Josh Benner

Tag: devotional

  • Majority of surveyed Christians don’t believe church is necessary

    photo-1476455479340-25ee0cee09bf-1.jpeg
    Recently, Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research released their “State of Theology” survey. In the study, 3,000 American Christians were surveyed on various theological and moral positions.

    58% of respondents agreed with the statement “Worshipping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.”

    It’s one thing for a non-Christian to believe that. But for Christians?! The Christian life is not a solo sport. There are several reasons why worshipping and  involvement in a local church is essential to our Spiritual growth and to Christian living. (more…)

  • The war within: Spirit vs Sin

    DSC_6625
    For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
    -Galatians 5:17
    The flesh vs the Spirit.
    For Christians, the Sprit filled life is meant to be a life of growth and maturation.
    But just because Christians have the Holy Spirit in us, it certainly does not mean that everything in life suddenly becomes easy or that we never struggle with sin. (more…)

  • Tim Keller on an underlying motivation for tolerance

    Timothy_Keller
    Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons @Frank Licorice

    I was reading an old sermon from Tim Keller, and was blown away by an observation he made regarding acceptance.

    “Some of us are extremely accepting. People will come to you and talk to you about their problems because you are so accepting. You are so non-judgmental. The reason you’re non-judgmental is … You’re gentle. The reason you’re gentle is because you have no self-control in your own life. You’re always falling down, and you’re always lapsing. You’re always breaking your own promises. You’re always breaking promises to others. That’s the reason why you’re so tolerant and accepting. You have no discipline of your own. That’s why you’re so open.

    In other words, your tolerance and your acceptance are not coming from humility and peace and joy. It’s just a way of dealing with your own conscience. Some people are incredibly unflappable. They seem to have peace, but they’re not gentle, and they’re not kind. Where did they get their peace from? They don’t care. They don’t care! That’s not real peace. These things will all break down.”

    -Tim Keller “New hope, new family”

    Acceptance and tolerance are popular ideas in our society. They’re basically the cardinal virtues of 21st century America.

    No matter what people do, accept and tolerate it. We call that love.

    I think Keller is onto something. We don’t want to acknowledge our own failures and sins and shortcomings and so we instead want to justify the actions of others so we can feel better about our own actions.

    The problem is that it doesn’t make us feel better. On the outside, it might, but we know our sinfulness in our own hearts. We know we often don’t even measure up to our own standards, let alone those of God.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

    Let’s connect!
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Instagram

  • 4 goals in every sermon I preach

    photo-1509021436665-8f07dbf5bf1d.jpeg
    I love preaching. I love everything about it. I love preparing to preach. I love behind the pulpit. I love evaluating a message afterwards. I love listening to sermons.

    I think a lot about preaching.

    In preaching, there are a lot of factors to consider in how to construct a sermon: genre of the passage, length of the passage, the audience, etc.

    But four things that don’t change for me are certain goals I have in every message.

    1. To be faithful to the text
      You must begin by going to the text with reverence and not importing opinions onto the text, but prayerfully and carefully trying to understand the text for what it has to say.

      The Apostle Paul addresses the temptation for people to be drawn to unfaithful preaching in 2 Timothy 4:2-4: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

    2. To preach the gospel
      I’m reminded the word of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2:2, I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Sermons cannot lose sight of the gospel. No matter what else is covered in a sermon, it needs to always go back to Jesus and the grace the he offers to sinners, the life he offers to those dead in sin. No matter how practical a pastor wants to make a sermon, the most practical message of all is that you need Jesus. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the father except through him (John 14:6).

    3. To explain how the text applies to life
      When I started preaching, I think this was one of the things that came hardest for me. But it’s also essential to preaching. Without application, a sermon isn’t a sermon, it’s a lecture.

      The Apostle James said to be doers of the word and not only hearers, adding: the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:25).

    4. To be clear
      A sermon is useless if people can’t understand it. I’ve listened to many sermons and found myself thinking “what is he talking about?!” No idea is so brilliant that it can’t be comprehensibly communicated. I think lack of clarity is often a byproduct of a lack of preparation.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

    Let’s connect!
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Instagram

  • Proverbs: we can never be right when we disagree with God

    photo-1517517727135-cd91ffe2327f

    No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel
        can avail against the Lord.
    -Proverbs 21:30 

    God created all things and he knows all things. All truth is God’s truth. God is a God of truth. In the gospels, Jesus is THE truth (John 14:6). God’s word is truth (John 17:17). The Psalmist said, “The sum of your word is truth,and every one of your righteous rules endures forever” (Psalm 119:60). 

    We can never be right when we disagree with God, when we go against God, when we decide we don’t like a teaching that the Bible makes. There is no “agree to disagree” with an all-knowing, holy, righteous God. God is not our peer, he’s not our college. Our views of morality, salvation, the world, and reality are not equally valid to God’s truth.

    There will be teachings or situations in the Bible where our initial reaction is to not like them or to disapprove. Because we’re sinful, because it might be exposing an area of sin in our own heart. Or we might disagree with God’s righteous application of justice. But because we’re sinful people, it makes sense that we’d have times where we disapprove or disagree. Tim Keller says, “If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshipping an idealized version of yourself.”

    We must approach the Word of God with humility. Maybe we have something in our life that we’re doing and the Bible commands otherwise. Conversely, maybe we have something that we’re not doing and the Bible teaches that we should. In either case, follow God’s way. No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

    Let’s connect!
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Instagram