From the 2008 Acts 29 Chicago Boot Camp. “Mark Dever serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC and the president of 9Marks Ministries.”

Listen to the talk here

Notes (very rough)

“Our differences are enough to separate some of my friends—your brothers and sisters in Christ—from you. And perhaps to separate them from me, now that I’m publicly speaking to you. And I don’t want to minimize either the sincerity or the seriousness of some of their concerns (things like: humor, worldliness, pragmatism, authority).

But I perceive some things in common which outweigh our differences—which the Lord Jesus shall soon enough compose between us, either by our maturing, or by His bringing us home. I long to work with those, and count it a privilege to work with those whom My Savior has purchased with His blood, and with whom I share the gospel of Jesus Christ. I perceive that we have in common the knowledge that God is glorified in sinners being reconciled to Him through Christ. This is not taught by other religions, nor clearly by the ancient Christian churches of the East, or by Rome, by liberal Protestant churches, by Mormons, the churches of Christ, or by groups of self-righteous, legalistic, moralistic Christians. And not only do we together affirm the exclusivity of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone—we agree on the sovereignty of God in life and salvation, the regenerate nature of church members, the importance of church membership and discipline, the baptism of believers alone, the priorities of expositional preaching, and evangelism, the importance of authority and a growing appreciation for the significance of complementarianism. These are not slight matters. And they only fire my desire to encourage you and cheer you on, until you cross that finish line that the Lord lays down for us.”

1. Individual Evangelism (Evangelize yourself and teach others to evangelize)

• Churches begin by people sharing the Gospel (Romans 10)
• 1 Peter 3
• Evangelism is the job of ALL CHRISTIANS
• It is assumed in the NT that Christians evangelize
• Why is the persecution in the NT?
  • Because people are being verbal about their life being changed
• Love others as yourself
  • Implicit demand to share the Gospel of Jesus
• Encourage individual evangelism by teaching the Gospel
• During CHBC Membership process, ask “In 60 seconds or less, share the good news of Jesus Christ”
  • Hear them articulate their hope
  • Then help them to clarify how they can articulate and understanding the gospel
• Hardware the Gospel in your church
• Clarify and not confuse the Gospel
  • The Gospel vs. the implications of the Gospel
• Model evangelism for your congregation
• Teach them the Gospel from every part of scripture
• Evangelism is less something you have to strategize and more something that easily flows from you
  

2. Individual Demonstration (Backup your words with your life)

• My life should backup my words (1 Peter 12)
• Our lives have to be different than others
• We must be willing to build and break relationships for the Gospel
• Don’t let your life obscure the Gospel by your actions
• Have your life help explain the Gospel
• This takes time
• As a church grows, it is more difficult to have relationships with non-Christians
• Ask God to lead you to strategic non-Christian relationships
• Check your church calendar to enable congregation to have non-Christian relationships

3. Definition of a Church (Understand what a church is what it is designed to be about)

• Right preaching of the Word of God
• Right administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper
• The Word of God creates, the church holds it up for display through sacraments
• That collection of people who are hearing the word of God, responding to it in their lives, and responding to it through obedience in baptism and the Lord’s Supper
• The faith that we preach is demonstrated through the life of the Church
• The church is Jesus’ evangelism plan
  

4. Centrality of Proclamation (Preach evangelistically)

• What we need in our churches is Gospel-centered preaching
• Include evangelism in how you think about exposition
• Don’t give an exposition without giving people an opportunity to respond to the Gospel
• Imperative verbs of the Bible != moralism
  • They are part of God’s word to us
  • 1 Corinthians 2
• Preach together the Moral Imperatives and the Gospel
• Every sermon equips your congregation for evangelism

5. Our Corporate Witness (Realize that your congregation’s life together makes the audible words visible)

• Not just church planting, but church reform
• Bad churches are not neutral
• They will know we are Christians by our mutual love for one another
• The depth of the church will affect the reach of the church
• There is power in the Gospel
• That which distinguishes us from non-Christians makes us provocative
• Any contextualism which obscures the ascent of the Gospel fails
• We must be clear about the Gospel
• The Gospel enflames the non-Christian to live truly “humanly”
• Paul’s concern that “The Church manifest and display the glory of God”
• God is praised and honored by our actions as we display His character in our lives
• If Jesus is the image of the invisible God, how do we see Him today?
• The point of the incarnation is not solely the physical
• God is made most visible in the lives lived out in the local church

• Keep things off the staff
  • Lay organization
  • Don’t let the church become a cluttered attic with unused programs
• See the Gospel in every text
  • That will enable you to preach the Gospel in every sermon

From The Resurgence 2008 Text and Context Conference

From The Resurgence 2008 Text and Context Conference

(Notes are my own, so forgive any sloppiness)

As presented by C. J. Mahaney at The Resurgence 2008 Text and Context Conference

(the notes are my own, so please forgive any sloppiness or incompleteness)

1 Corinthians 1:1-9 

¹Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes,

 ²To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

 ³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

 ⁴I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, ⁵that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— ⁶even as⁾ the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— ⁷so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁸ who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Hidden in Plain Site

A compelling example of Cross-centered Pastoral Ministry
Corinthians Church was a piece of work

• Seduced by human wisdom
• Drifted from centrality of cross
• Didn’t want to be distinctive from culture
• Desired approval of wealthy and powerful
• Division within church – 4 factions
• Sexual immorality (Ch 5)
• Lawsuit happy church (Ch 6)
• Desecrating Lord’s Supper (Ch 11)
• 1 Cor 11 “I have no praise for you for your meetings do more harm than good”
• Opposition to Paul

Yet still, Paul says “I give thanks to my God always for you” (1 Cor 1:4)

• Paul’s extraordinary gratefulness and thankfulness for the church
• Attitude and Affection are sustained by a divine perspective of the Corinthian church

You must have a divine perspective for your church

Is our perspective the same as Paul’s divine perspective?

The Divine perspective of the Corinthiand Church is evident in

1.    Paul’s Understanding of the Call of God

1.  
   1. Paul is called to be apostle (v1)
      
   2. Church is called to be set apart (v2)
      
   3. They are called into the fellowship of His Son (v9)
   • Accent Divine Intiative