The final day of T4G was extra-ordinary. The first session was a talk on the presence of the Gospel in the theology of the early patristic church fathers. Ligon Duncan gave a historiography, "history of God's providence with our people," to show that neither should the early fathers be viewed as authoritative, nor should they be viewed has having lost the gospel so that it had to be completely recovered in the reformation. Duncan presented a third way to read the church fathers. He said they should be read, respectfully, carefully, and under the authority of Scripture." He asserted that is the way the magisterial reformers of the 16th century viewed the early fathers.
After a short break we heard from Matt Chandler. Matt shared about his experience with brain cancer and how it has impacted his life and ministry. The thing is that Matt had been preparing his people to suffer as a core value in their church since he became their pastor.
You read the AP Article about Matt's story to get more details and information on what he has been going through and the impact it is having. The extraordinary thing this week was that he was calling us to prepare our churches by pointing out the suffering in the narrative of Scripture. Matt closed by affirming from experience what we all know and had been talking about all week, "Jesus is better than Life." As Matt closed in prayer, I was broken as he prayed for his church, his wife and his children.
C.J. Mahaney followed Matt in order to encourage us to follow Matt's story and example by teaching our people to suffer. C.J. said that this should inform our teaching diet and that we should go after Job, Habakkuk, 1 Peter and other like texts that emphasise suffering well. He also gave a long list of resources he recommended in the practice and teaching of suffering. The list included "How Long Oh Lord" by D.A. Carson and "Beside Still Waters" by C.H. Spurgeon. More than anything he encouraged us to do this by being faithful to preach the Gospel to them, and to "be there at their side when they suffer." After this, the leaders of T4G laid hands on Matt and John Piper lead the entire conference in a prayer for Matt, his family, the church and for Matt's healing, while conference participants laid hands on other pastors in the crowd who are suffering with ongoing and terminal needs. It was powerful to say the least.
After this we had a long break, during which I finally got to the bookstore to buy the 2 books I wanted that they had not already given us. C.J. Mahaney closed the conference preaching from 2 Timothy 4:1-5 - Expository Faithfulness. The call was to preach the word, calling us out using D.A. Carson's biography of his father "Ordinary Pastor." In his unique way C.J. pointed out that the men we had heard this week were all extraordinary, extraordinarily gifted and extraordinary gifts tot he church and the rest of us . . . not so much. He said far too often ordinary pastors are discouraged pastors. He said that was the result of comparisons to other pastors and how we defined success in ministry. He called us to be faithful with our gifts 3 primary ways:
I. Be Faithful to the Message -
"Resolve to be unoriginal because we may not look like much, but there is power under the hood."
Be faithful in every season.
Be faithful to rebuke and reprove - you must be with your people to know what is appropriate.
Be faithful in complete patience - wait on God to move.
How?
1. Remember God's patience with you.
2. Remember sanctification is a process.
II. Be Faithful to your Ministry -
Be Sober Minded
Be Enduring Suffering
Be an Evangelist
III. Be Faithful to the Savior -
No rear-view mirror - look to the future reward.
Press into the Kingdom staying in the shadow of the cross.
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