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Weekend Preview – Protection

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This coming Lord’s Day, we anticipate, Lord willing, gathering together to celebrate the Gospel and, specifically, thinking about Jesus and His Work on the cross. We will have the Lord’s Supper at the conclusion of the service. We will sing songs: Sing to the King, And Can It Be, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, and How Deep the Father’s Love.

For the sermon, I will be preaching from Colossians 2:4-5 on Protection. My intro starts with the history of Protection, KS (of all things), but the focus in the sermon is how God protects us from error. In Colossians 2:4, Paul writes, “I say this…” and of course he is referring to all that he has written in chapters 1-2:3, but specifically, I think, the fact of Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Paul writes to give protection to God’s people and keep them from error. More on that Sunday AM.

Sunday PM, we will gather together in small groups and continue working through our Gospel Centered Life curriculum. We are in chapter 4 for our meeting this Sunday.

Hope you have a refreshing weekend and come ready to worship Jesus.

More Resurrection (Easter) Prep…

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I’ve seen tidbits of information coming out on the resurrection for this Easter already. After my post yesterday, I thought this would be a good follow up.

On a Twitter feed, Jonathan Dobson says, “If u invite people “to church” this Easter, make sure u invite them “into the church” the next week. Share your life not just your pastor.”

Tony Reinke provides some notes and an outline for wading through this Scriptures this season.

If you haven’t read Adrian Warnock’s book Raised with Christ, you are missing some great doctrinal teaching on the resurrection.

If you are more musically inclined, Andrew Peterson has an entire album devoted the the truth of the resurrection.

Take advantage of the gift God has given us in the internet and use these resources to deepen your joy in God as we celebrate the Gospel!

Weekend Recap – 3/21

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Enjoyed a tremendous Lord’s Day yesterday…

In SS, I lead a class through Paul Tripp’s What Did You Expect? Curriculum. We were in Session 8 yesterday which helped wrap up 1 John 4. One line in particular stood out to me: “Our lack of love for others in rooted in identity amnesia” meaning, we’ve forgotten God’s love for us in Christ.

In AM worship, we sang songs of Jesus’ reign and then settled in to Colossians 2:1-3 in a sermon entitled Comfort in Struggle. This sermon really sought to orient us to be a church that encourages one another. Paul sought to encourage the Colossian believer in all that they were facing, and, through his words to them, we can get insight for our lives as well.

In PM worship, we looked at the Flood narrative in our Jesus in the Old Testament series. Specifically, we honed in Genesis 6:5-7:14 with the sermon entitled The Flood: Judgment and Rescue. I was personally affected in holding out God’s punishment for sin (as righteous judgment) and then holding out God’s amazing rescue and how these point to Jesus.

Finally, I concluded the night by leading our Men’s Theological Discussion Group on The Bible: Inerrancy and Authority. We dug into Scripture looking at how God has always been a speaking God, how He inspired Scripture and safeguarded it and finally we discussed issues like the canon and other related things. We read portions of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

While this was a very full day for me, it is productive to see God’s Word impact lives and realize the amazing privilege I have in getting to teach these things to others. There is so much to live based on what I teach and I hope that I can apply these things this week.

Prayer about Ultimate Health Care…

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…from Scotty Smith.

A portion:

Forgive me… when I spend more time being cynical and snide about government, rather than prayerful and engaged with the brokenhearted and the broken-bodied all around me. Health care is a good thing, a gospel thing. You are the Lord who heals (Exodus 15:26). By the wounds of your Son, Jesus, we are healed (Isa 53:5). You give gifts of healings, to and through your people (1 Cor. 12:9). A part of your kingdom agenda is the ultimate health care of the new heaven and new earth, when the leaves of the tree of life will provide healing for the nations (Rev. 22:2). Hasten that Day, Father, please, hasten that Day.

More on Family Worship – Sing!

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In this brief series of posts, I am exploring some resources for family worship, after the compelling weekend our church recently enjoyed with Dr. Don Whitney and his teaching on family worship.

In singing, we ought to have a few goals, I think. On one level, we want to try and sing songs that are related to the truths we are discussing. With my children right now, we studied a story about worshiping God over idols, so we sang My God Is So Big. On Monday night in family worship, we talked about God punishing sin and looked to Jesus. Jesus Loves Me seemed appropriate. So, we want to let God’s Word dictate our singing.

Having said that, though, there ought to be some further goals. We should help our children know deep, rich, God-honoring hymns. I think the story is told of Spurgeon. The story goes something like this: His father offered him a nickel for every Isaac Watts hymn he could memorize. This nearly broke his father, but years later, Spurgeon would confess that he learned his theology from Watts. We ought to make it our aim to expose our children to the amazing hymns that are available to us. Cyberhymnal is an amazing resource to this end.

There are also some contemporary music possibilities like Seeds Family Worship, which seeks to help children remember God’s Word in musical formats. Sovereign Grace Ministries has done 2 kids projects: To Be Like Jesus and Awesome God. Our church usually does a VBS that has music as well. These are all possibilities for training children to make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Let’s worship God in our families by reading God’s Word, praying and SINGING!