July 10, 2013 was the 504th anniversary of John Calvin's birth.

Many Christians are perplexed (understatement!) at how Calvinism / Reformed theology can result in a vibrant engagement in evangelism and missions.

A brief review... the acronym TULIP is sometimes used as a brief summary of Calvinism/ Reformed theology. I realize there's much more to it than this, but here goes:

1. TOTAL DEPRAVITY
2. UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION
3. LIMITED ATONEMENT
4. IRRESISTIBLE GRACE
5. PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS

(Please see here for more on TULIP.)

In April, between bronchitis and a sinus infection, I was privileged to attend the Ekballo Midwest Conference in DeKalb, Illinois. The organization To Every Tribe (http://www.toeverytribe.com/) is grounded in Reformed doctrine (see here for more on their vision, mission, distinctives and core values). There are plenty of Christian conferences out there, but this one caught my eye in particular as I noticed that the first conference talk was on prayer. (If you're been reading my blog here, you know that has been something God has laid on my heart over the past few years. (For more about that, please see my posts Naphtali News: the Ministry of the Word & Prayer (the second portion) and Silent Night - Not! ~ "Prayer also will be made for Him continually" ... day and night.)

The Ekballo Conference was one of the most Christ-centered and God-glorifying gatherings of believers I've ever been a part of; that's why I said I was privileged to be there. The conference name Ekballo is taken from the Greek word for "send out" in Matthew 9:38:

35  And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38  therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

1544 ekballo ek-bal'-lo from 1537 and 906; to eject (literally or figuratively):--bring forth, cast (forth, out), drive (out), expel, leave, pluck (pull, take, thrust) out, put forth (out), send away (forth, out) ~ from Strong's Concordance.


Over the next few days, Lord willing, I'm hoping to post the three plenary talks (audio only available) from the conference:

Scott Anderson -Friday, April 19 - Ekballo Plenary Session 1
Ekballo: The Essential Nature of Prayer in the Gospel Mission
http://youtu.be/fuA3p5X32sE

David Sitton - Saturday, April 20 - Ekballo Plenary Session 2
Ekballo: Propel the Church, Harvest the Nations

Dalton Thomas - Saturday, April 20 - Ekballo Plenary Session 3
Ekballo: Martyrdom and the Eternal Purpose of the Church

If you are a Christian, I ask that you would make the time to listen to all of these messages. I pray God would give each one of us a holy, glorious ambition for lives –– that we might not settle for and waste our lives on shoddy, cheap ambitions. May God conform us into Jesus' image:  transforming our hearts to that of Jesus' compassionate heart, and transforming our desires to His desires; that we might not be lukewarm and lethargic about the great commission, but rather we might press on to take hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of us, not loitering –– but having a single-eyed passion to press on for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus –– that we might be made willing in the day of His power (Psalm 110:3) and present ourselves to Him as holy sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2), ready to be used however and wherever God desires in His mission of taking the Good News of great joy to all the people groups of the world for the sake of His name ... far as the curse is found ... that ALL the earth might be filled with knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea ... that ALL the peoples might praise Him! ... According to Joshua Project, there are currently 7,183 unreached groups, with a total of 2.9 billion souls ... So long as Jesus tarries, still there is room at His table, my brothers and sisters –– room for more souls to come and feast along with us on the Lord Jesus Christ!

You Will Know the Truth and the Truth Will Set You Free from Desiring God on Vimeo.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/you-will-know-the-truth-and-the-truth-will-set-you-free

(Excerpt taken from the printed sermon text found at the link above...)

My aim in this message is that you would experience Jesus, the sovereign, risen, living Lord of the universe, as the source and content of real freedom in your life.

For this to happen, we need two things: We need God's liberating truth and we need God's liberating grace. Which means I need to preach God's word, and pray for God's power.

So let's read the Bible passage that I will speak from, and then I will pray. John 8:30–36:

As he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Lord, open our eyes to your liberating truth—to yourself—and powerfully grant us to be set free from our bondage to sin. In Jesus' name, Amen.

. . .

We All Want to Be Free

I take it for a certainty that everyone in this room wants to be free in the deepest, fullest sense. If the opposite is bondage and slavery, no one here wants that. You may be enslaved to some habits that are very pleasurable, and in that sense love your slavery. But when you step back from the pleasures and consider happiness without that slavery, you would like to be done with bondage. You would like to be happy in freedom, not a slave to pleasant addictions. We all want to be free.

And in verse 36 of John 8, Jesus says, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." That is what we are after. "Free indeed." Really free. Freedom in its deepest and fullest meaning. Jesus offers us that this morning. This is Easter. The celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. He is alive. He is not mere memory. A mere historical figure like Caesar or Shakespeare or John Kennedy. He is back from the dead with a new glorious body. He is alive and reigning as the king of the universe, and he is making this offer of real freedom to all of us today.

. . .

What Full Freedom Is

There are at least four kinds of freedom. And each one adds a crucial dimension of freedom to the last until we get to the full freedom—"free indeed." Let me try to sum up these four kinds of freedom in one definition of full and complete freedom: You are fully free—completely free, free indeed—when you have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will make you happy in a thousand years. Or we could say, You are fully free when you have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will leave you no regrets forever.

• If you don't have the desire to do a thing, you are not fully free to do it. Oh, you may muster the will power to do what you don't want to do, but nobody calls that full freedom. It's not the way we want to live. There is a constraint and pressure on us that we don't want.

• And if you have the desire to do something, but no ability to do it, you are not free to do it.

• And if you have the desire and the ability to do something, but no opportunity to do it, you are not free to do it.

• And if you have the desire to do something, and the ability to do it, and the opportunity to do it, but it destroys you in the end, you are not fully free—not free indeed.

To be fully free, we must have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will make us happy forever. No regrets. And only Jesus, the Son of God who died and rose for us, can make that possible. If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. To be happy forever, our sins must be forgiven and God's wrath removed and Christ must become our supreme Treasure. Only Jesus can do that. In fact, he has already done it. He died for our sins. He absorbed God's wrath. And he rose from the dead and is today therefore supremely precious. And he offers us that now as a free gift.

By John Piper. ©2013 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org

Revelation 6:12  When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13  and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14  The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15  Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16  calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17  for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

John 3:36  Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Romans 3:21  But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22  the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24  and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25  whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26  It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Right now God is commanding you to repent and believe, so you might be saved from His just wrath by grace through faith in the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. One day the Lord Jesus Christ will return to judge the living and the dead, and if you have not believed in Him, you will not be hidden from His wrath –– His wrath will remain on you –– and you will not be able to stand before Him, and you will be cast off into eternal punishment and everlasting fire.

Acts 17:29  Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

32  Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” 33  So Paul went out from their midst. 34  But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.