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Responding To A Consuming Fire

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My sermon from 9/2/12AM entitled Consuming Fire from Hebrews 12:25-29 is online.  The sermon showed how we respond to a revelation of an awesome God (His being a consuming fire).  Specifically, we need listening ears (25-27) and worshipping lives (28-29) to respond rightly to Him.  I hope the sermon was encouraging and if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, check it out.  Enjoy this Labor Day Weekend.

Weekend Recap – 2 Ways To Relate To God

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My sermon from 8/26/12AM entitled Relating To God from Hebrews 12:18-24 is now online.  The sermon exposed the ways we try to relate to God but, in the end, showed that only relating to God through Christ is the path that allows us to face God, the judge of all, with confidence.  Jesus’ blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.  This also was an amazing lead in to the Lord’s Supper and Jesus’ blood of the covenant.  It was an amazing Lord’s Day.

The morning, coupled with Jerry Bridges’ chapter “I am a new creation” (Who Am I? chapter 5) helped show the glorious realities that are ours in the Gospel.  I hope you had a great Lord’s day reveling in truths like these.

Weekend Recap – 8/12/12

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We enjoyed a great Lord’s Day yesterday.  For me personally, it was great to get back into the pulpit and, specifically, return to the book of Hebrews to find strength for enduring.  My sermon, Father’s Discipline, from Hebrews 12:5-11 helped orient us to God the Father’s love and care for His children.  God helps us endure by training us to run and encouraging us to be holy and bear fruit that is honoring to Him.

Also, before I preached, we saw a video as Arwen and TJ sang “The Prodigal.”  Here’s that video:

In the evening, we met in small groups.  My group worked through Chapter 4 of Jerry Bridges’ book Who Am I on the appropriate subject: “I am an adopted son of God.”

All in all, we had an amazing Lord’s day.  I hope you were blessed through it.

Archibald G. Brown on the Gospel

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“The Gospel is a fact, therefore, tell it simply; it is a joyful fact, therefore tell it cheerfully; it is an entrusted fact, therefore tell it faithfully; it is a fact of infinite moment, therefore tell it earnestly; it is a fact about a Person, therefore preach Christ.”  – Archibald G. Brown, successor to Charles Spurgeon

(quoted on p.70 in Iain Murray’s biography of Archibald G. Brown)

Weekend Recap – Faith’s Actions/Moses

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My 6/3/12AM sermon entitled Faith’s Actions from Hebrews 11:23-28 is online.  This sermon looked at the recap of Moses’ life in the book of Hebrews and helped us see how his faith related to action (informed by the Gospel, of course).  One big thing I was driving at in the sermon was how many of us think that faith doesn’t require action, which is good if we’re talking about entering into a relationship with God.  However, long term sanctification and growth occurs out of faith-filled action, evidencing what we really believe.  In this sermon, I was driving at how being saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone produces a faith that is not alone, but filled with God-glorifying, Gospel-provoked action.

I hope it benefitted you and you had an enjoyable Lord’s Day standing in awe of God and His amazing mercy towards you.

Weekend Recap – Finite, Focused Faith

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My sermon from 5/27/12AM is online.  It was entitled Faith for the Finite and Focused from Hebrews 11:20-22.  It looked at Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and helped us see how they exhibited faith at the end of their lives in blessing their children.  So, faith was exhibited by finite men, who were given a window of time to honor God, but were frail and dying.  And, their faith was focused on future, unseen, promised realities from God Himself.  That’s the forward focus.

The main application I have for my own life is to realize that I want this short life God has given me to count as a life of faith.  Today, will you pray for me in this regard and look at your own life, seeing if you’re building your “house” on the rock of who God is or on the sand of this world.

Have a great week.

Faith for Finite and Focused…

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This coming Sunday, as we gather for Memorial Day weekend, we will be looking at Hebrews 11:20-22 and three patriarchs on their deathbed.  This reminds us that we are finite as well.  Further, each of these men were focused on future things they couldn’t yet see.  Most notable of these is Joseph, who moved to Egypt at the age of 17 and was so throughly acquainted with God’s promises that when he died at the age of 110 (still in Egypt) he gave instructions about his bones to be returned to the Promised Land, because he saw the reality that God’s promise was.

As people of faith who have been given a few years to live for God’s glory, does a future focus define our reality?  Are we gripped by the promises of the Gospel in such a way that they inform our living.  Come this Sunday as we seek to flesh these realities out.

Weekend Recap – Trusting God In The Impossible…

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My sermon from 5/6/12AM is online.  The sermon was entitled Faith Trusts God In The Impossible from Hebrews 11:11-12.  The sermon unpacked the second big foundational, formational event of Abraham’s life (last week’s being the call to move to a land God would show him and this week focused on the barrenness of Sarah and God’s promise of offspring).  God overcame an impossible situation (as we humans see it at least) to keep His promise to Abraham.  Both Abraham and Sarah believed God in the midst of this and, as Romans 4:19-22 points out, it was credited to them as righteousness.  The righteous truly live by faith.

I hope people who heard this message found their faith inspired to trust God in the midst of their impossible situations of life.  Let’s be characterized by having faith in God.

Hope Against Hope or…

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Faith Trusts God in the Impossible or at least that’s what Hebrews 11:11-12 would have us understand.  This coming Lord’s Day, we will be looking at this passage and the faith that Sarah exhibited and God rewarded (He is a rewarder, after all, of those who believe that He is and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him).  Here’s how Ligon Duncan explains the thrust of this week’s passage:

We’re told [in this passage] that Sarah by faith become the mother of the faithful.  What that passage is saying is Sarah’s saving faith was the instrument by which the line of promise was continued.  That promise would ultimately lead to the Lord Jesus Christ.  But she believed even though physically there was no argumentation as to whether she would be able to have a child.  Humanly speaking, this was hope against hope.  But again, God’s Word came and said that through Sarah, Abram would have descendants whose numbers would be innumerable.  So Abram’s wife believed.  Here again she had to trust in something that she did not live to see.  The author [of Hebrews] continually points us to the future hope which is ours.

There are times when we have to weigh what God has said against what we can see with our eyes.  Faith is letting God’s promise hold weight.  We live in light of that.  Hope this helps you thirst for more of God in His Word.  Join us this Sunday.

Gospel-Centered Spiritual Formation

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Being devoted to centering my life in the Gospel and seeking to be defined by nothing less has been an amazing journey for me over the past few years.  It probably began when I became a Senior Pastor, preaching each week, trying to shepherd a hurting church through some difficult days and I kept coming back to the message of first importance.  I attended the first Together For the Gospel in 2006 and something resonated with me.  It was at this point I set out to preach through Mark’s Gospel, then Colossians and am currently in Hebrews.  Through these expositions, I’ve come to love and appreciate the core truth of my faith, the Gospel, more than ever.  Whether it’s the pure words of Jesus explaining who He is and what He came to do or the Apostle Paul demonstrating how Jesus’ supremacy looms large in all of life or the writer of Hebrews showing that in all the Bible there is none quite as majestic as the Divine Son, Jesus has become the point of my preaching and ministry.

In light of this truth, I often press home the fact that God’s not impressed with our religious devotion.  It’s not our practice of spiritual disciplines that determines our spiritual status, that is reserved for the Gospel alone.  I’ve been really helped in recent days, then, by Tim Brister (there might not be a more Gospel-centered writer on in the internet) and his musings on Gospel-Centered Spiritual Formation.

Here’s the graphic he’s posted to whet your appetite:

This understanding flows from Triperspectivalism (the three fold offices of Christ, prophet, priest and king). So far, the posts include:
I dare you, therefore, to wade out into the Gospel and watch it fire your devotion to our God Himself.