Brook Hills College – Blog

  1. Doing Missions When Dying is Gain

    October 31, 2010 by Britten Taylor

    In light of our Global Emphasis month getting started today, I want to share with you a pretty amazing sermon.  This sermon, over any other sermon I have heard, has had THE most significant impact on my life. I dont say that flippantly either.  Honestly, I cant even begin to estimate how many sermons I have heard in my life. Probably thousands!  Let’s just say too many to count. And of all these…there is one I can point to that has had significant and continual impact on my life (and I hope, through my life)

    The sermon is “Doing Missions When Dying is Gain” by John Piper. I could write a whole blog post on the effects that the truth from this sermon has had on my life.  But, instead of me writing about it, I will just let you listen to it in its entirety OR (for those who dont have a spare 45min) read the highlights yourself.

    Download/Listen HERE.

    Read the highlights BELOW.

    Why do we give our lives to this mission?

    Because…

    The Promise Is Sure
    Matthew 24:14, “This gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (And I hope that you know that “nations” doesn’t mean political states. It means something like people groups, ethnic-linguistic groupings.)

    We may be absolutely certain that every one of them will be penetrated by the gospel to the degree that you can say that a witness, an understandable self-propagating witness, is there.

    1. Jesus never lies.

    “Heaven and earth may pass away, but my word will never pass away” Matthew 24:14,

    So this mission that we’re on together is going to finish. It’s going to be done, and you can either get on board and enjoy the triumph or you can cop-out and waist your life.

    2. The ransom has already been paid for those people among all the nations.

    “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Revelation 5:9-10

    They’re paid for, and God will not go back on his Son’s payment.

    3. The glory of God is at stake.

    “Christ became a servant to the circumcised in order to confirm the truthfulness of God, so that he might make strong [or sure or reliable] the promises made to the patriarchs, and in order that the nations might glorify God for his mercy.” Romans 15:8-9

    4. God is sovereign.

    God is sovereign! He is sovereign in the church, and he is sovereign among the nations!

    The Price Is Suffering

    The price is suffering, and the volatility in the world today against the church is not decreasing. It is increasing, especially among the groups that need the gospel. There is no such thing as a closed country. It’s a foreign notion. It has no root or warrant in the Bible, and it would have been unintelligible to the apostle Paul who laid down his life in every city he went to.

    Golgotha is not a suburb of Jerusalem.

    “Let us go with him outside the gate and suffer with him and bear reproach” (Hebrews 13:13).

    The Prize is Satisfying

    Are you ready? You think you got that within you? You don’t. No way does anybody have that kind of resourcefulness within them. Where are you going to get it? That’s what I want to close with.

    You’re going to get it by believing the promises of God.

    “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” Hebrews 10:32-34

    Doing missions when death is gain is the greatest life in the world.

    So I pray that you will come along and leave behind the American way of security and ease and comfort and retreat and withdrawal and emptiness.

    Leave it behind and join this incredibly powerful movement. There are students all over the world—like in South Korea—ready to stand up and lay down their lives for Christ. I invite you to do it too.

    Category: Mission, Uncategorized Comments (1)

  2. College/Young Singles Gathering (Vision)

    October 11, 2010 by Britten Taylor

    This Fall we are gathering College Students and Young Singles once per month to exalt Christ and to expose the truth of His Word. Our hope is to clearly and passionately communicate the mission, vision, and goal of every Christian and every church.

    Mision (September): Making disciples of all nations is and should be the mission of every Christian and every church.

    Vision  (October): Following Christ and becoming like Him is the vision of every Christian and every church.

    Goal (November): We were created to enjoy God’s grace in relationship to Him, so that we may extend His glory to the ends of the earth.

    At our next College/Young Singles Worship Gathering we will take an in depth look at the Vision of our lives and the Church.  Following Christ and becoming like Him is the VISION of every Christian and every church….

    Many college students and young singles have come to understand that the mission of their lives should be “make disciples of all nations”.  However, many do not see how our pursuit to KNOW Him (ie, Vision) should always precede and fuel our desire to make Him KNOWN (ie, Mission)…

    Join us Thursday Night, October 21st, at 8pm in the Student Center as we take an in depth look at the Vision of the Church!

    *Please invite your gargantuan friends list on Facebook to THIS event page to help us promote our Gathering!

    Category: Church, Uncategorized Comments (0)

  3. Ready..set…CLICK!

    October 6, 2010 by Britten Taylor

    Secret Church has pretty much gotten out of control. And most college students don’t fully understand this. They see “Secret Church: The Body of Christ coming November 6th (6pm-Midnight)” and think they could mosey on up to the door the night of and get in to be a part of the study. I mean, seriously, how many people really want to sit through SIX HOURS of Bible teaching?

    Well, the easy answer to that is…more people want to sit through six hours of Bible teaching than the campus at Brook Hills can hold. Our facility can hold around 2,500 and way more than that will be looking for tickets! So that means, no moseying up to the door the day of. It actually means you have to be quick on your mouse this Friday!

    Tickets for Secret Church are $5 a pop, and go on sale this Friday at 9am (CST). And to put this in laymen’s terms…if you wait around till lunch to hit up www.secretchurch.org then you will not be getting tickets. My guess is by 11:47a this thing is sold out.

    So what you need to do is get a game plan. Talk to your disciple-making small group and/or your circle of friends and see who all wants to be a part of this with you. Then take up the $ in order to pay for the tickets. After that, set your alarm to ensure you are around your computer at 9am! Go to the website (www.secretchurch.org) at the appropriate time and click away!

    I look forward to seeing you all there…and until then, here is a video to help promote the evening’s teaching by David Platt.

    Secret Church 9 – The Body of Christ from David Platt on Vimeo.

    Category: College Life, Uncategorized Comments (0)

  4. Gospel Tweets by Tullian

    October 2, 2010 by Britten Taylor

    I have a middle-school dating relationship with Twitter. There are days I really could care less, and wouldn’t mind if the whole thing were to go up in smoke! Other days I am encouraged by a tweet or two and feel like there is some hope for it in the midst of madness.

    Despite my turbulent relationship with Twitter as a whole, there is one guy whose twitter updates consistently impart grace to me! And that person is Pastor Tullian. Amazingly, someone has compiled a list of his gospel-saturated tweets over at his blog.  So I cut/pasted them into a blog post in the hopes that you would take a few minutes and read through them. I assure you that it will be worth the time.  In 140 characters or less, each tweet addresses a particular aspect of the glorious Gospel that saves us and compels us toward Christ and His mission!

    Pastor Tullian says…”I pray these sentences would change you the way they’ve changed me and that the Lord would use these fallible insights to help you preach the gospel to yourself everyday.”

    1. The gospel doesn’t simply ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps Christian’s going and growing every day.
    2. The gospel reminds us that we become more mature when we focus less on what we need to do for God and more on all God has already done for us.
    3. The gospel tells me my identity and security is in Christ–this frees me to give everything I have because in Christ I have everything I need
    4. Christian growth doesn’t happen first by behaving better, but believing better–believing in deeper ways what Christ has already secured for you
    5. The gospel tells us we don’t need to spend our lives earning the approval of others because Jesus has already earned God’s approval for us
    6. When you understand that your significance and identity is anchored in Christ, you don’t have to win—you’re free to lose
    7. Christian growth doesn’t happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. It happens by working hard to live in light of what you do have
    8. The world says that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. But the gospel tells us that the smaller we become, the freer we will be.
    9. When you are united to Christ, then all that is Christ’s becomes yours: Access to God and affection from God can never be lost
    10. The gospel explains success in terms of giving, not taking; self-sacrifice, not self-indulgence; going to the back, not getting to the front
    11. The gospel empowers us to live for what’s timeless, not trendy–to follow Jesus even when it means going against what’s fashionable
    12. Because of Christ’s finished work, sinners can have the approval, acceptance, security, freedom, love, righteousness, & rescue they long for
    13. The only antidote there has ever been to sin is the gospel—and since we never leave off sinning, we can never leave the gospel.
    14. Because of Christ’s propitiatory work on my behalf I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, praise or popularity.
    15. The gospel never starts with what we need to do; it always begins with what God has already done; to get it backwards is to miss the gospel
    16. The vertical indicative (what God’s done for me) always precedes horizontal imperative (how I’m to live in light of what God’s done for me)
    17. What we need practically can only be experienced as we come to deeper understanding of what we are positionally—whats already ours in Christ
    18. When you are united to Christ, no amount of good work can earn God’s favor and no amount of bad work can forfeit God’s favor
    19. Jesus came not to angrily strip away our freedom but to affectionately strip away our slavery to lesser things so we might become truly free
    20. The irony of the gospel is that we truly perform better when we focus less on our performance for Jesus & more on Jesus’ performance for us
    21. The gospel tells us that what God has done for us in Christ is infinitely more important than anything we do for him.
    22. The world says the more independent you become, the freer you’ll be; the gospel says the more dependent you become, the freer you’ll be
    23. The Gospel frees us from trying to impress people, prove ourselves to people, and make people think we’re something that we’re not.
    24. Isn’t it ironic that while God’s treatment of us depends on Christ’s performance, our treatment of others depends on their performance?
    25. We need God’s gospel rescue every day and in every way because we are, in the words of John Calvin, “partly unbelievers until we die.”
    26. Believing fully the truth that “salvation belongs to the Lord” means that you place ultimate trust in Christ’s efforts, not your own.
    27. Daily sin requires a daily distribution of God’s grace
    28. The hard work of sanctification is the hard work of constantly reorienting ourselves back to our justification.
    29. Grace can be defined as unconditional acceptance granted to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.
    30. The law tells us what God demands from us; the gospel tells us what God in Christ has done for us because we could not meet his demands.
    31. Being justified by God and made acceptable on the basis of Christ’s righteousness not only pardons us for the past but empowers us for the present
    32. Paul never uses the law as a way to motivate obedience; He always uses the gospel.
    33. The gospel teaches us that being a slave to Christ is the essence of freedom, while being free to myself is the essence of slavery.
    34. When you understand God’s grace, pain leads to freedom because deep suffering leads to deep surrender!
    35. When we depend on things smaller than Jesus to provide us with the security and meaning we long for, God will love us enough to take them away.
    36. The gospel is the good news that God rescues sinners. And since both non-Christians & Christians are sinners, we both need the gospel.
    37. The gospel grants Christians one strength over non-Christians: the strength to admit they’re weak.
    38. The gospel frees us to realize that while we matter, we’re not the point.
    39. The Gospel alone can turn us into people who give everything we have because we understand that in Christ we already have everything we need
    40. The gospel isn’t just the power of God to save us, it’s the power of God to grow us once we’re saved.
    41. When we transfer trust from ourselves to Christ, we experience the abundant freedoms that come from not having to measure up.
    42. The gospel makes wise those who know they’re foolish and makes fools out of those who think they’re wise.
    43. It never ceases to amaze me that God’s love to those who are in Christ isn’t conditioned on how we behave but on how Christ behaved for us.
    44. Sin turns you inward; the gospel turns you outward. Sin enslaves you by making you big.  The gospel frees you by making you small.
    45. In the gospel, God comes after us because we need him not because he needs us. Only the gospel can free us to revel in our insignificance.
    46. Mt. Sinai says, “You must do.” Mt. Calvary says, “Because you couldn’t, Jesus did.” Don’t run to the wrong mountain for your hiding place.

    Category: Gospel, Uncategorized Comments (0)