Only Jesus is Radical Enough

Mike Leake 1 Comment

I am excited that I have gotten an advance reading copy of David Platt’s new book Radical Together.  In the second chapter he says something is a helpful assistant to his previous book Radical:

“…I must tell you something: you will never be radical enough.  No matter what you do, even if you sell all of your possessions and move to the most dangerous country in the world for ministry’s sake, you cannot do enough to be accepted before God.  And the beauty of the gospel is that you don’t have to.  God so love you that, despite your hopeless state of sin, he sent his Son—God in the flesh—to live the life you could not live.  Jesus alone has kept the commands of God.  He alone has been faithful enough, generous enough, and compassionate enough.  Indeed, he alone has been radical enough.”

Only Jesus is Radical Enough.  Great word! 

This book is coming out in April, pre-order it now for under $10. 

You Probably Already Know This…

Mike Leake

Wise words here from Sam Crabtree:

“…give your congregation the benefit of the doubt that they may possess knowledge.  They may know the very thing you are about to teach.  Don’t assume your message is the first time they have considered such things.  Don’t preach down to them.”  (Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation , 110)

Us youngin’s certainly need to heed Crabtree’s warning here.  Just because we are considering things and wrestling with things for the first time does not mean that every person in our congregation is too.  One of the quickest ways to not only bore, but also alienate, your congregation is to preach down to them.  (You probably already know that though don’t you?) 

This takes a good amount of wisdom and pastoral sensitivity to accomplish.  I say that because in one sense we should never assume people know anything.  But at the same time we should not assume that they are ignorant either. 

In the end this is a call for humility.  May I heed it…

None Can Pluck; An Awful and Glorious Truth

Mike Leake

To be in the hand of God can be a wonderfully secure thing or an exceedingly horrible thing. 

In John 10 we read these encouraging words from Jesus:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:27-29 ESV)

Here we see the beauty of being secure in the hand of the Lord.  When God has devoted Himself to securing our redemption there is nothing that can thwart Him.  That is a precious and wonderful promise. 

But there is another aspect to being “in the Lord’s hand”:

Now I will uncover her lewdness
        in the sight of her lovers,
        and no one shall rescue her out of my hand.
(Hosea 2:10 ESV)

I am tempted at this point to highlight the woeful state of what happens when the God of wrath is bent on destruction.  That is the message of Joel; what happens when the Almighty is bent on destruction?  Who can endure His wrath?  Indeed, the answer is no one.  But, I’m not convinced that this would apply here. 

Hosea 2 is fundamentally about the Lord’s plan to root idolatry out of his harlot wife.  I think this “out of my hand” may still hold a glimmer of covenant language.  God will not allow any of her other lovers (Baal) to provide prosperity, hope, peace, security, etc.  All of these are going to come up empty.  Nothing will thwart the Lord’s idol smashing work in his people; his bride. 

So I apply this by saying it is an awful and glorious truth to be secure in the hand of the Lord.  It is glorious because He is good and at His right hand are pleasures evermore (Psalm 16).  But it is an awful truth because He is jealously committed to the purity and fidelity of His bride.  And this doesn’t come about unless He “uncovers our lewdness” and the emptiness of our less-wild lovers is painfully exposed. 

C.S. Lewis is correct:

“In awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love.  You asked for a loving God; you have one.  The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the “lord of terrible aspect,” is present; not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, not the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes…It is certainly a burden of glory not only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moments of grace, beyond our desiring.”  (From A Grief Observed, quoted in How People Change, p24)

You are secure in the hands of the Lord; a precious and awful truth. 

Review of Pujols: More Than the Game

Mike Leake

It was 1987.  I was six years old and watching the World Series, equipped with one of those cardboard pieces inside toilet paper as my microphone.  I was cheering on my favorite team the St. Louis Cardinals.  They lost.  I was devastated.  They broke my heart, and you don’t break the heart of a six year old boy. 

So I turned my affections to the Kansas City Royals.  They annually offer something the Cardinals never do—a lack of hope.  You know going into the season as a Royals fan that it will be a good season if you aren’t dead last and a remarkable season if you somehow win half the games. 

The Royals never get my hopes up, so my heart is never broken.  And year after year as I see the Royals plummet in the standings I take great joy in knowing that the St. Louis Cardinals will give tons of hope to people in our area only to break their hearts.  Poor suckers, they should have learned what I did when I was six.  (Maybe this also explains my love for the Cleveland Browns). 

As much as I enjoy rooting for the Royals I think I equally enjoy hating the Cardinals.  But one thing makes that difficult.  Rather, one person.  Albert Pujols.  I remember when he first came up and had an explosive rookie season, that I predicted he’d fizzle.  Yeah, I was wrong.  Pujols is a stud.  He’s also very likable.  And he also loves Jesus. 

Pujols is making the Cardinals more difficult for me to hate.  In fact, now that I live in Indiana and don’t have to hear so much about the Cardinals I may actually be okay with them winning a few games.  Or maybe Albert will leave the team after this year and I can cheer for Pujols and the Cardinals demise. 

After reading this excellent biography by Scott Lamb and Tim Ellsworth my respect for Pujols has grown immensely.  They do not attempt to paint him as many authors do Christian athletes; as so grounded in Jesus they should probably be pastoring churches.  Lamb and Ellsworth are honest about Pujols struggles in faith.  And I love that.  They don’t pretend that just because Pujols is a stud athlete that he is also perfect in the faith.  He’s a believer that struggles with sin just like the rest of us. 

They do labor to show that one of those sins that Pujols struggles with is NOT the use of PED’s.  It was very wise of Pujols’ biographers to put this in the book.  Albert truly is a hitting machine.  And with statistics likes his in the steroid era regardless of his innocence people will forever point a finger and want to put an asterisk by every stat in this era.  Lamb and Ellsworth give twenty convincing reasons why Pujols stats should stand as legit. 

I also appreciate how Lamb and Ellsworth occasionally will use Pujols story to share the Christian faith.  Take this section for example:

“Every Christian is to be a witness for Christ.  When Albert and Dee Dee share Christ, they are not doing something reserved only for the so-called celebrities of the faith…Telling others about Jesus is a stewardship and responsibility embraced by the Pujolses.” (137)

All in all this is a good read.  I have read many reviews that are frustrated with the continual use of statistics and baseball stories.  I’m not sure what they thought they were signing up for, but Albert IS a baseball player and that is his platform.  Just as you would expect a biography of a person engaged in foreign missions to include that activity, you should expect a biography on a baseball player to have plenty of baseball. 

This book will be a great, and enlightening, read for every baseball fan.  Believers that do not like baseball probably will not get a ton out of it, but this is a great book to put in the hands of young men and women that are aspiring athletes.  Pujols is a great man, a great athlete, and a humble follower of Jesus.  I am glad that Scott Lamb and Tim Ellsworth have written this book.  Great job, fellas. 

You can buy your copy of Pujols: More Than the Game for 16.49.  Or if you are cool like me and get a free copy from Thomas Nelson in exchange for a review (that’s my not-so-creative way of saying I got this book for free from the publisher, didn’t have to give a positive review, but I liked the book so I did).