My Testimony (in 3 minutes)

This is what I read before the church on July 25th when I was baptized.

Hi, my name is Phil Cotnoir, and I was born and grew up in a loving Christian family. As I grew older and continued attending church and youth group, I came to the conclusion that I was a Christian, but just not a very good one. This is because I never read my Bible or prayed by myself at home. It’s not that I hated God or the Bible, I just found video games and sports far more interesting. I see now that my desire to live a good Christian life was not the result of the Holy Spirit moving in my heart, but it was due to the fact that in my family and church social group, that was the expectation. On a purely social level, it was expected and rewarded to act like a Christian, and so I did. It was out of self-interest, not out of my love for God.

As I grew older and went to High School, I began to struggle with and eventually became addicted to pornography. I was truly a slave to this sin, and I continued to be in slavery to it until Jesus – the Son – set me free, and then I became free indeed. But I am getting ahead of myself. This part of my life was hidden. I was one person at church and at home, and quite another at school with my friends, and then quite another still alone in the darkness of my private thoughts and life. It was during this time that I was baptized the first time. I wanted to get baptized because, again, that is what people my age were expected to do, and my brother was getting baptized, so I did too.

Things started to turn around in the Spring of 2003. I was driving home from school, when after a moment of inattention I plowed my car into the back of an SUV, making it roll over three times on the highway. By God’s grace no one was hurt even though both vehicles were totaled. I started to really ask myself if I was sure I was saved. What if I had killed someone? What if I had died? Over the next few months God revealed to me that I was not a true Christian.

On the night of September 21, 2004, God chose to open my eyes. I realized for the first time the depth and weight of my sin, as well as the holiness of God. I knew these things before, but that night they became incredibly real to me. I remember being overwhelmed with how sinful, rebellious, and proud I was – and I knew that if I died in that moment, and stood before God in all of his blazing perfection, I would have nothing to say for myself. All my good works seemed like straw next to the mountain of my guilt – and even my good works had been done for my glory, not God’s. Yet I was a very good person in everyone’s eyes. So if you think your good works will appease God, I feel compelled to tell you that you are incredibly mistaken. Like me, you don’t realize the depth of your sin OR the intensity of God’s holiness.

But as I realized these things, I suddenly felt how desperately I needed a Savior. And that is when I really understood why Jesus had to die on the cross. Nothing short of death was needed to pay for my sins; and nothing short of Christ’s perfect life was needed to clothe me and make me able to stand before God.

Since that night God has radically renovated the inner parts of my life. The next day I remember thinking “So this is what it feels like to ‘walk in the light.’” By God’s grace alone, I have been brought from darkness to light, and from death to life.

For the past 5 years I haven’t been sure whether I should get baptized again or not. But after Pastor John made it abundantly clear at the last baptism that if you came to Christ after you were baptized, that you needed to be baptized again, I decided to go through with it. So that is why I am here. Oddly enough, my Dad also came to know Christ after being baptized, in fact he was already a deacon and treasurer when he was born again. He was baptized a second time as well. I guess it’s something of a family tradition now…

In conclusion, I just want to say: We have such a wonderful, powerful, precious and beautiful Lord and Savior in Jesus Christ. I implore you to put all your hope and trust and faith in Him today.

There is Nothing God Cannot Ask of Us

The moralist and legalist pays his taxes and demands his rights from God. There are certain things God cannot ask of him. The gospel Christian has come to understand he deserves nothing good, and so relinquishes any concept of rights before God. In the gospel, there is nothing God cannot ask of us.

This is why the legalist cannot handle too much suffering. It is essentially a breach of what he thinks is the deal or contract between him and God.

Any insightfulness in these words should be attributed solely to Tim Keller.

Thoughts on Hamilton Impact

This past week, our church was running Hamilton Impact – a one-week intensive Evangelism training program. Three churches in Hamilton partnered together to make it happen: West Highland Baptist Church, Hughson St. Baptist Church, and Lightway Church – which is a plant out of Hughson. These events started in Toronto, and are a partnership between a church and Operation Mobilization, which provides teaching on evangelism and various world religions. For example, this week we studied Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism, and visited a mosque, a Sikh gurdwara, and a Hindu temple. In the evenings the participants go door-to-door in the neighbourhoods around the partner churches and go through a simple survey with people which often leads into spiritual conversations and an opportunity to clearly share the gospel.

I learned a lot this week. First, I learned that door to door evangelism, despite suffering from a major image problem, does work. I was able to clearly share the gospel with quite a number of people that I’ve never met, leave quality literature with them, and have truly meaningful interactions that I would never have had in the normal course of my daily life. We are still compiling statistics, but it was pretty clear that the more affluent and more Canadianized the people were, the less they were open to talking. But thankfully the neighbourhoods around Lightway and Hughson St. are full of an amazing diversity of peoples from literally all over the world. This kind of diversity can be easily found in Toronto, Vancouver, Hamilton, Montreal, and other major gateway cities in Canada. It seems to me that these people are for the most part not on the radar of conventional churches in those cities.

During the week we met people who had Christian neighbours and yet who did not actually know what a Christian Bible was, who Jesus is, or anything else at all about Christianity. And, even more amazingly, they were eager and curious to find out more about this Jesus.

I have read and listened to a lot of pastors and urban church planters in the USA and have actually never heard anyone mention reaching out to Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, or Buddhists. After this week, I’m blown away by that fact. I don’t know the demographics of American cities, but it’s quite possible that they don’t nearly have the immigrant population that we have in Canada. If that’s the case, then we Canadians need to make sure we don’t take all our cues from our American brothers, but that we seek the Lord and develop strategies that are appropriate and effective for our specific context. More and more, I am convinced that the Canadian context demands that churches in the cities be intentionally multi-cultural, and very discerning to avoid causing unnecessary cultural offense. Christians need to be educated about other cultures and other religions, and taught to extend hospitality and love to new Canadians. Instead, I often see fear-mongering and ignorant email chains about how the Muslims are taking over our government and schools. We need to do better than this. As one participant this week commented: ignorance breeds fear and intimidation, but knowledge brings empowerment.

A Dozen Incompatible Philosophies Dancing About Together In Your Head

Uncle Screwtape Trades in Pen & Paper for a ThinkPad

This is why I love C.S. Lewis. He takes what you inherently know to be true and puts it into words. This is just as true today as it has ever been – the reason people believe this rather than that goes far deeper than evidence. Thanks to Michael Krahn for nudging me to read Lewis – I grabbed this off my shelf yesterday and read it at the beach (the wind blew it into the water too… but with minimal damage).

“Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to having a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily “true” or “false,” but as “academic” or “practical,” “outworn” or “contemporary,” “conventional” or “ruthless.” Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong or stark or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

I really see this at work in our day. There are philosophies and ways of thinking that are exciting and new, and the climate and vibe of our culture makes them even more appealing. But the draw is not truthfulness or explanatory power, it is more like some weird alignment with one’s internal compass – it feels right on a deeper level – if that makes any sense.

So my question is: Do you then try to present Christianity fundamentally as true or as more exciting [or whichever desired adjective] than the rest? Or both?

What do you think?

Young Leaders and the Trojan Horse

Like soldiers in the trojan horse, selfish ambition and a desire for glory is often smuggled into a young person’s life through pious expressions like “I want to do something BIG for God!” or even “I want to serve God in ministry.” I’ve had these sinful desires within me revealed recently. It’s led me to think about how common this must be among young Christians, especially aspiring future leaders.

I’ve been trying to unearth some of the roots of this in my own life, and one of the things that blows me away about the apostle Paul is how deeply he identified with Christ. Let me explain. He writes in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” And in Philippians 1:20, “it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” Paul’s personal ambitions seem to have suffered a decisive death-blow: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live.” And in place of his own personal ambitions are what we might call his Christ-ambitions: “I expect and hope that I won’t be ashamed, but that Christ will be honored.”

Paul had such a profound sense of his union with Christ. A sense that I certainly lack. My struggle reveals to me that I have not fully clued into the fact that my personal ambition for ministry success and recognition died with Christ at the moment I was born-again. And I suspect that I am not alone. Jack Miller told a young missionary, “You don’t have anything to prove to us or the world. The work is finished at Calvary, and that work alone has unlimited meaning and value. Keep your focus there” (p.44). But I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of young Christian leaders feel like they do have something to prove.

Tim Keller insightfully points out that for many young pastors, the underlying subtext to their preaching is a desire for affirmation and approval, communicated very subtly in an almost imperceptible nervousness. Behind the words that they are saying, and in their heart, the message is “Do you like me? Do you think I’m a good preacher? Do you think I’m really called to ministry?”

Paul had a deep and humble union with Christ. The interests of Christ are my interests. The sufferings of Christ are my sufferings. The ambitions of Christ in the spread of the gospel for His glory are my ambitions.

Young people like me lack that. A lot of the time my heart sounds more like this: My interests will be furthered by adopting the interests of Christ for a while. My ambitions will be furthered by a willingness to suffer for Christ, if it’s noticed. My ambition for the spread of my name, for admiration and glory will be furthered by a commitment to spreading the gospel in a prominent way. Young people like me are likely tempted to see ministry as the place to distinguish ourselves and make our mark, as opposed to the place to crucify our selfish ambitions in order to further the purpose and message of Christ, who loved us and died for us.

In light of all this, the words of Peter to “young people” at the tail end of his first epistle have hit home like never before.

“Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:5-7

Young man or woman, you and I need to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand like this. We need to daily repent of and put to death our desire for adulation, applause, and recognition, and be “asking the Spirit daily for the faith and humility to do Christ’s work Christ’s way.”

A Tribute to Craig Simmons

A few days ago, a friend of mine named Craig Simmons was hit by a bus while walking home from work in South Korea, where he and his wife Kristin (married less than one year) were teaching English. He was in very critical condition when he arrived at the hospital, with severe damage to the right side of his brain and chest. He seemed to get a little bit better evert day until yesterday, when things took a turn for the worst. His wife Kristin was with him yesterday evening (our time) when he passed away. Kaitlyn and I stood by the edge of lake Erie (which looks like an ocean) yesterday after getting the news and just mourned for our friend and brother and for the young widow that he leaves behind. I am studying Philippians 1 in order to preach from that passage in August, and Philippians 1:21 came to mind: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” I have to believe that it’s true. Yet the pain which surrounds that gain is still real, excruciating, and ugly.

I ask you to hold Kristin and their families up in prayer through this unspeakably difficult time. What a painful and unwelcome reminder of the uncertainty of life, the mystery of God’s providence, and the need to cherish each day as a gift. I think Craig had a good grasp of this. On June 8th, the day before he was hit by that bus – in other words – his last full day of consciousness, he wrote on his facebook: “One of the best days I’ve had.” Thank you, Lord, for giving Craig such a damn good day. And thank you, that every day now for him is a million times better than June 8th, as he is now perfected in grace and beholding Your face.

I don’t really know what else to say right now. I’m weeping as I read what some of the most important people in his live are leaving as final words on his Facebook wall:

Charlie McCordic:

“Craig, we spent so many hours together – in class, my office, at our house, the golf course, and even in Chad. It was a privilege to be your advisor, and even more, to be your friend. You thought I had an influence on you, what a challenge and blessing you were for me! Being in on a wonderful romance, premarital counseling, and then celebrating your wedding was such a joy – those are sweet lifetime memories for us.”

Haniel Davy:

“Looks like we’re gonna have to hold off that celebratory steak for a little while brother… looking forward to the Great Reunion!!”

I had the privilege of seeing Craig grow downward in humility, wisdom, and faith every year that I knew him. He was a raw, joyful, brilliant man; with depth of soul, depth of laughter, and love in his heart for God and those around him. At 26 he was way too young to die.

I’ll just close with some touching words that Denise Spencer wrote about the recent untimely passing of her husband, Michael, who was known by many as iMonk:

In that moment I realized that the hardness of Michael’s death was a reminder that it is not supposed to be this way. Ever read the first three chapters of Genesis? Man was created for life, not death. But we live in a fallen world, and the cherubim still guard the tree of life with white-hot swords. Our only hope is a Redeemer who has conquered death itself and has risen as he said. He will deliver us to a new world, a world where “there shall be no more curse,” for “… on either side of the river [is] the tree of life…”

See you there, buddy.