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Gospel-Centered?

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C.J. quotes Spurgeon, who said this…

“Dear friends I am going to preach to you again upon the cornerstone of the gospel. How many times will this make, I wonder? The doctrine of Christ crucified is always with me. As the Romans sentinel in Pompeii stood to his post even when the city was destroyed, so do I…every thing else can wait, but this one truth must be proclaimed with a voice of thunder. Others may preach as they will but as for this pulpit it shall always resound with the substitutions of the Christ…Our blessed Savior would have us hold his death in great reverence; it is to be our chief memory we cannot think of that death too often.”

This is where we are headed again this weekend. We will be exploring the themes of the Gospel in Jesus’ Roman trial. I think Spurgeon is onto something here: our Savior would have us hold His death in great reverence and we can never exhaust the thought that we could give towards it. Therefore join me this Sunday as we come to awe and wonder again at the incredible Gospel of Jesus Christ. Prepare your heart as we enjoy the Lord’s Supper as well.

A confession of deeply felt reality…

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Reading through Herman Bavinck’s Reasonable Faith, I came across the following quote, which helped me realize something about doctrine. Here’s the quote:

This declaration of faith on the part of the church is not a scientific doctrine, nor a form of unity that is being repeated, but is rather a confession of a deeply felt reality, and of a conviction of reality that has come up out of the experiences of life. The prophets and the apostles, and the saints generally who appear before us in the Old and New Testament and later in the church of Christ, did not sit and philosophize about God in abstract concepts, but rather confessed what God meant to them and what they owed to Him in all circumstances of life. God was for them not at all a cold concept, which they then proceeded rationally to analyze, but He was a living, personal force, a reality infinitely more real that the world around them. Indeed, he was to them the one, eternal, worshipful Being. They reckoned with their lives, they lived in His tent, walked as if always before His face, served Him in His courts, and worshipped Him in His sanctuary. (p.25)

Too many theological discussions today forget that we are dealing with a real Being. We must reckon ourselves accordingly to God Himself. It is easy to treat God, as Bavinck says, as a cold concept to analyze rather than a living personal force, a reality more real that the world around us. Amazing! Hope you are encouraged today to draw near to this real One.

New Hillsong United…

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Some of my favorite Christian music is produced by Hillsong United. I love the way they combine subjective expression with truth and longing to glorify God. Their music is typically energetic, passionate and leads me to glorify God. Therefore, when I heard their new album, A_Cross // The_Earth: Tear Down The Walls, was released today in the US (they are based in Australia), I was (to use an 80’s phrase) stoked. Here’s a link to the album in Amazon, which allows you to listen to many fo the tracks. Enjoy.

Longing for Jesus’ Reign…

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I feel like Spurgeon, who in this letter to his father from September 19, 1850 said:

Yes, where Jesus comes, He comes to reign: how I wish He would reign more in my heart; then I might hope that every atom of self, self-confidence, and self-righteousness, would be quite swept out of my soul. I am sure I long for the time when all evil affections, corrupt desires, and rebellious, doubting thoughts shall be overcome, and completely crushed beneath the Prince’s feet, and my whole soul be made pure and holy. But so long as I am engaged within this house of clay, I know they will lurk about, and I must have hard fighting through the victory by grace is sure. Praying is the best fighting; nothing else will keep them down.
– Spurgeon’s Autobiography (Volume 1, p.189)

I read this and felt like it was another restatement of what we looked at this morning and thought you might enjoy it.

Put It To Death!

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Today’s sermon is now online. In it, we look at Peter’s denial from Mark 14:66-72. Gotten some good feedback and how this made our battle with sin and temptation come alive, so thanks for that. Some might wonder about that quote from Sinclair Ferguson on killing sin I alluded to in discussing the way sin seeks to master us from Genesis 4:6-7. You can find the quote here. Hope you have a good week fighting sin and temptation to the glory of God.

Assessing Reality…

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In my sermon intro this Sunday, I will be quoting a blog post by Paul Tripp (which ended up in his book Whiter Than Snow). Here’s how it begins…

Sin lives in a costume, that’s why it’s so hard to recognize. The fact that sin looks so good is one of the things that make it so bad. In order for it to do its evil work, it must present itself as something that is anything but evil. Life in a fallen world is like attending the ultimate masquerade party. Impatient yelling wears the costume of a zeal for truth. Prevented lust masquerades as a love for beauty. Gossip does its evil work by living in the costume of concern and prayer. Craving for power and control wears the mask of biblical leadership. Fear of man gets dressed up as a servant heart. The pride of always being right masquerades as a love for biblical wisdom. Evil simply doesn’t present itself as evil, that is part of its draw.

You’ll never understand sin’s slight of hand until you acknowledge that the DNA of sin is deception. Now what this means personally is that as sinners we are all very committed and gifted self-swindlers. I say all the time to people that no one is more influential in their own lives than they are because no one talks to themselves more than they do. We’re all too skilled at looking at our own wrong and seeing good. We’re all much better at seeing the sin, weakness, and failure of others than we are our own. We’re all very good at being intolerant of others of the very things that we willingly tolerate in ourselves. The bottom line is that sin causes us to not hear or see ourselves with accuracy. And we not only tend to be blind, but to compound matters, we tend to be blind to our blindness. (also found on p.32 of the book)

As we look at Peter’s Denial this Sunday, it would be easy for us to take a posture of exaltation as we look at the sin found in that story, but I hope this weekend that God can expose us for who we are and we can make headway in aggressively putting sin to death and putting on holiness. Hope to see you there.

Garland on the Rooster’s Crow…

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I really find David Garland’s commentary on Mark helpful. This week, we are looking at Mark 14:66-72 and Peter’s denial. He draws insightful attention to the rebuke that the proudest animal on the farm gave the proudest of the disciples. He writes:

“It is ironic that a rooster, renowned for its foolish pride, reminds Peter of Jesus’ prediction that he would deny him three times (Mark 14:30). The king of the chicken coop rules the roost and struts around, thinking he is king of the world. The rooster fits perfectly Peter’s cocky boastfulness in Mark 14:29, but it is the crowing of the rooster that snaps him to awareness of what he has just done.” (p.567-568)

Garland goes on to show how this is a common Biblical theme, that is, of “so-called lower creation” rebuking human beings (see Balaam’s ass and Jonah’s worm). Is creation rebuking you?

Subordinationism

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Since I’ve been back, some people have been talking (in a helpful way I might add) about the nature of relations in the Trinity. The issue has to do with the subordination of the Son. On the one hand, I think evangelicals must affirm that there is no subordination in terms of being within the Trinity. This was condemned as heresy in 325 A.D. at the council of Nicaea. A helpful summary of this can be found on Wikipedia. This should be distinguished from the eternal subordination of the Son in relation to the Father. This is the function of Jesus. A helpful series of posts highlight this opinion at the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I like how Grudem summarizes it:

The heresy of subordinationism, which holds that the Son is inferior in being to the Father, should be clearly distinguished from the orthodox doctrine that the Son is eternally subordinate to the Father in role or function: without this truth, we would lose the doctrine of the Trinity, for we would not have any eternal personal distinctions between the Father and the Son, and they would not eternally be Father and Son. (p.245, footnote 27)

Hope this helps clear up some confusing (and deep) theological waters.

Back from Vacation…

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Yes, made it back safe and sound. Kind of hit the ground running getting the sermon (of which I had already researched) finally pulled together on Saturday. But thought the sermon Sunday went well. Was nice to be back in the saddle again. Was also nice to be back to the boys (we vacationed without them). Some other highlights included…

Reading books:
Letters Along The Way by Carson and Woodbridge
Comforts from the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick
Spurgeon’s Autobiography
Meg and I enjoyed devotionals from Colossians

Listening to sermons:
I already mentioned how we listened to Humble Pastors by Driscoll. We also listened to C.J. on Parenting and the latest sermon by Chandler

So, we had a great time and fully enjoyed ourselves without regrets.

More Vacation Recap (& Scenery)

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 My last update involved what we did through Monday. We ended up eating at a neat Pizza By the Slice place. It was very good pizza and the pieces were ginormous.

On Tuesday AM, we went to a Tai Chi class, grabbed some lunch, watched a movie at our condo, and then headed out that evening to a covered wagon ride and all you can eat BBQ dinner put on by the activity office of our place. It was a good time. Meg and I laughed a lot. We have a hot tub at our place and have used it a good bit.

Wednesday involved another tennis lesson and then driving to hike. The picture here is one we took at this cool lookout we hiked to. Again, that night we watched a movie and relaxed.

Today (Thursday) we had a really lazy day and haven’t done much. We anticipate leaving in the morning. Just thought some of you might like an update.

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