Gospel Culture and Renewal

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Ray Ortlund
Welcome to you’re not crazy gospel sanity for young pastors. I’m Ray ortlund. This is a podcast from the Gospel coalition and I am with my friend Sam Albury. Hey, right, Sam, I got a question for you. What is your favorite piece of music?

Sam Allberry
You gave me a warning. So I was able to think about this. And I think it is Mozart’s 13th Piano Concerto which I heard a part of on the radio when I was about 14 years old, and suddenly discovered this kind of music I’d never heard before. And I was captivated by it. And it was the that piece was the gateway drug for me into classical music, and a whole load of other things too. But um, yeah, that I will always come back to the degree now

Ray Ortlund
I would have to say it’s, it would be immediately I think john Fogarty and Creedence Clearwater Revival, I think of James Brown. And I think of George Frederick, as

Sam Allberry
you’re giving yourself more answers than I was allowed. I know, I’m shooting that right. Just while we’re on that. Not necessarily your favorite piece of music. But what do you listen to the most when you’re writing sermons? Like an answer that from having lived in your house, I’ve heard many of Ray ortlund sermon being written to the sentence is

Ray Ortlund
magnificent. It is perfect ambient music without demanding my primary attention. But with providing a sort of mental psychological environment in which I can think I love the Sense and Sensibility soundtrack, if there’s a frequency indicator on my laptop playlist, I’m sure that is number one. Yeah, I love it. Right. Okay. Now, in this episode, Sam, let’s connect the dots between gospel culture, and renewal, and revival and awakening. We You and I, and every young pastor listening to this, here’s what we are not giving our lives to. We are not giving our lives to merely doing a job managing a religious institution, kind of a community center called the church. And we’re keeping the factions well balanced. And you know, providing services picking up a monthly paycheck and waiting it out until retirement. That is not what the Lord called us to that is not what we’ve given ourselves to what we want is nothing less than another great awakening, sweeping over the world. With 1000s and 1000s of conversions, and churches bursting at the seams and us.

Sam Allberry
Several years ago, you wrote a book on revival. And I remember the this is before I even knew you. But I remember the first paragraph really stuck with me, because you talked about how revival isn’t some other kind of work God just randomly decides to do every once in a while. It’s the regular Ministry of the gospel with unusual amounts of fruit and effective as I think you said, God just hits the fast forward button. It’s it’s the normal ministry that God has called us to, but with abnormal

Ray Ortlund
results is like a wonderful power surge. It’s it’s pastors like us, pursuing the normal Ministry of the gospel in both doctrine and culture. And God. You know, it’s a wonderful thing, when God blesses the work of our hands. It’s an even more wonderful thing, thing when God takes up the work in his own hands. And we find our ministries accomplishing in three months, what otherwise it would take 30 years to accomplish. God is able to do that. That’s what we long for.

Sam Allberry
That’s when we long for that not because we want to be there at the moment and sort of getting some of the glory of being one of the big people are around when it all happens and kicks off we we long for that because we long for the name of Jesus to be known, don’t we? Yes, he deserves to be.

Ray Ortlund
So give us a verse of scripture where that would be an entry point for us to consider gospel culture and

Sam Allberry
well that there are many we could use we’ve talked already about. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples by our love for one another. That’s that’s a key verse on this it shows us the direct relationship between the cultivation of gospel culture and being compelling to a watching world. A verse I keep coming back to is is that kind of programmatic verse Mark 115, when Jesus his first public words in Mark’s gospel, the time is fulfilled, The kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe in the Gospel. That verse strikes me because it reminds me of how central and unavoidable repentance is that there is no gospel without repentance and Sinclair Ferguson’s book the whole Christ really helps me on this to sheet to see that repentance isn’t how we work our way up to the gospel. We repent our way into God’s good books. Repentance is the fruit of the gospel, we get to repent. Now, that itself is good news. But it makes me realize as well, we’re not going to see any significant work of the Lord that isn’t accompanied by significant repentance. We’ve we’ve talked about how foundational honesty is and confession and true revival, as opposed to kind of something counterfeit will have repentance and confession of sin at the heart of it, read

Ray Ortlund
that verse again, from Mark one, when the time

Sam Allberry
is fulfilled, The kingdom of God is at hand, Repent and believe in the Gospel.

Ray Ortlund
So the time is fulfilled, God has been preparing us for a significant moment we have funneled down to that moment, the kingdom is at hand, now is the time for a breakthrough where we’re God’s kingdom. loveless in the dynamics of spiritual life talks about power encounters, where where the gospel collides with the powers and systems of this world, and the gospel wins. And there’s a breakthrough. Yeah. And we, as you’re, as you’re saying, I’m thinking out loud here, Sam, because I hadn’t thought of that verse in this connection, that our pathway into that the entry point for us, our part is to repent, and dare to believe that God rescues guilty people who have no excuses, no leverage, no traction, guilty people for the sake of Christ and His finished work on the ground.

Sam Allberry
And this is something I heard you say in a sermon on Isaiah 40, a couple of years ago now, but you said something to the effect that the church should expect to see repentance in the world until the world is seeing repentance in the church. So we can’t be thinking, yeah, well, I wish there was revival. I wish all these, you know, pagan people around me would repent. If we’re not actually modeling repentance ourselves,

Ray Ortlund
I deeply believe that that’s right. If we are yelling at our generation, as the naughty kids telling them get off my lawn, let’s not expect the gospel to to make any headway at all. Yeah, let’s Be the first to repent and believe the gospel. And as you say, that is actually a privilege. I grew up in a revival ready kind of Bible believing Jesus loving, reformed evangelical Christianity. And we were my boyhood church like Kevin, excuse me one second. Oh, man, Sam, don’t get old is no fun. This isn’t funny anymore. I remember as a kid growing up in that church in a Sunday morning service, and this was a pretty well put together group of people. I mean, there were Caltech profs at that church there in Pasadena. They were Fuller Seminary profs, JPL. Jet Propulsion laboratories was close by a lot of scientists and as well as stay at home moms and real estate agents and wonderful people. And we as a church had of, it’s probably safe to say a pretty generous sense of ourselves. And so one Sunday, my dad’s up there preaching, minding his own business, he’s not even in a concluding appeal. He’s merely halfway through the sermon. He’s lifting up the Lord. And, and the choir is in the choir loft behind him in their choir robes. This is old school. And I’m not paying much attention. I’m doodling on the bullet. 10 or something?

Sam Allberry
How old? Are you at this point?

Ray Ortlund
Oh, maybe 10 or 12. Okay, so, and I’m seeing Ed Fisher, get up quietly from the base section of the choir. He’s a godly man, one of the father figures in the church, everybody respected him. And he is being the Holy Spirit is pressing the gospel into his soul, such that Ed feels like I have got to get right with God. Now dad wasn’t bearing down on us. He’s just preaching Christ. But God the Holy is our spiritual forefathers, Sam used to call this the presidency of the Holy Spirit, while the Holy Spirit presiding over the meeting of God’s people on the Lord’s day. So anyway, Ed gets up there quietly, no self display comes down, kneels at the communion table in repentance, and Lita Fisher, his wife in the alto section, she’s not going to let that happen. I you know, let him stick his neck out alone. So she comes down, she kneels beside him. And I’m thinking Hmm, that’s odd. What are they Doing. And suddenly I see that people from all over the congregation are without any appeal from the front, quietly coming to the front of the church, getting down on their knees, and doing serious business with God. And dad was surprised. This wasn’t part of the service plan. You know, it reminds me of Acts chapter two, suddenly, there came from heaven, something that the people hadn’t even counted on anyway. So dad has the sensitivity to stand back, stop preaching, and go to prayer. And Marcia Fox Grover, the organist over here on my right, she has the sensitivity to get onto the Oregon bench and begin to play in some quiet suitable way. And the Holy Spirit of God came down and took over the service. As we as a church. This was not an isolated individuals, again, we’re talking about gospel culture, we’re talking about spiritual realities we share together as a whole church body. We, as a church were moved upon by God, we as a church went into repentance. And you know, Sam, there were several Sundays along the way, like that didn’t happen just once. And it wasn’t a panacea, it didn’t solve all of our problems. I’m going to guess dad never told me. But I’m going to guess that the pastoral burden, the next few weeks increased, because all the mess, you know, came up to the surface, and had to be gently addressed and people had to be helped. But when a church dip is is lifted out of the service plan, into the felt presence of God, such the we’re all down on our faces before the Lord, which is where we belong. That church can never again say, uh, we would never do that. Yeah, we would never go there. Because it’s part of our reality now. It opens more doors for greater blessing in the future.

Sam Allberry
That’s beautiful. I’m wonderful, isn’t it? You hear that and the new you don’t want anything less than that. It strikes me that repentance is always to some extent embarrassing. I mean, it’s embarrassing for that man to to walk up to the communion table and to kneel that’s that’s showing in front of everyone, that he’s not the completely put together amazing Christian name, I think he is, but actually, he’s, he’s a man who is carrying remaining sin that needs to be brought to the Lord. But repentance never harms the reputation of Jesus. Our repentance never harms the reputation of Jesus, it may be a difficult step for us to take, it may be embarrassing. It may mean letting go of reputation and kind of being held in a certain esteem by other people if we have to repent. But it is always honoring to Jesus, isn’t it? Because it’s another way of saying, I’m the needy one. He is the sufficient one, rather than I’m the impressive one. And he’s the even more impressive one.

Ray Ortlund
It is. It is glorious. To preach the doctrine of y’all sufficiency of Christ, it is another thing altogether, and even more glorious to be living proof of the sufficiency of Christ by being a churches, where repentance is the tone, and the culture and honesty, owning up, admitting shortcomings, weaknesses, failings, putting these things out in the open without self defense, but in real openness before the Lord, that is powerful. I can’t think of anything that we American Christians would benefit from more than what if what if 1000s of churches across the country in the next six months make repentance, an unavoidable issue for everybody? What if we go there first, and that

Sam Allberry
that’s the key isn’t it? It’s easy to make repentance an issue for everybody else, in the sense of I can go around telling everybody else what they need to repent of. It’s it’s something else when I’m, I’m actually making my own repentance more of an issue. When I’m more convicted of my sin, then somebody else Yes,

Ray Ortlund
I have to face myself with these questions very personally, and demand of myself that I be honest, am I am I more eager for other people to go into repentance than I am to go into my own repentance? I’ve got to be honest with myself about that. Every single one of us does. But this is as you say, in that verse in Mark chapter one, that’s the entry point for Kingdom powers to come in and push back and displace demonic powers. This This is clarius. This is powerful. If the gospel coalition stands for anything, it stands for gospel doctrine, creating gospel culture, being detonated with the power of the Holy Spirit, to make Jesus not ignore In our country now, here’s here’s a true story from Christian history, about repentance, a whole shared culture of repentance, being blessed by God with unusual power. This is from Korea in 1907, a gathering of about 1500 Christian leaders in the capital city. And these were wonderful people. And really Jesus loving Bible believing solid legit brothers and sisters, who want to live for the Lord just the way you and I do salmon, every young pastor listening to this right now, and at this at this moment on this occasion, God bless them unusually, and not because the leader or scattered individuals here and there went into repentance because they went there altogether. They experienced and discovered a culture of repentance, there was a Presbyterian missionary there who left an eyewitness account of what happened. On that occasion. Let me just read this paragraph. This is Korea. 1907. Then began a meeting, the like of which I had never seen before, nor wish to see again, unless in God’s sight, it is absolutely necessary. every sin a human being can commit was publicly confessed that night, pale and trembling with emotion in agony of mind and body guilty souls, standing in the white light of judgment saw themselves as God saw them, their sins rose up in all their vileness. You know, Sam, part of my problem is hypocritical. nicey nice words that I put upon serious sense, like I slipped up, or something happened. What a hypocritical evasion that quenches the power of the Holy Spirit, so their sins rose up in all their vileness. Until shame and grief and self loathing took possession, pride was driven out, the face of man was forgotten, looking up to heaven to Jesus whom they had betrayed, they cried out with wailing Lord, Lord cast us not away forever, everything else was forgotten, nothing else mattered, the scorn of men, the penalty of the law, even death itself seemed of small consequence, if only God forgave, and then the missionary says, we may have other theories of the desirability, or undesirability of the public confession of sin. I have had my opinions. But I know now that when the Spirit of God falls upon guilty souls, and this was a group of Christian leaders, this was not an evangelistic meeting. It was pastors, elders, missionaries, and so forth. I know now that when the Spirit of God falls upon guilty souls, there will be confession, and no power on earth can stop it. And the scholar who left us with that account in this journal article that I have here proposes that it was it was that occasion and other occasions like it in Korea in 1907. That prepared the Korean church for subsequent decades of foreign invasion and occupation and oppression. Now, how did God prepare his precious church in Korea to endure that he did not call them to political dominance, he did not call them merely to preaching, he called them to repentance. They became fortified, not by admiring their strengths, but by facing their weaknesses, and admitting those things. And the power of the risen Christ came down and enabled them to remain resilient for decades. And the Korean church is a force to be reckoned with to this.

Sam Allberry
That’s amazing, isn’t it? I mean, it’s it’s so compelling. You tell us about a lot of people in England might not know about the kind of the Jesus movement thing in in LA that you were around during that time when you tell us more that What on earth happened? Oh,

Ray Ortlund
from about 1968 69 till about 1972. Sam, you cannot imagine the crazy joy that just came down from above me. 1968 was a horrible year, Martin Luther King was assassinated. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, turned into riots in the streets. 1968 was a year from hell, and our nation was in agony. And in the midst of all that darkness and all that pain and confusion and distress and upheaval, the Holy Spirit, Sam, these eyes saw the power of God come down En la, and change the subject on the streets of Los Angeles, from drugs and revolution to Jesus in the Gospel. I do not believe that the risen Christ is intimidated by Los Angeles, because of what I saw and what I experienced. And I saw my generation 1000s of crazy hippie, you know, radical, progressive, wacko people in my generation. we pivoted, we did a 180. And instead of running away from Jesus, we started running toward him. with all our might, we could not believe our luck. Are you selling telling me that God Almighty in heaven above does not despise me, but actually, he knows everything about me and still loves me, and is prepared to forgive me and give me my life back after I’ve thrown it away? 1000 times are you kidding me? I mean, sign me up my whole generation. We just we totally resonated with that. And so I remember, Sam, for example, being at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa in 1971. And they were having church meetings five nights a week, to accommodate the crowds to meet the demand. Nobody was telling my crazy generation to go to church, we did not listen to the grownups. We couldn’t stay away, because something was happening in the churches, the churches that were open, something was happening. So magnetic, so captivating, so hard freeing, so culturally relevant, so joyous, so crazy, fun. We would want to be anywhere else. So unimaginable. And having had that experience, Sam, I was ruined at age 1920. I just thought within this is ministry, this is this is how we roll. This is how it goes. And all my life. As you said a few minutes ago, I mean, who would want anything else? All my life. I’ve been praying and agitating for more of the same. I want young pastors of the next generation to experience that. And even more greatly. I can’t imagine anything more worthy of my all than young pastors entering into that. Well,

Sam Allberry
I mean, there’s and there’s no good reason. The reason Christ can’t do that, again, averse I keep coming back to is in Isaiah nine of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. So everything is already going Jesus way. It’s not like we were praying against the grain of what God is wanting to do in the world. We’re just asking him to hasten the increase of the government of Jesus and you and

Ray Ortlund
I just deeply believe, as does every young pastor listening to this podcast, that our better future is not in us, polishing up our images, and perfecting our cool and broadening the reach of our swagger. we regard all such things with tragic contempt. And every one of us, longs for, praise for is open to the fullness of the power of God. Paul, Paul said to the Romans, I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. In Romans, I forget chapter 15, or 16. There is the blessing of Christ and there is the fullness of the blessing. And that’s what we long for. And we get there not by presenting our credentials to God so that he’s impressed. But by presenting our sins and failings, as betrayals to be forgiven,

Sam Allberry
john the baptist said, I must decrease he must increase. We won’t see the Lord increasing without actually decreasing ourselves. And

Ray Ortlund
what I find so captivating about all this, we’re considering here, Sam is what if all of us together a whole generation of pastors, I’m on my way out. So many of the guys listening to this podcast are on their way in right. Okay. And they’re on that upward trajectory of ministry, growth and development and learning and so forth. What if we make our top priority that we will be men together? Men have repentance. What if we split our wrists you know, and and become Blood Brothers, to spend our lives in radical openness to whatever the risen Christ wants to do next, through our repentance, not through our correctness, but through our ni

Sam Allberry
through our loneliness, loneliness, rather than through our exalted pneus. I’m not read there’s various books that I haven’t read, but the title has ministered to me even though I’ve never For open the front cover, I think of Piper’s God is the gospel. I’ve not read that. But the title has ministered to me or Elizabeth Elizabeth, Elliott’s book that I’ve seen on your coffee table in your lounge, that suffering is never wasted suffer

Ray Ortlund
suffering is not for not suffering is never for nothing. And

Sam Allberry
here’s another one. I think it’s Michael Griffiths wrote a book I’ve seen around and never, never actually read it is give up your small ambitions. Oh, I love that. Not a great title. I’ve no idea. You know, he was a wonderful missionary statesman, some sure it was, you know, seek to seek to do great things for the Lord rather than small things for the Lord or something like that. But that that comes to mind as we discussed this whole issue of let’s let’s be hungry for and praying for that kind of detonation of, for repentance to go by. And

Ray Ortlund
here’s the great thing for every young pastor listening to this, you might be serving a small church, a medium sized church, a large church, whatever, whatever your ministry context, your church right now, is fully equipped in every essential for nothing less than the the next great awakening. You have the gospel in doctrine and culture, and your church is growing. In both respects, you are cultivating them, helping them serving them in that way, and you have the risen Christ above. He doesn’t love some other church more than he loves you and your church. And he is able fully able to pour out upon you his spirit of power at any time. You do not need to forsake your ministry location for some other more advantageous location, as if that change of location would put you under the blessing of the Lord grace.

Sam Allberry
Grace doesn’t have a zip code

Ray Ortlund
well. Oh my goodness. Sam, Aubrey, what if that’s true?

Sam Allberry
It’s not where we are horizontally. That’s the key locator here is where we are basically, isn’t it? If we can go low before the Lord, we are in exactly the right place for him to to bring blessing, James for verse two haunts me because he says you do not have because you do not ask. And I wonder how, how much we aren’t praying for the next great awakening. And that whether that’s a reason we don’t see, okay, let’s do this. Sam.

Ray Ortlund
Why don’t you lead us in prayer right now? Let’s ask the Lord. And then I’ll close the podcast. Right?

Sam Allberry
Father, we, we love you, we, we trust you. And we believe that you are capable of all things and that in your sovereignty you can bring about a widespread movement of people coming to Jesus, you can bring about widespread repentance, you are fully able to do that. And we know at times you’ve done that in the past. And Father, we long to see that. We long to see that in our own day, not because we think we’re worthy of being involved with such things, but because we we long for Jesus to be to be known as he deserves to be. We’re jealous, Lord, for him to be known. We know that the needy people all around us most need him above all other things. Father, we know that we need a fresh vision of Christ ourselves. We always need our view of Jesus to be to be increased. So Father, we pray for we pray for an outpouring of, of your spirit that prompts widespread repentance. And Father, we pray that you might start in our own hearts, that we would not be above public repentance. We would not be above confessing our sins to others, that we would be not interested in saving our own face, but in seeing yours. Father help us to, to rid ourselves of self importance, to rid ourselves of love of reputation, and how passes as Christian leaders to be willing to go low before you help us to embody a kind of repentance that will help other people to repent in their own lives. Father, help us not to wait for other people to repent first, help us to take that first step. And we pray Lord, that you would you would make yourself known again. Where I’m from in the UK where we are now in the US. There is such a need for the gospel. So help us as your people not to be can’t pancrase about that, but to be humbled by that need, and to recognize that that need that the ground zero for it has to be in our own hearts in our own lives. And Father, we pray, in the name of the one whose government is, is always increasing, man.

Ray Ortlund
Thank you, Sam. You know, as you were praying, I was thinking, am I willing to pay that price? Am I willing to face anything, and admit what really needs to be admitted and confessed. So our next and final podcast in this series will be on the cost of developing gospel culture in our churches. But before we close this out, we want to thank again, our friends at crossway books, who sponsor this podcast. And I want to mention a crossway publication that’s very dear to me. It’s by my own wife, Jenny, my historically epic wife, January Linden, her recent publication with crossway is help. I’m married to my pastor. Oh, no. What does that say about me. And the subtitle is encouragement for ministry wives, and those who love them. So this book helps a pastor’s wife, feel less alone, less isolated, more understood, and more supported. And at the end of each chapter, there is a brief paragraph for the ministry, wife’s husband, Pastor husband, and it’s a way for the pastor, husband and wife to have a follow up conversation together on each aspect of the book so that they can go to a new place together in a new place of understanding and sympathy and gentle honesty together. And more solidarity, more resilience, and more energy and more confidence together as a ministry couple. So help. I’m married to my pastor encouragement for ministry wives and those who love them by God. Right

Sam Allberry
when I, as you know, I’m not married, many of our listeners will be. And I’m guessing and you can correct me if I’m wrong. Pastors won’t see their ministries flourish if their wives are withering.

Ray Ortlund
Okay, Sam, thank you for that. I need to get home right away and take care of my wife reoxygenate her heart. Okay, great. Thanks. See you next time, guys.

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