to get oneself into that frame and condition in which one can pray. You have to learn how to start yourself off, and it is just here that this knowledge of yourself is so important. What I have generally found is that to read something which can be characterised in general as devotional is of great value. By devotional I do not mean something sentimental, I mean something with a true element of worship in it. Notice that I do not say that you should start yourself in prayer by always reading the Scriptures; because you can have precisely the same difficulty there. Start by reading something that will warm your spirit. Get rid of a coldness that may have developed in your spirit. You have to learn how to kindle a flame in your spirit, to warm yourself up, to give yourself a start. It is comparable, if you like, to starting a car when it is cold. You have to learn how to use a spiritual choke. I have found it most rewarding to do that, and not to struggle vainly. When one finds oneself in this condition, and that it is difficult to pray, do not struggle in prayer for the time being, but read something that will warm and stimulate you, and you will find that it will put you into a condition in which you will be able to pray more freely…

Above all - and this I regard as most important of all - always respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this - always obey such an impulse. Where does it come from? It is the work of the Holy Spirit; it is a part of the meaning of, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure’ (Phil. 2 :12-13). This often leads to some of the most remarkable experiences in the life of the minister. So never resist, never postpone it, never push it aside because you are busy. Give yourself to it, yield to it; and you will find not only that you have not been wasting time with respect to the matter with which you are dealing, but that actually it has helped you greatly in that respect. You will experience an ease and a facility in understanding what you were reading, in thinking, in ordering matter for a sermon, in writing, in everything, which is quite astonishing. Such a call to prayer must never be regarded as a distraction; always respond to it immediately, and thank God if it happens to you frequently” [p.170-71].

I’m still recovering from our Bible Conference this past weekend.  It was an absolute joy to have Dr. Elliott Greene here preaching God’s Word.  Even today I have found myself pausing in my work to think about some point or other that he made during his five sermons on the book of Ephesians.  In fact, I don’t want to say too much about the conference in fear that you wouldn’t go and listen to all five sessions.  So I will merely encourage you that the time you spend listening to these sermons will not be wasted but will be immensley profitable to your soul.  Below are links to the audio for each session.

• Session 1 - Ephesians 1:3-14
• Session 2 - Ephesians 1:13-22
• Session 3 - Ephesians 2:11-22
• Session 4 - Ephesians 3:14-21
• Session 5 - Ephesians 5:18-21

Dr. Elliott Greene has been doing a marvelous job at FPC Kosciusko’s annual Bible Conference (look for mp3s of the sermons later this week at fpckosciusko.org), taking us through the book of Ephesians under the title ‘What the Church Would Be If She Knew What She Was.’ In introducing Dr. Greene on Friday evening I read for the second time an excerpt from Dr. Ligon Duncan’s introductory address at the recent Twin Lakes Fellowship. He had posted it on his blog. It sums up so much of the vision of what The Sweet Dropper is about and what FPC Kosciusko is about:

“What do we long to see come out of the Twin Lakes Fellowship?

“. . . a strong coalition of Bible-saturated, truth-driven, God-entranced, prayer-soaked, aggressively evangelistic, Christ-treasuring and exalting, Spirit-filled, sovereign grace-loving, missions-advancing, hell-robbing, strong-thinking, real-need-exposing, soul-winning, mind-engaging, vagueness-rejecting, wartime-life-style-pursuing, risk-taking, justice-advancing, Scripture-expounding, cross-cherishing, homosexuality-opposing, abortion-denouncing, racism-resisting, heaven-desiring, imputation-of-an-alien-righteousness-proclaiming, justification-by-faith-alone-apart-from-doing-preaching, error-exposing, complementarian, joyful, humble, loving, courageous, happy pastors working together for the Gospel. (Thanks to John Piper for many of these words and thoughts).

“And we want to see them leading strong evangelical churches who, while they hold as faithfully and biblically as they know how to certain doctrinal distinctives not shared by all other biblical evangelical churches, band together for the Gospel on a basis that is robustly doctrinal, historic, orthodox, reformational, world-opposing-while-at-the-same-time-world-serving, Bible-preaching, scriptural-theology-inculcating, real-conversion-prizing, deep biblical evangelism-practicing, New Testament church-membership-and-leadership-implementing, church-discipline-applying, healthy and growing Disciple-making – all for the display of God’s glory in the churches.

“May the Lord raise up such a ministerial fraternity – not on the basis of doctrinal minimalism but rather on the basis of shared conviction of the truth and Gospel forbearance in the areas where we differ; not to the detriment of our convictions regarding our distinctives in faith and practice in the local churches and families of churches we serve, but to their enhancement. And may the Lord raise up churches that are truly a witness to grace in this passing age, a display of the glory and power of God’s saving grace, outposts of heaven, suburbs of eternity. For the church is God’s strategy, and there is no plan B.”

Our church is not an island.  Kosciusko is not our only mission field.  Our conversion ushered us into the body of Christ, those, who regardless of ethinicity or geography, are untied by the common bond of the saving efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ.  This common bond should lead us to pray frequently and vigorously for our brothers and sisters all over the world.  More specifically, this common bond should lead us to pray for our own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America.

It is to this end that the publishing arm of the PCA, CE&P, has produced a prayer guide for the PCA designed to cover 50 days from May 3 (The National Day of Prayer) to June 21.  The guide is comprised of 50 devotions written by Dr. Mike Ross, designed to encourage you to pray for our denomination.  The theme of this year’s guide is Faith of Our Fathers.  Following this theme, the deovtional selections are organized around the three formulae of classic Christianity: the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer.

I know many of you have benefited from this prayer guide in years past.  I encourage you all to pick up your copy of Faith of Our Fathers from Marsha at the church office.  The cost of the book is $6 or you can download a free pdf version of the guide.

O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.  So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.  -Psalm 71:17-18

Lynard Skynard sang That Smell. You remember that one, don’t you?

Whiskey bottles, and brand new cars, oak tree you’re in my way
There’s too much coke and too much smoke
Look what’s going on inside you.
Ooooh that smell, can’t you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell–the smell of death surrounds you.

I should have read or sung that when I preached on Proverbs 9 last Sunday night (available at fpckosciusko.org). I owe Eddie Thomas thanks for bringing the Skynard song back to the forefront of my mind. A lot of what I said in the sermon about temptation and the voluntary slavery of sin was drawn from an excellent book by Dr. Edward T. Welch, Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave–Finding Hope in the Power of the Gospel (Presbyterian and Reformed, 2001).

Welch exposes the addict’s condition: a worship disorder that leads him/her to heed to the call of the ’strange woman’ (to use the language of the early chapters of Proverbs) and begin a slowly developing courtship. Going into her house leads to a horrific discovery: ‘the dead are there…her guests are in the depths of Sheol’ (Proverbs 9:18). Her feast of pleasure is a banquet in the grave.

This book is a valuable resource, even if you are not an addict of some kind or ministering to an addict. Addicts are not a category to themselves when it comes to sin. Rather, Welch reminds us, ‘there is no “us” and “them” with addictions. The descent should feel familiar to us all…Having known something of the voluntary slavery [to sin] ourselves, we are more patient with those who are ensnared. We are also more eager to partner with them and lead them to Jesus Christ, the One who liberates them and carries us out of the pit’ [66].

Since my initial read of the book last fall, I find myself coming back again and again to this book in both my preaching and one-to-one ministry. Welch is straightforward in his assessment of the 12-step model that governs most treatment programs, acknowledging the model’s strengths and also unsparingly critiquing the self-reliance and self-righteousness that the 12-step model fosters. He provides a number of helpful ways to confront, listen, and bring our thoughts back again and again to the gospel, giving special emphasis to the vital role the Church plays in being a place of healing and ministry through the ordinary means of grace. Welch is especially skillful in bringing the reader to consider the addictions in his/her own life, widening the scope far beyond drug and alcohol dependence. He writes in the preface:

Theology makes a difference. It is the infrastructure of our lives. Build it poorly and the building will eventually collapse in ruins. Build it well and you will be prepared for anything. The basic theology for addictions is that the root of the problem goes deeper than our genetic makeup. Addictions are ultimately a disorder of worship. Will we worship ourselves and our own desires or will we worship the true God? Through this lens, all Scripture comes alive for the addict. No longer are there just a few proof texts about drunkenness. Instead, since all Scripture addresses our fundamental disorder of worship, all Scripture is rich with application for the addict. [xvi]

In his commentary on Galatians 5:4, Luther asks, ‘What do you do when you are caught in some sin? If your answer is, “I’ll do better next time,” then you have no need of Christ…Instead, despair of your own righteousness and trust boldly in Christ.’ Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave echoes Luther’s answer and equips us to engage into the fierce and painful battles against sin that all of us face.

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