Recent Messages

By Tony Reinke

C.J.'s most recent messages have been posted online. One is a sermon, the other a conference message to church planters. Both can be found here:

When Someone Doubts (Jude 22)
March 20, 2011
Covenant Fellowship Church (Glen Mills, PA)
Listen here.
Download here.

Profile of a Church Planter (1 Thessalonians 2:1-12)
March 25, 2011
Plant Conference (Glen Mills, PA)
Listen here.
Download here.

In his message to church planters, C.J. quoted two lengthy excerpts that are reproduced here.

Charles Spurgeon (source: sermon no. 2447):

I have always felt, in my own mind, that it was one of the clearest proofs that I had God’s forgiveness of my many sins, when I was trusted to preach the gospel.

I should think that, if a prodigal came back to his father, the old gentleman would kiss him, and receive him, and rejoice greatly over him; but the next Saturday, the market-day, the old gentleman would say, 'I cannot send young William to market; that would be putting temptation in his way. Here, John, you have always been with me; go to market, and buy and sell for me, for all that I have is thine. William, you stay at home with me.' He might not let him see all that he meant, but he would say to himself, 'Dear boy, he is hardly fit for that great trust; I love him, but still I hardly dare trust him as much as that.'

But see what my Lord did with me; when I came home to him as a poor prodigal, he said, 'Here is my gospel, I will entrust you with it; go and preach it.' I bless his name that I have not preached anything else, and I do not mean to begin to do so.

Then the Lord said to me, 'I will trust you with those people at Waterbeach, at New Park Street, at the Surrey Gardens, and at the Tabernacle. Go and see what you can do to bring them to heaven.' I do long to see souls saved as one great result of my ministry. But what an instance of my Lord’s love it is that he thus trusts me!

That was one of the things that made Paul hold up his hands in astonishment; he said that he had been put in trust with the gospel, and he could not make it out. He was a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious, yet he was put in trust with the gospel.

D.A. Carson (source: message, "Is the Culture Shaping Us or Are We Shaping the Culture?"):

If I have learned anything in 35 or 40 years of teaching, it is that students don’t learn everything I teach them. What they learn is what I am excited about, the kinds of things I emphasize again and again and again and again. That had better be the gospel.

If the gospel—even when you are orthodox—becomes something which you primarily assume, but what you are excited about is what you are doing in some sort of social reconstruction, you will be teaching the people that you influence that the gospel really isn’t all that important. You won’t be saying that—you won’t even mean that—but that’s what you will be teaching. And then you are only half a generation away from losing the gospel.

Make sure that in your own practice and excitement, what you talk about, what you think about, what you pray over, what you exude confidence over, joy over, what you are enthusiastic about is Jesus, the gospel, the cross. And out of that framework, by all means, let the transformed life flow.