As many of you know, last Sunday, at around 5 AM, after hours of vomiting and fervently praying to feel better soon, I called Ron Giese to tell him that I was too sick to preach and I needed to hand the sermon off to him. Despite the fact that it was an extremely late notice, he filled in happily and wonderfully.

If for some reason you missed Pastor Ron’s message, you really should listen to it. The audio is available here and detailed notes are also available here.

This Sunday we’ll take another run at the message that was intended for last week from Luke 9: “Crash Course Discipleship for Knuckleheads.”

It’s been a few days since, but in case you missed it, The Albuquerque Journal wrote a nice piece about our Clarus conference.

In it, Tom Lambelet, Pastor of Faith Church in Rio Rancho, gave us some props (or cred or … whatever the kids call it these days):

Pastor Tom Lambelet of Faith Church in Rio Rancho is bringing a group from his church for the second year in a row. The church provided tickets for those in leadership positions. “We see this as a real rich opportunity to hear deep teaching and theology,” he said. “It’s a real quality thing (Desert Springs) is doing.”

Thanks, Tom! Looking forward to seeing you and others from Faith.

The rest of the article is available online here if you’re interested (FYI: it’s free, but you have to click on “Trial Premium Pass” and watch a brief ad, then you can “Enter ABQ Journal” and read the article…if you’re not already an ABQ Journal online subscriber).

In the first chapter of Jesus on Trial, James Montgomery Boice and Philip Graham Ryken ask, “Who is to blame for the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus?” They suggest seven different categories of people involved in “The Conspiracy” (the name of the chapter), elaborating on each throughout the chapter:

• The Jewish religious leaders
• Judas
• The Roman rulers
• The crowd
• Us
• God, the Father
• Jesus himself

While Boice and Ryken do not use the following words, I would summarize their conclusion like this:

The multiplicity of conspiracies leading to the death of Jesus was precisely what God had planned for accomplishing our redemption and glorifying the Son. However wicked and unjust each part of The Conspiracy was, they fit together like a jig-saw to bring about the greatest event in redemptive history. What appears to be “the perfect storm” is, in fact, a Divine orchestration or a perfectly executed battle plan. Or, in the words of the early disciples, these seemingly horrible events are simply “whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur” (Acts 5:28).

Then the chapter ends with this smile-worthy analysis:

Jesus is just full of surprises. Put him to death, and he comes back to life. Conspire against him, seeking his death, and he will conspire against you, dying for your sins and then rising again to give you eternal life. Put Jesus on trial‚ if you dare! Try to decide if he measures up to your standards and you will discover that all the while he has been investigating you. Perhaps even now Jesus is plotting to bring you into a whole new relationship with him.

In an earlier post I pointed to some resources for wrestling through the issues of the gospel, conversion, and assurance with our kids. One of the best resources I’ve found is the the Family Life Today radio interviews with Jim Elliff, “How Children Come to Faith in Christ.” You can purchase the series on audio CDs here, which I already mentioned. However, in addition I discovered that six of the sessions are available online for free:

1. Genuine Salvation: More Than a Prayer

2. How Children Come to Faith in Christ

3. Taking our Children to Church: Is that Enough?

4. How to Deal With Doubt

5. Observing Salvation in Your Child: What Does it Look Like?

6. The Family: No Better Place to Come to Know Christ!

Transcripts are also available at the bottom of each of these pages’ links.

I cannot recommend these talks enough to any parent wanting to be thoughtful, careful, and prayerful in the salvation of their children. They are also helpful for thinking through the gospel, conversion, and assurance for ourselves and at any age.

My latest sermon looked at the parable of the four soils in Luke 8. In the last third of the message I sought to analyze and apply this important parable in five different ways:

1. Thinking through some of the theological issues in the parable

2. Applying the parable to our witness to and discipleship of others

3. Applying it directly and pointedly to those who may not yet have come to true faith

4. Applying it specifically to the salvation of our kids

5. Applying it to the ongoing reception of God’s Word as his disciples

On that fourth point of application — the salvation of our kids in light of the parable of the four soils — I’d like to mention some follow-up resources:

1. Dennis Gundersson, Your Child’s Profession of Faith booklet (available at the DSC Resource Center for $1).

2. DSC’s Baptism class for parents and young people. We just finished a class, but will be offering it again soon.

3. Jim Elliff, How Children Come to Faith in Christ – seven sessions from the Family Life Today radio program.

4. Some related articles from Desiring God:

• Will the Next Generation Know?

• A Note to Parents of Young Children

• Raising Children Who are Confident in God