Showing posts with label john piper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label john piper. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Reformed, Gospel Preaching Pastors

Grace To You

Widely known for his thorough, candid approach to teaching God’s Word, John MacArthur is a fifth-generation pastor, a popular author and conference speaker, and has served as pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California since 1969. John and his wife, Patricia, have four grown children and fourteen grandchildren.

John’s pulpit ministry has been extended around the globe through his media ministry, Grace to You, and its satellite offices in Australia, Canada, Europe, India, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. In addition to producing daily radio programs for nearly 2,000 English and Spanish radio outlets worldwide, Grace to You distributes books, software, audiotapes, and CDs by John MacArthur. In thirty-six years of ministry, Grace to You has distributed more than thirteen million CDs and audiotapes.

John is the president of The Master's College and The Master's Seminary, and he has written hundreds of books and study guides (see below), each one thoroughly biblical and practical. Best-selling titles include The Gospel According to Jesus, The Second Coming, Ashamed of the Gospel, Twelve Ordinary Men, and The MacArthur Study Bible, a 1998 ECPA Gold Medallion recipient.

Ligonier Ministries

Dr. Robert Charles Sproul was born in 1939 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is the founder and chairman of Ligonier Ministries, which started as the Ligonier Valley Study Center in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, more than thirty years ago. In an effort to respond more effectively to the growing demand for Dr. Sproul’s teachings and Ligonier’s other educational resources, the general offices were moved to Orlando, Florida, in 1984, and the ministry was renamed “Ligonier Ministries.”

Dr. R.C. Sproul is featured daily on Renewing Your Mind, an international radio broadcast that has aired for more than ten years with an estimated two million people tuning in every week on more than 235 radio outlets in the United States and throughout more than 40 countries. Dr. Sproul is a respected teacher, theologian, and pastor. He is currently serving as the director of Serve International, and as senior minister of preaching and teaching at Saint Andrew’s Chapel (www.saintandrewschapel.org) in Sanford, Florida. Dr. Sproul is ordained as a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Desiring God

John Piper is the Pastor for Preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, and studied at Wheaton College, where he first sensed God's call to enter the ministry. He went on to earn degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary (B.D.) and the University of Munich (D.theol.). For six years he taught Biblical Studies at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and in 1980 accepted the call to serve as pastor at Bethlehem. John is the author of more than 30 books and more than 25 years of his preaching and teaching is available free at desiringGod.org. John and his wife, Noel, have four sons, one daughter, and an increasing number of grandchildren.

Sovereign Grace Ministries

C.J. Mahaney leads Sovereign Grace Ministries in its mission to establish and support local churches. After 27 years of pastoring Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, C.J. handed the senior pastor role to Joshua Harris on September 18, 2004, allowing C.J. to devote his full attention to Sovereign Grace. He serves on the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and on the board of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

C.J.'s books include Humility: True Greatness; Living the Cross-Centered Life; and Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God. He is the editor of Worldliness and Why Small Groups?, and has coauthored other books in Sovereign Grace Ministries’ Pursuit of Godliness series.

C.J. and his wife, Carolyn, have three married daughters and one son. They make their home in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Heart Cry Missionary Society

Paul Washer completed his bachelor degree at the University of Texas. Shortly thereafter he enrolled at Southwestern Theological Seminary where he received his Master of Divinity degree. Paul left the states shortly after graduation as a North American missionary to Peru.

Paul ministered as a missionary in Peru for 10 years, during which time he founded the HeartCry Missionary Society to support Peruvian Church planters. HeartCry's work now supports over 80 indigenous missionaries in 15 different countries throughout Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

An itinerant preacher, Paul also frequently teaches at his home church, First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals, and is the author of The One True God: A Biblical Study of the Doctrine of God.

At the present, Paul serves as the Director of HeartCry Missionary Society and resides in Muscle Shoals, Alabama with his wife Charo and two sons Ian and Evan, and one daughter Rowan.

First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman

Thabiti Anyabwile, Senior Pastor, is a native of Lexington, North Carolina (U.S.). He is the happy husband of Kristie and the adoring father of two daughters, Afiya and Eden, and son, Titus. He began serving as elder/senior pastor in August 2006. He served previously as an elder/assistant pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Washington, DC) and as an elder at Church on the Rock (Raleigh, NC). Thabiti holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in psychology from North Carolina State University. A former high school basketball coach and bookstore owner, he enjoys preaching, reading, sports, and watching sci-fi films.

First Presbyterian Church of Jackson Mississippi

J. Ligon Duncan III (born 1960) is a Reformed theologian, professor, author, and minister of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He is currently the senior minister of the historic First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi—a flagship church of the PCA (the largest conservative Presbyterian denomination in the English-speaking world). His preaching is televised regionally, and he hosts a regionally broadcasted radio program, with Derek Thomas and Bill Wymond, Hymns of the Faith.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church

Mark Dever serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. A Duke graduate, Dr. Dever holds a M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a Th.M. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Ecclesiastical History from Cambridge University. He is the president of 9Marks Ministries and has taught at a number of seminaries. Dr. Dever has authored several books and articles, most recently, What is a Healthy Church? and The Gospel and Personal Evangelism (Crossway 2007). Earlier books include Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Crossway 2000, 2004), The Deliberate Church (Crossway 2005), Promises Kept: The Message of the New Testament (Crossway 2005), and Promises Made: The Message of the Old Testament (Crossway 2006). He and his wife Connie live and minister with their son, Nathan, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Monday, January 12, 2009

How does a person making decisions know what is the will of God?

John MacArthur preached a sermon about knowing the will of God for one's life entitled, "If God's Will is So Important, Why Can't I Find It?" The following is a short summary of the answers given to discern God's will:

The will of God is not meant to be a secret we must uncover. God wants us to understand His will far more than we want to understand it. He always makes His will clear to those who seek it with an obedient heart.

Most of the real problem areas in the question of God's will are settled for us in Scripture. The Bible reveals that it is God's will for all of us to be:

Saved
(1 Timothy 2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9)

Spirit-filled
(Ephesians 5:17-18)

Sanctified
(1 Thessalonians 4:3-7)

Submissive
(1 Peter 2:13-15)

Suffering
(Philippians 1:29; 2 Timothy 3:12)

If all those things are true in your life, you may do whatever you want. Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart." That means that if you are conforming to God's will in all the five ways listed above, He will place in your heart desires that reflect His will. So do what you want to do!

Now, I must admit that my life has recently been more difficult than usual and I also have been looking to know with more certainty God's will for me. For quite a while, I thought that I wasn't anyone special so I should just resolve to live myself suffering where I was and not making waves, just obey God and read my Bible.

Then I thought that God does have a will for me but I should just sit around and wait till someone knocks on my door and says, "I have been sent by God to tell you what you are supposed to do with your life. The answer is __________." So I basically just waited around and decided to humbly wait on God's timing and in the mean-time try out a few things because I was also hearing this talk by John Piper about God revealing his will for your life through community. Basically, whatever you are best at in ministry can give you a good clue as to the will of God for you. The only problem with this for me is that the things that I seem to be good at are all things that require me to have more training to be able to to them well.

So, I listen to this sermon by John MacArthur and he lists these 6 things. I think, "Cool! I am doing all those things so basically, whatever I want to do I can do!" Another thing that went on was that I was praying one night and kind of realized that I was letting God have control of everything except for who I was going to marry. I basically had resolved myself to not marry anyone or either to marry ________. In my opinion, I was telling God, "either you give me so and so or I will just stay single." I decided to just give up and let God have the say-so in even this area. As a result, it became more clear that if this option were totally out of the picture then I would be free to do ANYTHING that I wanted to do!

So now I am at the point of, "OK, I am going to endeavor to do this thing and if God shuts the door, great, I will just go some other way and pick something that I want to do. I know that by "testing, I will be able to discern the good and perfect will of God" and that "no one can take me out of the Father's hand or out of Jesus' hand." So, I know that I am in Christ and if I just sit on my can and don't do anything I may be living in disobedience to the will of God and that is certainly something I don't want to do!

As a little disclaimer, if you are violating anyone of those points listed above and think you can just do what I am doing, you won't be doing God's will. If you do try it, maybe God will lead you into a relationship with him through suffering (as he did me when I tried to rebel against Him). But you really really don't want to go there. Just submit now and surrender your self-will to him and if you are living in sexual immorality or greed or some other sin, deal with that first before you try to find out God's will for you.