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This story will go under-reported:

June 24th, 2009
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Look at the extent US soldiers go to avoid civilian causalities, even as enemies are approaching them with mortars and RPGs:

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Sermon Notes: God’s Kindness and Love – Titus 3:4

June 7th, 2009
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*** Intro ***

Titus 3:1-2 = Conduct of the Changed

- Ready for the good deed. Be peaceful. Show every consideration for all men, as much as possible. Titus 2:11-14 = Grace of our God.

Titus 3:3 = Conduct of the Unchanged

- Foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved, envious.
- All of these things, the saved once were.

*** The Hope of God’s Kindness and Love ***

Titus 3:4

Romans 5:8

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Sermon Notes: Resting - Mark 6:30-32

May 31st, 2009
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5/31/2007. AM service. Jeff Noblit.

It is biblical to rest from ministry. It can be prideful to think that you do not need rest.

*** The Commission for the Disciples ***

Integrity. (Mark 6:30) The disciples reported everything they had *done* - not just what they taught. We ought to be doing what we are teaching. Today there is a lot of great writing (a lot of bad too), but the doing seems disproportionately behind - even though we are getting good instruction.

Accountability. (1 Corinthians 4:3 "It’s a small thing that I’m examined by you.") (Mark 6:7 - the disciples were sent out two by two.) (Ecclesiastes 4:9) (Proverbs 27:17)

*** The Concern for the Disciples ***

Mark 6:31 - As much of a command of the Lord as it was to go out a preach the gospel. The context is mostly preachers and preaching, but it applies to all saints. Some call it a hobby, or an escape, but really it is a mandated spiritual discipline.

We are encased in weak flesh. We have a limited physical capacity and a limited emotional capacity. Jeff: "You have to rest, or people don’t want to be around you the next day. God does not have to rest, and he’s wonderful everyday." (Genesis says God "rested" but this is an anthropomorphic illustration to say that God was done with the creation work. The Bible also says that he never rests.)

However, when the work gets tough, don’t let this be an excuse to drop the work of the gospel first. Take all matters to the Lord and allow him to judge.

*** Conclusions for Practical Application ***

#1 - Get away WITH Jesus, not from Jesus. Don’t let God only remind you of your work boots. Associate him with your slippers as well.

#2 - Don’t turn yourself into a sloth. (Proverbs 6:6-11) (Mark 6:31 "… for a while")

#3 - Expect it to be difficult. Even as he went to rest, crowds would still follow Jesus. We probably won’t have that problem. We may deal with guilt.

#4 - You can take mini breaks to draw closer to God while separating from the world.

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Music I *almost* idolize

April 27th, 2009
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One of the things I admire about my church is its commitment to Biblical lyrics. I’m heard our music minister, Tom Clay (@brotom / thomasclay.blogspot.com) say “If we can’t preach [the lyrics] from the pulpit, we don’t sing it.” And I assure you, for those unfamiliar with Grace Life CotS, what comes from the pulpit is highly scrutinized against a biblically doctrinal understanding of the Bible. (Yes, the way I described that is unnecessarily complex, but I wanted to fully qualify what I was saying for purposes I’d rather not go into, lest I fall completely off topic. If you’re really curious, just search for Jeff Noblit or Paul Washer on YouTube.)

However, in the flesh, I am a sinner tempted in all sorts of ways, and likewise, when we sing these wonderfully true, powerful songs, it is tempting to idolize them. By this, I mean I am tempted to revere the song itself rather that reverencing God.

I try to avoid this form of idolatry by thinking upon the truths of the lyrics and their implications. It may not feel as emotionally “powerful” as when the song is also enjoyed for its musical pleasantry, but it does keep me grounded in the truth of the song, rather than its emotional appeal.

On the other hand - and I shall seem to talk out of both sides of my mouth here - sometimes I will treat the song simply as good, pleasing music and set aside the theological truths. This way, I’m not ascribing any more worth to the song than it’s due, instead I’m simply enjoying it as something good that’s excellent and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8).

But thankfully, most often I am able to do both - to both enjoy the song for its musical qualities, and to worship my God for his eternal qualities. Although I rarely sing publicly - my heart indulges itself in rejoicing and praise through biblical music.

Likewise, I would like to share with you some songs that I *almost* idolize, but praise be to God - this is a sin I constantly overcome, allowing me to rejoice with other believers in the worthiness of our God.

I am using Lala.com to embed these songs (legally). You should be able to play them once, full quality, without signing in and for free. If you are not able to, you may need to clear your cookies and your Flash cookies. I strongly encourage you to patronize them if you are able and willing. They “get” the new business model.

The Power Of The Cross - Stuart Townend

Be Unto Your Name - Robin Mark

Before the Throne of God Above - Dave Hunt

update: I truly should include “In Christ Alone”, even if this particular arrangement isn’t my favorite. The lyrics here are so comprehensive and deeply rich with truth; truly an example of the kind of song that could be preached from the pulpit. (That’s not to say that it is equivalent to the Word, as certainly, there are some phrases here and there that are extra-biblical, but the truth of its message is certainly in line with truth.)

In Christ Alone - Stuart Townend

PS. This is a good time to also mention that I dissociate myself from many stereotypes given to Christians, and at the same time, I confess I am a fallen sinner. I do not view myself as “more holy” - quite the opposite - nor do I desire to “push my beliefs” onto anyone.

God’s grace to you,
- tollie

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Is Copyright Still a Fair Deal

April 4th, 2009
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Wow. I don’t normally find myself reading many slashdot comments, but this one caught my attention as I think it’s dead on.

From: http://bit.ly/kG5dH [slashdot.org]

Is Copyright still a fair deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
by thesupraman (179040) on Friday April 03, @08:13PM

This is not the question to ask.

The question to ask is what good are the public getting in return for giving up such freedoms, AND paying for the giving up of such freedoms (dont forget who pay for the FBI, Police, etc), and paying for the protection of the revinue to copyright owning entities.

Now, this is supposed to be the entering in to the public domain (as in becoming free..) of creative content at the end of the copyright period - a fair and equitable arrangement one could say - we protect their profits for a period, and at the end of that, we gain the advantage of their creativity openly.

However, that was in the days of limited copyright periods, these days thanks both to DRM (an unbroken DRM means an item cannot become free after its legal protection stops) and changes to copyright periods (a lot of things we have already paid to protect should be public now, and are not..) we, the people, have lost our end of the ‘bargain’.

Perhaps it is time for the copyright owners to be carrying the full costs of enforcing their copyrights, since they don’t feel the public should be allowed future advantage of their content?

I wonder what the yearly government costs of copyright enforcement is, it seems more and more public resource is bring piled in to protecting it..

Or perhaps the people (that is, government) should simply cease on their end of the bargain in return, and in light of technological DRM, revoke copyright laws, as they were enacted to protect otherwise unprotectable items (such as books) - does DRM mean we shouldn’t have to suffer copyright laws?

Once upon a time there was balance, an equitable deal between the state and copyright holders - the copyright holders have long since stopped holding up their end of the bargain….

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Facebook Fail

March 19th, 2009
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Excepted from myself on Facebook:

The social graph model had a 10x more interesting Home feed. The twitter-clone home stream is almost completely uninteresting and not Facebook.

The highlights preserve some of the interesting aspects of the old home feed, but they are too few, too cluttered, and no longer able to be “tweaked” with sliders or “less of” links.

Additionally, the new home stream lacks filters for profile changes like groups, relationship statuses, and interests.

Basically, my iPhone has become my only interesting way to use Facebook, as it still gives me the social graph model of the Home feed– don’t screw it up, and you should *really* consider revamping the “new” twitter clone to be less of a clone, and more true to what kept Facebook interesting.

Go here for ways to take action: http://bit.ly/2Oz3i (links to Facebook note).

And don’t forget to use http://iphone.facebook.com - maybe, hopefully, they’ll see the spike in traffic to that website from non-iPhone browsers.

UPDATE: In my continuing campaign to get Facebook to fix the “great mistake of 09″, I ended up writing out my thoughts in bullet points. Here they are:

*** 1: The new design didn’t add significant functionality. ***

1a- The old design already had live updates (actually live though), and filtering by friend group, status, photos, etc.

1b- The only “new” functionality was to filter by 3rd party applications - most of which are rubbish.

1c- Indeed, the old functionality of being able to dial up or down what and who you found interesting - it’s gone.

*** 2: The new design is dumb, rather than intelligent. ***

2a- The old “social graph” algorithm worked for me. It digested hundreds of friends and thousands of “data” into a digestible, interesting, useful home page.

2b- The new stream is always the last hour, and if I didn’t block every 3rd party app I find, it would probably be littered with quizzed and sheep throwing. Further, since I check Facebook late at the end of the day, my home stream is almost exclusively west coast people, instead of my local friends who are most interesting to me.

2c- Twitter is about the “stream”, it was founded as a micro-blog. Facebook is NOT about the stream - it was founded as, and ought to be, an intelligent address book that functions like a yearbook, collecting memories with photos, and your friends scribbled notes on the inside “walls” of the book.

MOST IMPORTANT TO ME:
*** 3: The new design reverts Facebook back to 2005. ***

3a- Profile changes (groups joined, relationship status, interest changes) are left completely unpublished, and thus we’re left having to go profile to profile, and trying to remember what was and was not there, in order to find out some of the most interesting aspects of our friends (for me, namely, their relationship statuses - completely and totally obscure now).

3b- The new highlights section has SOME group joins, and you can even hack the URL to filter by groups, but neither are nearly as sufficient as the old Home Feed. And of course, it’s cramped, minimal in number, and absolutely not customizable, so I don’t count it.

***********

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Tweeps near Florence

March 1st, 2009
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(Update 4/15/2009: Many many many people have joined in the past month. I dare say I was right about Twitter reaching critical mass in the Shoals. It will be very difficult to keep up with everyone, but I will soon post an updated list of selected people, and also describe how to find others. I will link to it from here. In the meantime, please enjoy this list which was last updated in late March. Thanks!)

Back in January of 2007, when I first started using Twitter, it was what some might call - pointless. I remember the questions I got when I posted this update one night after Step Sing: “Why? What’s the point? Isn’t that dangerous telling everyone where you are all the time?” Virtually no one I knew used the service. I was essentially micro-blogging to myself.

However, with time, Twitter developed an online community and people that found my updates interesting added me and vice-versa. For the majority of these two years, that community has been overwhelmingly homogenous - early adopters in the tech world. Lately, the attention Twitter drew during the 2008 election has helped fuel its mainstreaming, and most lately, I have noticed a surge of Florence, AL area people signing up for Twitter. I believe Twitter has, or is about to, reach “critical mass” in Florence, where it will become almost as ubiquitous as Facebook has become.

So I compiled this list. If I have left you or someone or someplace that you know off the list, please add them in the comments. Thanks! Grace and Peace to you.

Tip: Organically, some topics have developed “tags” that help others quickly search for them. To add these (called hashtags), place a # in front of the keyword. For instance, when talking about the Shoals area, add the #shoals hashtag to make it easier for others in the area to find your tweet. Also, #UNA is used for tweets about The University of North Alabama.

Tip: Use the ‘More Info URL’ in your settings to link to your website, Facebook, or Myspace.

Tip: If you like someone else’s tweet and want to share it with your followers, you can “retweet” it. Just type in RT @their_user_name: Their message. For instance, if you want to share my tweet linking to this blog post you can post: “RT @tollie: Twitter is starting 2 go mainstream, so 2 keep up I put together a list of every1 on Twitter in the #Shoals. http://bit.ly/11erK8″

Tip: To add people from this list, login to Twitter first, come back to this page, then hold down Control/CTRL (Windows) or Command/CMD (Mac) while clicking the links below to open their profiles in new tabs. After you’re finished clicking, go through your tabs one by one to Follow people.

People who go to Grace Life Church of the Shoals:

UNA staff and faculty:

Local News/Weather:

Florence, Al area:

Florence, Al Bands/Music:

Florence, AL businesses:

Bonus: Some other people you might not have known were on Twitter:

  • Adam from Myth Busters: @donttrythis
  • Levar Burton of Star Trek, Reading Rainbow, and Roots fame: @levarburton

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Commentary on worship through music during the TCC.

February 22nd, 2009
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For a Christian, the vivacity of a song of worship is not purely in the notes, the melody, or even the lyrics. There is a certain quality of the music that is only sensed when the Holy Spirt of God is presently working to empower the elect to sing praises to the one who is alone worthy. One can not “bottle up” this quality and place it into a recording. Indeed, the presence of God among a fellowship of believers singing praise to him is an experience that can not be artificially recreated. This recording is not an attempt to re-create it.

There is no worship from music that makes you “feel tingly” inside if it purely the music alone that one pays attention to.

Instead, I’m sharing this recording from the final service of the 2009 True Church Conference at Grace Life Church of the Shoals as a way presenting the ways in which the presence of the Holy Spirit changed other aspects of the music that can be found in the recording - the unique bits of this particular moment. Even without the benefit of the Holy Spirit’s unique presence, the words speak truth, and the beauty of the music echoes the nature of God.

The songs are: Before the Throne, In Christ Alone, and [On Christ the] Solid Rock.

The entire service can be viewed and heard here.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(A brief note on copyright: It is believed that the use of this material is covered under fair use, as its inclusion is essential to elucidate my commentary.)

For people reading this via my Facebook Notes, you must go to my blog to see the audio player. This post can be found at: http://www.tollie.org/blog/2009/02/22/medley

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Notes from 2-20-2009 Sermon - Brokenness

February 21st, 2009
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Where does depression hurt? It hurts everywhere. It’s like the ‘Check Engine’ light is on, and we’ve learned how to break the light. We have no sense of being crushed under our own sin. Instead, we try to remove that weight.

Unbiblical, anti-truth:
- Rob Bell: “no need for brokenness”
- The Shack (endorsed by Eugene Patterson, and Steven Curtis Chapman): “God submits to, needs people.”
- Rick Warren: “You don’t have to tell people they’re sinners; they already know this.”

Psalms 51:1-19

“Blot out” - like the flood
“Wash me” - like on a washboard
“Cleanse me” - a ceremonial style

=== I ===

Ps 51:8

Brokenness is an appropriate response to sin because sin leaves behind ’scar tissue’ - a mark on us. See Romans 7:23-24.

=== II ===

PS. 51:3

Brokenness is an appropriate response to sin so that _we_ don’t forget our sins. God can forget, but _we_ can’t. We must realize that sins create memories that stay with us. This is good because:

1. If you could forget your sins, you could never testify to the forgiveness of God!

2. If you could forget, you wouldn’t be warned against doing them again. Imagine if we could forget that fire is hot…

3. If you could forget, you couldn’t celebrate your victory over sin - our triumphs through Christ.

=== III ===

Revelation 19:11-16

Brokenness is appropriate response to sin because our sin is an affront to a holy God.

“People don’t know that they’re bad. They watch the nightly news and think that _those_ people are bad.” Compare this to Rick Warren telling preachers that people already know they’re sinners.

We need to be done with this image of Christ as a weak, needy, feeble guy. Revelation 19:11-16. He is a God capable of great wrath.

He demonstrates his own wrath when he poured it out on his own son! How dare we think that he would do that to his own son, but because we’re “not that bad” he could never be that wrathful against us!

Unbiblical: “He wants you. He needs you. He’s desperate for you. You’re breaking his heart.”
Biblical: “He’s going to break you.”

People come into church looking to be appeased, thinking they’re owed something. Preachers are guilty of “trampling [his] courts” (Isaiah 1:10-18) when they hold these services that “target” sinners, gearing them towards a man-centric goal. These people say things like “_I_ prayed a prayer. _I_ have changed my ways.” No. Preach the word!

=== IV ===

Brokenness is an appropriate response to sin because sin is a hindrance to the true worship of a holy God.

Ps. 51:7-10.

Worship is an outward expression of brokenness.

In some churches, they say brokenness is an inappropriate response to sin. They say “you’re a Christian - you’re forgiven.” May it never be that we forget the weight of our sin. Brokenness is the _only_ appropriate response to sin. It’s not to wallow and indulge in self-pitty (that would be just as wrong); it’s not to make you feel bad. It’s to get you in the place where you realize God’s grace and glorify HIM.

In an of myself, all that I can do is continue to crumble under the weight of my own sin.

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Notes from 2-19-2009 Sermon - Radical Depravity

February 21st, 2009
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Romans 3:9

=== I ===

There is no difference between ministers past and present, here or there. All are under sin. Compare Romans 3 to Genesis - a moral change took place in their beings; same today.

=== II ===

Romans 8:7 - People fall under two categories. Those whom are saved (the Spirit has fallen) and those in whom the Spirit has not worked (the unrepentant).

The unrepentant, unsaved: (a reminder) Hostile to God. Enemies of God. May be religious. May be church going people who worship a god of their own making. For example, may worship a god who doesn’t mind that they are living in sin; a god who “tickles them” in the midst of their sin. Romans 8:8 - they _cannot_ please God.

=== III ===

Romans 3:10-18 is what God says about self-righteous Israel.

Human beings are in a state of mutiny.

Anecdote: We are like individuals who are blind and arguing about whether there is a sun or not, yet the very reason we are having this discussion is because we feel the suns rays! We can not see the full glory of God’s face, but we certainly should recognize that he is there.

=== IV ===

It is to people in this state of rebellion that believers are called to preach - “repent or perish.”

IMPORTANT: Why? We just said that they _can’t_ turn from their sins. They can’t please God. They are dead in their sin, and spiritual enemies against their God.

Truth: they _can’t_ turn from their sins, this is to the glory of our God - it is his grace redeems them. So that when anyone repents and turns from sin, it can be entirely to the glory of God. This also demonstrates that God is not a passive savior of the past, but he is an active savior in the present, reaching out to sinners. It is in this goodness of God that is our hope. God knows who are his and, through the preaching of the gospel, will bring them to himself.

Related to the anecdote above: “It is in this pitch black darkness of depravity that God is saving souls.”

=== V ===

Let us fill the church with unconverted pagans. God, let them hear the Word, and God be glorified.

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