Posts tagged Francis Chan
J.S. Park
Jesus: King
God is a holy, holy, holy god. He does have the freedom to judge you however He wants to. I don’t care how much you feel something, desire something, believe God ought to do something a certain way. He’s not bound to your feelings, your notions, your opinions. He doesn’t care what [I] conjure up in my head of what I think ought to be right or ought to be wrong. He says, ‘You’re not God. I am. And here’s what I say is right and wrong.’
It doesn’t matter that you say, ‘He has no right to punish me. He has no right to have this type of wrath. Or a loving God can’t create a place of punishment.’ You need to understand: God does whatever He wants to do, and it’s not about you. Maybe you’ve lived this weird Disney Land life where people bow down to you and really care about your opinion. That’s not the way God is. I don’t care how powerful you are. I don’t care how much money you have. I don’t care how good you look. I don’t care how popular you think you are. You’re nothing. I’m nothing in the presence of God. … But because of the blood of Christ, He calls me His child.
Francis Chan, The Holiness Of God (April 25th, 2010)
Probably the most straight-up thing he has ever said.
Kings, Courage, and Cowardly Lions: Maybe You’re Following God Because You’re Too Scared Not To
Sometimes you do the right thing because you’re tired, not because you love doing the right thing.
We obey God because we’re scared not to. There’s no real love for Him; just a fear of everything that could go wrong.
At times I imagine quitting this whole God-thing and going to Vegas, sleeping with hookers, ingesting every drug known to man, and crashing all the parties until I die from it. Maybe that’s too honest, but that’s my wicked heart. It wants evil because evil looks delicious.
Except I don’t do those things. Because of the law. Or I’m scared what people will say. Or the consequences of hookers and drugs and waking up with no teeth.
Very rarely do I think, I can’t do that because I love God, and I have better. Again, my wicked heart.
Maybe we’re not really growing here, but just getting too old to sin. Maybe it’s just a resignation to comfortable, boring modesty.
I am naturally a coward and I forget: God gave me a new nature. He gave me a God-sized heart that can hate evil and ferociously love Him. A Spirit of love, power, and self-discipline. A Spirit that says no to fear, which I must choose. I just forget.
You’re either growing up or just getting old.
Anonymous asked:
do you have any blogs or thoughts about relationships? and how we can make god the center and glorify him through our relationships?
There are so many “sources” on relationships and romance out there that we sometimes forget: the Bible doesn’t actually have much to say on the matter. Which doesn’t mean God thinks it’s unimportant, but also means we probably make it too important.
Allow me to point you to one of the best sermon series I’ve ever heard on relationships. It’s by my second favorite pastor, Francis Chan (my first favorite being my first pastor), along with his wife Lisa.
Christ Centered Relationships, Part 1
Christ Centered Relationships, Part 2
Christ Centered Relationships, Part 3
And their most recent sermon about relationships from 9-25-11, Two People With One Mission.
The reason I endorse these is because of their biblical priority. Pastor Francis gives an awesome illustration about an air supply. If your spouse/bf/gf is your air supply, you’ll both be fighting for air until you’re dead. But if God is your air supply, you’ll both have an infinite resource that will uphold your relationship. That person cannot be everything you need them to be; only God can.
But God is not simply an air supply. He’s also the foundation, the King, and the point. If He’s not first, nothing else makes sense — we only learn to handle people and things on earth when we first rightly view God as Number One. Idolatry is when we switch out that order. That’s when our soul deteriorates by trying to fit the limited into our limitless souls.
I struggle with this everyday. It’s easy to glorify the temporary at the expense of the eternal. We can go days or weeks or months without thinking of Christ at all.
I would say simply: As you pursue Christ, also pursue someone who is pursuing Christ. If both of you help each other swim (instead of drown), that’s a good thing. Two people should be helping one another to the shore of the Lord. That doesn’t mean your bf/gf is just doing a bunch of religious activity — but that they actually care about your sanctification and have a personal investment into your walk with God. Believe it or not, these type of people still exist. They’re called men and women. Anyone else is just little boys and girls.
“A lot of times when we think about sin, we think sin is when we do those things that God prohibits. … There’s also another way to sin. It’s the sin of omission. And that’s when God says, ‘I want you to do this’ and we don’t do it … When God goes, ‘Not only are these things prohibited, but here’s where I’ve called you to walk.’ “
— Francis Chan, Living With Urgency Part 1
Five Incredible Sermons
Five incredible sermons worth your time.
Francis Chan, John Piper, Louie Giglio, Eugene Cho, and Tim Elmore.
All links here.
We must come to a place where we can let God be God. We need to surrender our perceived right to determine what is just and humbly recognize that God alone gets to decide how He is going to deal with people.
Francis Chan, Erasing Hell
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
— 2 Timothy 4:3-4
Taking God At His Word — Francis Chan, preached at Passion 2012 in Atlanta GA
“If you have a desire, something you want to do, you can justify it with this book [the Bible]. You can justify just about anything with this book. … You want to divorce? Go to the Christian bookstore and say, ‘Hey, give me a book that tells me it’s okay to divorce my wife for this reason.’ And it’ll be there. ‘I need a book to tell me it’s okay to live a safe life. Give me one of those books. Give me a book that tells me it’s okay to buy a Ferrari or just live in total luxury …’ You’ll find some verse and twist it even though that’s not the natural reading of the Scriptures. … We just fight for what we desire. … We don’t really want to do what this book [the Bible] says. We want to use it to justify what we want.”
“What God wants of us on this earth is for us not to go, ‘Okay, if I can have God, then I’ll get rich.’ He wants us to say, ‘Because I have God, I am rich. And He doesn’t want us to say, ‘Maybe if I have God, He’ll give me a good marriage.’ No, He wants us to say, ‘Because I have God, I’m in a good marriage.’ I’m the bride of Christ!”
— Francis Chan, Christ-Centered Relationships Part 3
August 17th, 2008
“Even if you’ve been coming for years or grew up in the church or whatever else, I have this fear that some of you, or possibly many, many of you — are going to hell. It keeps me up at night. … Do you understand the reality of what I said? I’m talking about hell. Have you heard that word so many times that you’ve just grown numb to it? Eternal punishment. So what in the world am I doing up here then? And again, I sure hope you don’t see this as, ‘Oh Francis is up there judging the congregation saying he’s saved’ — I’m not saying that. I’m saying I’m willing to bet some of you would leave this room and say it about yourself, that you are lukewarm — meaning you’ll be spit out of the mouth of God and cast into the fires of hell. That’s all I’m saying, is what you would say about yourself. And it blows me away that some of you won’t do anything.”
— Francis Chan, Lukewarm and Loving It
One of his best sermons. October 8th, 2006.
Francis Chan — Live Biblically
“So many Christians, or people who call themselves Christians in our country, are so incredibly weird. And I don’t mean weird in a good way like we stand out as a light unto the world. I’m just saying weird socially. Extremely weird socially. … We just cluster together and start talking about our stuff and it’s most comfortable, and we don’t really try to get into other people’s worlds out there.”
Hello friends of Planet Tumblr.
I really encourage you to watch this one.
We need more love-building-up here on these blogs. Speaking boldly is wonderful, but boldness by itself is just mean. With internet it’s easy to flex, I know: which is more reason to watch the tongue, not less. So much of our rebuke and conviction is done with a motive of macho-doctrine credibility and flesh-fed ego. God’s church must be in the business of restoring. Many of my friends don’t go to church because of our “boldness.” We’re obviously not here to impress them, but dang, Jesus was bold and loving too.
Ramblings: Catalyst with Francis Chan and Mark Driscoll
The podcast is updated!
From the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta FL. With audio clips of Francis Chan and Mark Driscoll, plus highlights of Lecrae, David Platt, Jon Acuff, and Andy Stanley. Plus the LoveLife Conference with Mark Driscoll.
