F&F - April 10 - Chapter 3 of Radical - Beginning at the End of Ourselves - The Importance of Relying on God's Power

[Glyn Roberts]

Dear Friends,

Join us on Sunday! I'm sending this out earlier this week, and not waiting for the bulletin text to become available. This has two effects

• earlier receipt, with time to prepare
• much fewer links, so I hope it won't trigger spam detection.

You can access the bulletin at http://www.mcleanbible.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=122651 - it's usually updated shortly after 2pm on Fridays.

Contents:

• F&F Schedule; Radical, Palm Sunday, Easter, Minor Prophets
• Radical, Chapter 3 – Beginning at the End of Ourselves - The Importance of Relying on God's Power
• Outline of Chapters 1-3
  

F&F Schedule
Radical - by David Platt
Palm Sunday & Easter
Minor Prophets

Our F&F schedule is also kept up to date on our website .

Our meeting time has changed to 10:45-12:00, to conform with the worship schedule. We were previously starting at 10:30, but a lot of people found it hard to make that time! We'll continue to begin with a musical prelude and a time of open prayer.

On March 27 we began a series of nine studies based on the best-seller book Radical, by David Platt. The full title is "Radical: Taking Back your Faith from the American Dream." I'm leading this series. Here's the Table of Contents, with the alternative titles Platt provides for each chapter

1 – Someone Worth Losing Everything For - What Radical Abandonment to Jesus Really Means
2 – Too Hungry For Words - Discovering the Truth and Reality of the Gospel
3 – Beginning at the End of Ourselves - The Importance of Relying on God's Power
4 – The Great Why of God - God's Global Purpose from the Beginning till Today
5 – The Multiplying Community - How All of Us Join Together to Fulfill God's Purpose
6 – How Much is Enough? - American Wealth and a World of Poverty
7 – There Is No Plan B - Why Going is Urgent, Not Optional
8 – Living When Dying Is Gain - The Risk and Reward of the Radical Life
9 – The Radical Experiment - The Risk and Reward of the Radical Life

As usual for our book studies, I've bought copies of the books. They are available at class at $7.00, while supplies last. The list price is $14.99.

Here's the fine print. Our lawyer team has advised me to inform you that $7.00 may not be your final cost for this book. It calls for radical changes!

As the website shows, we take a break from Radical for 4/17 and 4/24, Palm Sunday and Easter.

• On 4/17, Palm Sunday, Jamie Loizou, a new class member, will lead us in a study of John 17, "The (real) Lord's Prayer." He's doing his oral exam to become a McLean University teacher, so some examiners will also be present!
  
• As in past years, the community groups all take a break for Easter, to free space in the building and parking lot for visitors, and to allow us to serve in Kids Quest or the various welcoming ministries.

Note the next lunch social after class is Palm Sunday April 17. We sit at the big table in room 3201. Bring a lunch or pick one up at the cafeteria. And avoid the noon traffic jam leaving the church! These socials are a great opportunity to get to know one another better, and to "connect in Biblical community" as our website says.

Following Radical, we'll study the Minor Prophets. We have been approved to keep meeting through the summer, so join us when you're in town!

Radical, Chapter 3
Beginning at the End of Ourselves
The Importance of Relying on God's Power

Each chapter comes with two titles, as above, continued as headers on the left and right pages. Here are the chapter sub-headings

• Subtle Dangers
• Exalting Our Inability
• Dependent on Ourselves or Desperate for His Spirit
• A Different Picture
• Superior Power
• Ordinary Christians, Extraordinary God
• God Our Father
• On Our Knees

From last week's chapter 2, "The gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, take up our cross, die to ourselves, and follow Jesus" (page 39).

Chapter 3 is concerned with this "enabling," by the power of the Holy Spirit. Hence the second title, The Importance of Relying on God's Power.

You can read about Platt's Secret Church online. There's even a video.

As stated above, the books are available at class, about 25 copies left, first-come, first-served, $7, cash preferred. For those who don't yet have the book, I've put an outline at the end of this email.

You can find links to some of Platt's sermons related to this chapter at the bottom of this page

• http://www.radicalthebook.com/resources.html

Warning - this guy preaches for over 50 minutes a week! Audio or video!

See you on Sunday.

Glyn & Rohini Roberts
F&F Coordinators

___________

Outline of Radical

Chapter 1
Someone Worth Losing Everything For
What Radical Abandonment to Jesus Really Means

Platt's introduction to the chapter contrasts his own reported status as "The youngest megachurch pastor in history," with Jesus, "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him," (John 6:66). Jesus "focused instead on the few who believed him when he said radical things. And through their radical obedience to him, he turned the course of history in a new direction" (page 2). And Platt asked himself, and asks us by implication, two questions

• Am I going to believe Jesus?
• Am I going to obey Jesus?

He invites us to join his journey, and wants us to measure success by more than just the size of the crowd.

His first two headings

• Puddles of Tears
• A Different Scene

contrast a secret gathering of village Christian leaders in Asia, which he joined on a mission trip, with his own welcome three weeks later (in 2006) when he became pastor at Brook Hills Church near Birmingham. He worried "that somewhere along the way we had missed what is radical about our faith and replaced it with what is comfortable." (page 7)

His next section, Talking People Out of Following Christ, applies Luke 9:57-62, where Jesus apparently turned away three would-be followers. "If you follow him, you abandon everything - your needs, your desires, even your family" (page 10).

In Radical Abandonment, he cites

• Warnings Jesus gave in the context of large crowds
• Luke 14:25-27  Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
• Luke 14:33  In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
• and the account of the rich young ruler, who "went away sad, because he had great wealth' after Jesus said,
• Mark 10:21 "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
• Jesus' disciples "left their nets and followed him" (Mat 4:20). "Almost all of them would lose their lives because they responded to his invitation" (page 12).

In What About Us? Platt suggests a materialistic tendency in American Christianity to rationalize away Jesus' words, and to "live out our Christian spin on the American dream" (page 13)

The Cost of Non-Discipleship starts with the quote "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die," from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book "The Cost of Discipleship." The cost of non-discipleship is that

• the world's unreached remain unreached, and
• the world's poor remain unsupported (pages 14-17).
• "But the cost of non-discipleship is not paid solely by them. It is paid by us as well." (page 17)
  

In A Call to Treasure, Platt expands on Jesus' call to the rich young ruler, "give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven," using the parable of the treasure hidden in a field (Matthew 13:44  The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.) Your friends think you're crazy. "Yes, you are abandoning everything you have, but you are also gaining more than you could have in any other way. So with joy - with joy! - you sell it all, you abandon it all. Why? Because you have found something worth losing everything else for. ... For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him." (page 18)

The concluding section, Is He Worth It? is Platt's appeal!

• Jesus is worth abandoning everything for;
• Don't embrace values and ideas that are common in our culture but are antithetical to the gospel;
• Listen to the words of Jesus, believe them, and obey them;
• For the sake of a needy world, and for your own sake;
• Ask as Paul did on the Damascus road (Acts 22:10), "What shall I do?"

Chapter 2
Too Hungry For Words
Discovering the Truth and Reality of the Gospel

Platt's introduction to the chapter gives more details of his twelve days with underground house-church leaders in an Asian country. They demanded that he spend twelve or more hours a day teaching the whole Bible. They left their fields and jobs, hungry for the Word! And he describes attending one of their house-church worship gatherings, including

• the security requirements
• the facility and congregation
• the contrast from American services
• All they have is God's Word.  And it's enough!

Secret Church is Platt's attempt at Brook Hills to strip away the entertainment and invite God's people to gather for a twice-a-year Friday night Bible study, from 6pm through midnight, interspersed with prayer for Christians around the world who are forced to gather in secret.

The following three sections, Who He Really Is, Who We Really Are, and What (or Whom) We Really Need, are Platt's summary of the gospel, and are accompanied by a lot of scriptures, in the text and notes. "We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American, and how much is biblical." (page 28)

• God is the omnipotent omniscient sovereign Creator
• He's holy, righteous and just, a loving Father and a righteous Judge

• People are spiritually dead, slaves to sin, enemies of God, hopeless
• Platt rejects self-sufficiency, self-esteem, self-confidence, and simplistic conversion formulas which "draw crowds but don't save souls"

• God came down in Jesus Christ, to save us
• The cross is not just a demonstration of God's love. Jesus died in our place
• In Gethsemane Jesus was recoiling from the cup of God's wrath

From page 36: "This is the gospel.

• The just and loving Creator of the universe
• has looked upon hopelessly sinful people
• and sent His Son, God in the flesh,
• to bear His wrath against sin on the cross
• and to show His power over sin in the Resurrection
• so that all who trust in Him will be reconciled to God forever."

At the beginning of Radical Revelation to be Radically Received, Platt writes, "Suddenly contemporary Christian sales pitches don't seem adequate anymore" (page 36). A proper response to this gospel is

• More than a rote prayer and religious attendance
• "Unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that He is" (page 37)
• Self-examination. "Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name?" ... "Depart from me." (Matthew 7:21-23)
  
• "The gospel demands and enables us to turn from our sin, take up our cross, die to ourselves, and follow Jesus" (page 39)
• This is not earning God's favor through radical obedience. "It is by grace ... through faith" (Ephesians 2:8)
• Grace involves "the gift of a new heart, new longings. For the first time, we want God. ... We abandon everything else to experience Him" (page 39)
• "Don't settle for anything less than a God-centered, Christ-exalting, self-denying gospel" (page 39)

Give Us a Hunger.

• Platt prays for a hunger, like that in the Asian group of house-churches, in his church and across USA.
• He describes three encouraging emails; signs of God at work
• He invites us to
• receive the gospel
• recover a passion for God's Word
• discover again the reward of knowing and experiencing Him

Chapter 3
Beginning at the End of Ourselves
The Importance of Relying on God's Power

Platt's introduction to the chapter starts with a seminary graduation in Indonesia. The graduating students had all planted churches in Muslim communities, with at least 30 baptized believers. One testified to how God struck down a witchdoctor who opposed him. Platt's purpose is to challenge us to live in dependence on and desperation for the power of God.

The American dream of success and recognition through hard work has two Subtle Dangers

• the assumption of self-sufficiency ("apart from me you can do nothing")
• the goal of recognition (the goal of the gospel is to magnify God, not me)

In Exalting Our Inability, Platt points out the weird strategy God gave Joshua to conquer Jericho. The outcome brought glory to God, not to man.

According to Dependent on Ourselves or Desperate for His Spirit, American church-growth strategies "require little if any power from God." Creative communication, first-rate facilities, innovative programs and entrepreneurial leadership do the job. But if the Holy Spirit is absent, we're deceiving ourselves.

The book of Acts gives A Different Picture. A small timid group of despised Galileans "joined together constantly in prayer" for God's power. Again and again in the following chapters, God showed His power, "the Lord added to their number daily."

In Superior Power, Platt, as a megachurch pastor, dreams of a church radically trusting in, desperate for, and experiencing God's almighty power, as He transforms and uses ordinary people to make His name great.

Ordinary Christians, Extraordinary God describes how George Muller (1805-1898) founded orphanages, not primarily for the sake of the children, but "that God might be magnified" through His supernatural provision of the needs.

In God Our Father, Platt applies Luke 11:13, "how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him." He's our Comforter, Helper and Guide. He's the source of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Because of the Holy Spirit, "He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."

The concluding section, On Our Knees, is Platt's "So What?" He urges me to

• abandon any notion that "I have what it takes" to accomplish anything of real value
  
• pray desperately, day and night
• for God to show His radical power in and through me
• enabling me to do
• for His glory
• by His power
• what I could never imagine in my own strength
• what I was created for
• what can only be done by the power of His Spirit