We've all seen YouTube videos that have gone viral. They get forwarded and forwarded and forwarded, until literally millions of people have seen the video. We are praying that the gospel goes viral in Dahlonega and Lumpkin County. One way that will happen is when people who have been deeply affected by the gospel begin forwarding invitations for others to experience the counterintuitive, yet transformative message of God's grace in Jesus. 

So, if you are a Creekstone regular, or have attended a Sunday gathering just once, but plan to return, would you take a mintue today to send an invitation to someone else to join you tomorrow?  Tell them you'll meet them out front and sit with them.  I'll try to be out front, too, and would love to meet your friends. 

Encountering the grace-centerdness of Creekstone's music, and what I think will be a distinctively helpful message for many, just might be a combination that the Spirit uses to help fulfill our mission, which is "to glorify God by helping people come alive to the wonder of the gospel." 

If the life-giving disease of grace is beginning to affect you, help us make it go viral. Forward it to a friend today. 

Creekstone meets Sundays at 10:30 a.m. at the Lumpkin County High School Performing Arts Center. Click here for a map. 

Click here to visit Creektone's website.

Click here to join Creekstone's Facebook page.

Married? Thinking about getting married? Please read this book. Then, if you'd like, let's talk about it.

This is an excerpt from my book of exegetical prayers, The Bronze Serpent, which is being revised for publication. 

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”   1 Peter 5:5b

My God and my King, how beautiful is humility. How glorious is the scene of my Savior emptying himself of divine rights and privileges, taking on flesh and sacrificing himself as a substitute for sinners like me on a cross. It is the ultimate expression of humility. The conscious, volitional, purposeful lowering of himself to serve and bless. To wash dirty feet. To hang and bleed. To suffer and save. 

Humility is beautiful and glorious. But it is also powerful. When my mind and heart begin to absorb the implications of the price of my redemption, my knees give way and my hands rise in worship. Jesus, the humility you displayed in my salvation motivates me with a deep, spiritual urge to experience the emptying of self for the sake of another. 

And yet, like putting on a shirt that is way too small and that I cannot pull over my head, humility does not seem to fit my heart. Father, I realize that it is because my flesh is so big-headed and proud. Even my insecurities are, at the root, expressions of pridefulness. Wanting to be someone and having a name. Desiring the praise of men. Demanding my rights. Gossiping out of jealousy. Scheming a way to get noticed and recognized. Worrying about what people think about me.

Abba, my proud heart repulses me—especially the insecurities. I can identify with Paul when he cried out, “Who will save me from this body of death?” And then, as if pulling all of his mental faculties together and grasping for one last theological straw, he finds the cross. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord… there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” That is what I need. Yes, apart from Jesus and the sweet aroma of the gospel, I am a stinking corpse. But you have delivered me from myself. In the gospel you have declared me to legally righteous and personally loved.  

Yes, grace flows downhill. You give grace to the humble. To those who know they are proud and hate it. To those who know they don’t measure up and in their weakness cry out for mercy. Grace is given to the publican who looks for a substitute, not the pharisee who is pleased with himself. As David experienced in his own brokenness, “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

So let me wear the robe of humility.  Shape my heart so that it will fit and that I will gladly adorn a lesser concern for self and ever increasing delight in the cross. Teach me to wash feet. How to love and forgive and listen. Teach me how to die so that I might live.

As I die to self-righteousness and self-importance and self-concern, will you show me my heart, that I may be humbled. But as you humble me by revealing my sin and need, will you give me the faith to look to Jesus and to believe that he is the propitiation for my sins. There is no more justice to serve. No more wrath to endure. The price is paid. Grace flows downhill. Oh, may I remember this!

Click here to download:

gospelvsreligion.pdf (3134 KB)

A big, huge HT Matt Stephenson!

Why go to church? Not a bad question, actually. To make the answer reasonably short, we could say that there are two possible options: we go to give or to get. The law says go to church that you may give to God. But the gospel says that we go to church so that we may get from God. The later approach emphasizes God as giver and sinner as recipient. Thus, from a gospel perspective, worship becomes a "means of grace," whereby through the songs, prayers, sacraments and teaching, I am strengthened by the promises of God in the gospel (2 Tim. 2:1). When the law calls me to worship, I feel guilty and burdened. When the gospel calls me to worship, I feel hungry, hopeful and glad. Law demanding worship ("I should go") is like required attendance at a civic club meeting. But gospel inviting worship ("I get to go") is like the banquet following the wedding of a King.

Now, part of the problem is that we who lead churches are not very skilled at preparing banquets of grace (and that in itself reveals a need for heart/grace revival among church leadership- myself being first in line). And so will you pray that those who lead Creekstone will become master chefs, who prepare a feast for the people, so that God will be overflowingly glorified by our gospel-imbibed joy (which is the response to grace that entails the giving on our part).

In lecture #5 of Sonship, Jack Miller is brutally honest about his failure in parenting, saying, 

Click here to download:

The Cup • Matthew 26_36-46.mp3 (10734 KB)

How was the cross the ultimate Fear Factor challenge? Find out in this message, entitled, "The Cup."

In John Calvin's Institutes, he says, "We can never really seek God in earnest until we despair of ourselves."  This was true of the younger son in Luke 15. He only "came to his senses" and decided to go back home when he was out of human resources. What he discovered upon his return was not judgement and wrath, but mercy and love.

When we hit rock bottom, religion frowns–but the gospel smiles. Not because of our pain, but because it is finally at that point of need from which we will cry out for mercy... and find it.

So, will I come to my senses today, or will I get religious, trying to be strong and get better? Will I believe the gospel, that on the cross Jesus took my place at rock bottom so that I could experience rescue? Will I despair of myself so that I can experience the hope of the gospel?

Ironically, rock bottom can be an unexpected place of grace.