My family and I leave today to join Colonial Student Ministries at Teen Valley Ranch Christian Camp & Retreat Center for the week (June 25-29). Colonial’s Pastor of Student Ministries, Jason Wredberg, invited me to come and speak five times on gospel-centered living to approximately 250 senior high teens. My sermon titles are:

Session One: The Gospel of God
Session Two: The Story of the Gospel (Matthew 1-4)
Session Three: Living in the Story of the Gospel (Romans 1:16)
Session Four: Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves (Psalm 103)
Session Five: The Gospel: Coming Full Circle

I really like what Colonial Student Ministries is trying to do with this group of young adults. You can get an idea of what they are all about by reading this article (Justification of Gospel Centeredness) by Colonial’s Director of Student Community, Nik Lingle.

If you think about it, please pray for me as I seek to faithfully preach the gospel to this group and to myself throughout the week.

Our family’s life is closing one chapter and entering a new one. Our time at BBC has been wonderful. There aren’t many things as exciting as college ministry. I absolutely love teaching the Bible to and interacting with college students. It’s been a great privilege to teach students who are hungry for the gospel. Their thirst for God in Christ by the Spirit has been a constant source of encouragement. They have stirred me up to love and good works over the past three years more than they know. So, to all those who have had me in class I say thank you. Your faith in Christ and love for me and your fellow students has been a joy to experience and observe.

God also gave me some great friendships and acquaintances with colleagues. I have very high regard for those with whom I have served. Their commitment to serving God within this academic context is very evident to me. God has given me some very good friends here. BBC has been a great “chapter” in the unfolding story of my family’s life.

So what am I going to do in this new chapter? I hope to be able to announce what I’ll be doing sometime in July. Let me just say at this point that it’s something we’re very passionate about…. (sorry to leave you hanging)

DJ Chuang has written an excellent post about looking to great preachers like Tim Keller to provide us with the “spiritual breakthrough” for which, it seems to me, Christians are too often desperate. The danger is, I believe, that we unintentionally exchange Tim Keller’s preaching of the gospel (or whoever’s) for the gospel itself, that is, we unwittingly exchange the insightful, penetrating preaching of Keller for the actual historical achievement of God in Jesus. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who appreciates Tim Keller’s preaching more than I do, but we’re not justified, sanctified, or glorified by the preaching of Keller or any other man no matter how insightful it may be. It’s not the preaching of Piper or Keller or whoever that is the power of God unto salvation. It’s the gospel alone that is the power of God to justify, sanctify, and glorify us. Now I realize that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). So I’m not trying to minimize the importance of preaching at all. The preaching of the gospel is essential, but it’s not the preachingthat saves us. It’s the preaching of the gospel.

One of the dangers of hearing preachers of great giftedness is that we are tempted to equate the experience of being intellectually stimilated by their sermons with spiritual transformation itself. It’s really just a different strain of the problem Paul addresses in the first several verses of 1 Corinthians 13 (”If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love…”), namely, equating spiritual giftedness with true spirituality.

Anyway, let me encourage to read Chuang’s post (as well as Keller’s response in the comment section). It really connected with me because I’m tempted to do the same thing with preachers, like Keller and Piper, whom I really admire.

Here’s the post: Even Keller can’t break through