Lecrae has a brand new album out today called Rebel. The title track is inspired by a sermon given at Mars Hill Church by Pastor Mark. You can download it for free here. The Reach records guys have been part of several Resurgence and Mars Hill events, they have a heart to live missional lives for Jesus, and are reaching the hip hop culture.

3 Questions with Lecrae

What was your inspiration for your new album—"Rebel"?

The inspiration for the album was largely realizing my own need for a biblical worldview. As I would navigate through arts, economics, politics, media, and culture as a whole I'd wrestle with a dichotomy between sacred and secular all the time. I'd either embrace aspects of secularism or the other extreme be very separatist in my views. I began read and listen to stuff by D.A. Carson, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller, and Francis Schaeffer, and taking another look at Genesis, Daniel, and Romans and I found a better grid to see the world through.

Over time I've worked to see Urban culture through a biblical lens and it's really helped. So I wanted to share with the listener the need to take a stand for Christ in culture yet still be a blessing and cultivator for the culture.

What songs are you most excited about?

I'm really excited about "Change". The song deals with the endless search for "happiness" on earth. The futility of chasing power, pleasure, and possessions.

Also "Don't Waste Your Life". Very self explanatory. Dr. John Piper's ministry has greatly influenced myself and my crew so we crafted a hip hop song unpacking the life not used for God's glory.

Umm lastly I'd say "Got Paper". In urban culture especially hip hop culture, prosperity is constantly paraded as a badge of authentic masculinity, worth, and power. The prosperity gospel is also prevalent, so I wanted to address that in a song as well.

What ideas do you hope that people will come away with after listening to "Rebel"?

I really hope we can stir people toward going against the sinful stream of ideals, values, and lifestyles. I want the christian to be challenged in seeing that the fall of humanity has not thwarted God's intention for us. But since we are now corrupted by sin, we need to renew our mind. We still reflect God's image only now through a murkier lens, so it's important we learn to rebel by taking a stand for Jesus, and yet rebel by being a blessing to the unsaved and sinful culture. Non-believing listeners I pray will be attracted to the quality of the music and creativity, and prayerfully be challenged to look at God's holiness, repent, and turn to Jesus.

Get the Album on iTunes.

I was recently handed the first shipped copy of Death by Love, the newest book by Dr. Gerry Breshears and myself. We are both very excited about this book that is for sale everywhere starting September 30.

Unlike Vintage Jesus, it does not have comedy and is pure, unadulterated, intense, Jesus-centered, sin-confronting, raw, and real gospel theology. The look by the guys at Portland Studios is unreal and unparalleled. I do think, without shameless self-promoting, that it is a timely book with essential truth in a creative format. I explain the book in greater detail in this video:

Read the first part of this series here.

Amazing Mom

Grace is an amazing mom to our five children. She works incredibly hard, never complains, and has sacrificed a great deal over the years for me, our children, and our ministry. She feels the pain of my critics and gets furious when people assume they know me but have no idea since they see me for an hour a week on the stage and have no clue who I am or what I am like the rest of my life with her and the kids. She’s had people pretend to be her friend just to try and get into our life because they want power, influence, and/or employment. She’s been cussed out by complete strangers for decisions the elders made that she had nothing to do with. She’s had to deal with people showing up at our home demanding our time and even threatening our family. She’s had to share me with the world and weep many times when I catch a flight. She’s had to serve ungrateful people who took so much of her time and energy that I became frustrated only to then receive even more demands and threats of anger or manipulative guilt if she did not continue to do what they wanted when they wanted how they wanted.
Through it all she’s learned to be my friend. Grace is the one person I know will be with me in forty years. And I will still close my eyes every day and think about holding her hand then too.

Grace is not like me.

I can be brash, intense, overbearing, ill-worded, and the like. She is patient, loves to counsel people, has hope for everyone, and serves anyone. I learn a lot from her example, and praise God I have gotten to grow up with her through high school, conversion, and college, all the way from our teens to our thirties.

This Sunday I will share her with Mars Hill Church and those who tune in online. When I preach the story of the Peasant Princess from the Song of Songs, I will be teaching from a series of love letters between a husband and wife. As we do often at Mars Hill, we will open up some time for live text-message questions from our campuses and, following the sermon, Grace and I will try our best to answer them so as to be of service. To be honest, I’m a bit anxious. I’ve preached live to crowds of ten thousand people without even getting a bit nervous and could literally take a nap before getting up to preach. But the thought of having the person I love, cherish, and care for the most with me makes me anxious. I am Grace’s defender and protector and friend. I know that her role will be misunderstood by some, and her answers picked through by critics who have made it their life mission to act like Judas in the name of Jesus. So, before I share my Grace with you, I wanted you to pray for a few things, if you would.

Prayers

1. Pray that people understand that she’s not preaching but rather practicing Titus 2 by coming in to answer women’s questions about marriage and sexuality that frankly I have no wisdom on as a man.
2. Pray that she and I do a good job threading the needle when answering the questions.
3. Pray that we can help the people in our church because we love them and have given our entire life to them.
4. Pray that people will understand that she is not an employee of the church, does not lead anything at the church, and as a mom with five young children is focused on her family in this season of life and cannot meet with all the women and deal with all the issues that some will want her to.
5. Pray that she and I will see more of our future through this process. Grace wants to work alongside of me in ministry for the rest of our lives and we’re wondering if, one day when our kids are grown and we’re in a different season of life, she should be teaching women and encouraging pastors’ wives, as that is her heart.
6. Pray that I honor her well publicly as I should.
7. Pray that I can get her to laugh loudly a few times from the stage because it’s awesome.

1. Have a good Bible.

Every Christian needs a good Bible that they can easily read and enjoy. A translation such as the English Standard Version (ESV), the ESV Study Bible is very well done, or the New International Version (NIV) is preferable as your primary reading Bible, although there are many other translations that are also quite good (e.g., New King James Version, New American Standard Version).

2. Have some good Christian books.

If you want to build a reference library, the first book you should buy is A Commentary and Reference Survey by John Glynn by John Glynn. That book will tell you which other books are the best resources available for in-depth Christian study and anyone who is serious about studying should have a copy of this book.

3. Have some good (free) online study resources.

There are many great websites that can help you do Bible word studies and such for free. Good examples include the following, with the first one built and run by Mars Hill elder, Zack Hubert:

ReGreek specializes in word studies from the Bible 's original languages.
Crosswalk has many translations and Bible study tools.
Bible Gateway has many translations and Bible study tools.
CCEL has most of the major works from Christian history for free and a “Study Bible” feature that pulls up historical church commentary on specified verses.
E Sword has numerous Bible study tools.

4. Have some good Bible software.

If you can afford it, Bible study software provides some amazing resources and companies like Logos Bible Software are worth considering.

5. Have some good websites.

There are many great resources available for free on the web with articles, books, blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, and MP3s. The following are some recommendations:

Desiring God is the website featuring a large repository of sermons and articles from my friend, Dr. John Piper.
Covenant Seminary has a “Free Downloads” link on their front page that will enable you to listen to hundreds of hours of their class lectures on many areas of Christian study. I am grateful to my friends at Covenant who have given the church such a gracious gift.
Mars Hill Church is where hundreds of hours of my teaching is available for free and has been the number one podcast on iTunes for religion and spirituality.
carm has good articles on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
equip.org has good articles, book reviews, and more, on cults, world religions, and apologetical issues.
www.christianitytoday.com/historyhas some great articles on Christian history and biography.
www.monergism.com has an almost overwhelming number of free articles on nearly every theological issue from a Reformed perspective.

6. Have some good community.

Most of the Bible was written to communities of people and is therefore best studied in community with other Christians. For this reason, getting plugged into a Community Group and/or taking midweek classes in addition to regularly attending a Sunday church service is essential.
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If you have any comments- feel free to go over the the Resurgence Facebook Page and start a new discussion topic.

In this video Tim Keller is explaining the main ideas of his book, "The Reason for God" at the Google campus in Mountain View, California. Tim is someone who can calmly and knowledgeably share the Gospel with even the smartest most skeptical people.

I was inspired to share this with you because of a conversation I had with two very intelligent non-Christian men about God. They ask me about my Bible when I was sitting in a Starbucks, and it set off an hour long conversation about why Jesus is the world's only hope. Thankfully from listening and reading the teaching of wise Christian men, like Keller and Francis Schaeffer, I was able to answer most of their questions about God. Listen to this talk and read his book—it will be worth it.