Remedy On Campus
Over the next 2 weeks, Remedy Church will be on campus. We will be on the Winthrop Campus in front of the Byrns building. We are giving out free coffee and hot chocolate. We are usually there from 8:30-11:00. So come by and get some free coffee to stay awake in your class. (It’s Starbucks!)
Set list
Better is One Day- Matt Redman
-Message-
Come, Holy Spirit- Chorus by Remedy Worship
Center- Charlie Hall
Come Thou Fount- Bridge by Manchester Orchestra and Remedy Worship
God of this City- Bluetree
Offering- Doxology
2 Things about Mark Driscoll
Mark Driscoll is the pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA.
1. He preached a sermon recently about marriage and men. It is really intense, challenging, convicting, & needed for today. If you are male, listen to it.
2. He will be on Nightline tomorrow in a debate with some others about the existence on the devil & hell. It comes on ABC at 11:30pm.
What is faith (pt 2 of 2)
Let me further illustrate from James.
James 2:17-23 – (17) So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (dead faith) (18) But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (19) You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (demonic faith) (20) Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? (21) Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? (22) You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; (saving faith) (23) and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.
So what do we mean by faith?
Because of Oprah and the like, faith has been redefined & everyone now is a “person of faith.”
Just as long as you believe in something, then you have faith and that is good.
In our post-modern, relativistic, pluralistic culture, this is viewed as a good thing.
When we hear it, we usually all just mean it in the subjective sense. Which isn’t wrong, just not totally right.
Here is what I mean…
18th century Christian philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, was an existentialist, who was troubled with the dead orthodoxy around him in Denmark.
Existentialism is the philosophical belief system that means, for them, the starting point in their philosophical thought doesn’t just start with the cerebral, but also with the affections, the way we feel.
Existentialism is a 20th century philosophy concerned with human existence, finding self, and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. The belief that people are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook without the help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions.
Existentialism then stresses that a person’s judgment is the determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by religious or secular world values.(external sources)
Kierkegaard was the famous philosopher who coined the phrase for us “to take a blind leap of faith”
So this is faith in the subjective sense, but not in anything objective, because it can’t be seen. (he believed that this wasn’t an irrational leap of faith, because it was based on a person’s judgment.)
So, Faith is “based on a person’s judgment, rather than an external source.”
Kierkegaard’s philosophy has become so much a part of faith and Christian practice today because “FAITH” has been defined in this Oprah-type mentality as a “blind leap into a subjective whatever”
Now, I’m not totally divorcing subjective from the Christian faith. I just want to define it and ADD faith in the objective sense.
Subjective Faith vs. Objective Faith
Subjective Faith – This is trust and confidence that an individual believer has in God. It is individualistic.
Maybe you’ve heard this text that speaks to this.
Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Objective Faith – Jude 3 - Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
Jude 3 is referring to “The Faith.” “The Faith” is a set of objective truths. This is the Gospel.
Where subjective faith is the faith of the individual believer, this objective faith is belief in Christian Doctrine. It is faith in the objective truths of the Gospel. We must have an individualistic faith in Christ for salvation, but also in the objective truths of the Gospel. We must maintain continued belief in this.
The objective truths of the Gospel are…
(1 Cor. 15:3-7) – 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
We, as Christians believe or have faith that these objective things really happened.
AND FURTHER, the reality of those events that we call the Gospel, inform us regarding our reality today and how we should live for Christ as a act of worship. So we always continue looking to the Gospel, the objective truths of the Cross as where we put our faith. When and where this is not done and it is just a Kierkegaardian, subjective, leap of faith into the unknown, (especially in this post-modern context), we end up with the Oprah-type belief system where FAITH itself is the thing to be worshiped and not Christ.
When this happens, atheism and agnosticism rise and orthodox Christianity falls.
So, we must recapture and understand what the Christian faith is and is not.
Set List
3/22/09
Nothing but the Blood
-Message-
Remember- Remedy Worship
-Communion-
Rescue- Desperation
To Know Your Name- Hillsong
Mighty to Save- Hillsong
Offering- Your Name High- Hillsong
Creatively Worshiping the Creator
I’ve been dealing with a question recently: How does a band lead people in worship with zero distraction or self-exaltation, pointing to Christ in every way possible, while still doing their music with excellence and creativity? It’s a great question and many bands and worship leaders seem to fall in it’s cracks. We either put all of our focus on the quality of music and try to sound as good as possible, forgetting to whom and for whom we are playing, or we assume the music can’t be loud or creative because that will take away from the worship experience we want people to have with Christ. Both of these have some serious room for improvement.
Our primary focus should always be on Jesus. He is the reason we gather on Sundays.
When music is done with such excellence it can be the case that more is required by the worship leader to encourage and exhort the congregation. It is a higher standard all around to both lead people to worshiping Christ solely and play a creative and excellent set. As a worship leader you constantly must be raising the bar of excellence and musical quality for you band, reminding them that we serve THE Creator. He is the source of any ideas we may have for our music and the giver of our gifts to even be able to be on a stage so we must not get puffed up with pride. Our creativity can be a form of pointing to Christ if we do it to lift up Jesus and point to Him throughout the sets. Here are some different ways to do this:
1. Know Scripture and proclaim it. People must be constantly reminded of grace-driven worship and we must know our Bible better than we know any words or chord progressions to songs.
2. Exhort. One good way to do this is to plan on saying something during song transitions or extended instrumentals. Be strategic about it. Say something relevant to the song and relating to the message. Don’t limit yourself to planned speaking either. Pray for and follow the Spirit’s lead when on stage. He will give you things to say that the people new to hear in their hearts.
3. Intentionally Pick Sets. Don’t just throw something together because the songs are in the same key. Get together with your pastor and talk through the sermon and figure out which song work best and where. Have a reason for each song you play.
4. Be Creative. We worship the Creator so our music should reflect that. It should he excellent and unique. At the same time we must be so careful not to be showy or distracting. The reason for our creativity is worshiping Christ not meritong praise for ourselves. Direct the band to understand this and lead God’s people well.
May God be exalted through our creativity, excellence, and hearts of love for his son Jesus always!
-Cam
What is faith? (pt 1 of 2)
I read an article in the Charlotte Observer on Saturday, March 14 regarding the changing numbers of people calling themselves Christians in N.C. and S.C. (and in fact nation-wide). The numbers are simply staggering.
The poll compares numbers from 1990 to 2008. In S.C. alone (although Nation-wide is following this trend) the number of people who call themselves Protestants went down from 88% to 73%. On the other hand, those that called themselves, secular, or atheist or agnostics or just “none” went up from 3% to 10%.
So, Protestants went down 15%, while “none’s” went up 7%. This is absolutely amazing.
My guess is this is happening for a couple obvious reasons:
- Fewer people are trusting Christ for the 1st time, therefore lowering the number of Protestants.
- More people are walking away from the Christian faith, therefore raising the number of “None’s”.
Here are a few quotes from the article:
“the south is slowly yielding to secularism, non-belief or simple disinterest in traditional religion”
“more people have been willing to indentify themselves as atheist or agnostic in the last several years”
Why is this happening?
I believe its from a misunderstanding in what it means to follow Christ and a misunderstanding regarding what faith in Christ is.
Faith.
I don’t believe that faith is just agreeing that Jesus exists or an agreeing that Jesus is the only way for salvation. It involves these things, no doubt, but those things are the sum of what faith is. Although, this is what we might hear faith be defined as sometimes.
Let’s take a look at what Paul wrote. (remembering “faith” and “believe” are the same word in the NT)
1 Corinthians 15:1-2 – (1) Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, (2) and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
Paul preached the Gospel to the Corinthians. They received it by faith.
This means believers are being saved, provided they hold on to the gospel and apply it to their lives.
Holding fast is a required, necessary fact.
However, the people who at one time believed, but walked away, or subsequently refused to hold fast to God’s Word, provide evidence that they have broken faith with God.
This means, according to 1 Corinthians 15:2, they have believed in vain.
So, what we can learn from these verse is:
THERE IS A WAY TO BELIEVE IN JESUS AND IT BE IN VAIN, AND IT NOT BE TRUE FAITH. That is scary. And why we see atheism or agnostics on the rise.
part 2 coming soon….
Set List
3/15/09
Happy Day- Tim Hughes
•message•
Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)-Chris Tomlin
Jesus Paid it All
Salvation is Here- Hillsong United
The Time Has Come- Hillsong United
Offering: Hosanna- Hillsong United
Thanks to Ben Reinken (Creative Director and lead guitar player for Remedy) for helping lead worship this past Sunday.
-Cam
Is Sufficiency that big of a deal?
Ed Stetzer recently interviewed a prominent American pastor regarding preaching. Some of his statements about preaching seem to go against a strong view in the Sufficiency of Scripture.
I have already written on this subject a while ago here.
Let me be clear here, this post is NOT about topical preaching vs. expository preaching. It is about the sufficiency of Scripture in regard to preaching. This is the quote that prompted this blog post. He said, “Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible–that is just cheating. It’s cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn’t how you grow people.”
I disagree 100% with EVERY WORD of these 3 sentences. It reeks of a lack of understanding and belief in the Sufficiency of Scripture. Further, there is a total lack of understanding on how HARD, not easy, expositional or verse-by-verse preaching is.
Verse-by-verse preaching is not easy. It is MORE difficult and requires MORE study and MORE precision to preach verse by verse. It forces you to preach the passages you would never preach; that you might be scared to or “never get around to”. That is NOT easy. It forces you to understand every word of Scripture, not just your favorites that you want to preach every week. It requires you to be more precise with your words because you are talking about the deeps things and truths of Scripture, not just about everyday life.
Now, in his interview, he said that he doesn’t think this helps people grow. He said, “That isn’t how you grow people“. He would say you grow people by finding out their felt needs and addressing them in a contemporary, relevant way.
This is just a total lack of understanding in sufficiency. IT’S NOT OUR WORDS THAT CHANGE PEOPLE! People grow by God’s Word.
Sufficiency of Scripture is the belief that the Bible is totally sufficient to create within us the power to be changed by the Gospel of Jesus, grow into Christ-likeness and live a life of worship to Jesus. Therefore, the congregation, as a whole, does NOT need my words, but God’s Words. When we preach verse-by-verse, the Holy Spirit takes the taught Words of Scripture and convicts, teaches,reproofs, corrects, and trains us in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).
That is how people grow.
Set List
3/8/09
Our Redemption- Remedy Worship
•message•
In Christ Alone
Your Blood- Charlie Hall, Bridge by Remedy Worship
All We Need- Charlie Hall
How Great Thou Art
Consume Us- Remedy Worship