Piper: "I want you to come starved to get God!"

So, why do you come to church?  Do you come primarily to give to God?  Do you come out of a sense of duty? Or ...might there be another reason?  In a recent sermon, John Piper offers his own perspective...

HT: Tony Reinke (Desiring God)

Compassion fatigue anyone?

Written a long time ago, in fact decades before the appearance of pandemic wall-to-wall, 24 hour  news coverage, this piece from the wise old head that was CS Lewis, is a helpful counter to the 'guilt' we often sense when overwhelmed with both an awareness of growing global needs (spiritual and physical) and our lack of resources to meet to rise to the challenge of such needs.  Lewis seems to be saying, if I understand him properly, that we respond to such needs by simply lovingly doing what God providentially enables us to do. He does not expect us to carry the crushing weight of the burdens of the world on our shoulders.  In faith, we leave that with Him... and then get on with life.  
Thanks for this Dane.  

Lewis, 1946 letter-- 

It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. (This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know.)

A great many people (not you) do now seem to think that the mere state of being worried is in itself meritorious. I don't think it is. We must, if it so happens, give our lives for others: but even while we're doing it, I think we're meant to enjoy Our Lord and, in Him, our friends, our food, our sleep, our jokes, and the birds' song and the frosty sunrise. 

--The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2 (ed. Walter Hooper; HarperCollins, 2004), 747-48; emphases original

Scotty Smith's prayer for wisdom and peace when making big decisions

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all. James 1:5
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Prov. 3:5-6
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Col. 3:15
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31
For this is the will of God, your sanctification. 1 Thess. 4:3

     Dear heavenly Father, you number our hairs and determine days; you hang the stars and feed the sparrows; you open doors no one can shut and shut doors no one can open. Surely, we can trust you when the time comes for making big decisions, or for that matter, any decisions. I’m in just such a season again, Father, and I know I’m not alone. We will trust you for generous wisdom, straight paths and peaceful hearts, all for your glory.
     How we praise you for being the decision-making-God. It’s not our decisions, but yours that make all the difference. We will plan, but we trust you to order our steps. We will pray, but ask you to fix our prayers en route to heaven. We will seek counsel, but count on you to overrule faulty or incomplete input from our most trusted friends and mentors. We will search the Scriptures, but not looking for proof texts but for you, Father. All we want and need is you.
     Free us from the paralysis of analysis—wanting make the right decision, more than we want to be righteous people; wanting to be known as wise people, more than we want to know you. Free us from the idolatry of assuming there’s only one “perfect” choice in any given situation. Free us from making decisions primary for our comfort and other’s approval, or fear their disapproval. Free us to know that good choices don’t always lead to the easiest outcomes, especially at first. Free us from second and twenty-second guessing our decisions.
     Father, no matter if it’s wisdom about buying or selling, vocation or vacation, this place or that place, this person or that person, we know that in ALL things, your will is our sanctification—our becoming more and more like Jesus. Give us this passion; make it our delight.
     So, Father, make us more and more like Jesus, even as we trust you for the opening and closing of doors that are in front of us. All for your glory—in our eating and drinking; and in our whatever’s, whenever’s and wherever’s. So very Amen we pray, in the name of our reigning King, Jesus.
HT: Scotty Smith's daily prayer blog

Sunday Sermon: When God seals the deal (Genesis 15)

Outline of this morning's sermon ...

Ok, so we didn't get as far this morning as this outline might suggest!  One point done, two more to come.  This morning's thoughts will be uploaded soon.
Update:  so we eventually finished.  Both sermons can be heard here.  In addition to commentaries and other books consulted, I deeply acknowledge my indebtedness for these ideas to the musings of Gilbert Lennox, Geoff Bradford and Tim Keller.

Coming to Christ - leaving our badness and goodness

Some helpful insights from Dane Ortlund as to the paradox of sinful behaviours that are rooted in each of our hearts:

. . . the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--among whom we all once lived [anestraphemen pote] in the passions of our flesh . . . (Eph. 2:2-3)
For you have heard of my former life [anastrophen pote] in Judaism . . . I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I . . . (Gal. 1:13-14) 

These are the only two places where Paul uses these two words together. Anastrepho: Conduct, walking, living. And pote: former, once, at that time.In Ephesians 2, he speaks of his former conduct as immorality. In Galatians 1, he speaks of his former conduct as morality. Rule-breaking, rule-keeping. Which was it?

Both. And not swiveling from one to the other--rather, at the same time. His Jewish zeal was wicked. His goodness was bad. In coming to Christ, we leave behind both our bad and our good. We don't leave badness and come to goodness. 'Goodness,' if considered strictly as conforming to a norm, may be done in pure evil, utter Self. We leave both our badness and our goodness and come to Christ. Being good can be just as resistant to the gospel as being bad, the only difference being that goodness doesn't know it's resisting the gospel.

Jesus: "If anyone would come after me ..."

“Consider Christ. He was of a meek and quiet spirit, and of a most long-suffering behaviour…He was very much the object of bitter contempt and reproach, and slights and despised as a of but little account. Though he was the Lord of glory, yet he was set at naught, and rejected…He was the object of the spit and malice and bitter reviling of the very ones he came to save…He was called a deceiver of people, and oftentimes he was said to be mad, and possessed with the devil…He was charged with being a wicked blasphemer, and one that deserved death on that account. They hated him with morbid hatred, and wished he was dead, and from time to time tried to murder him…His life was an annoyance to them, and they hated him so they could not bear that he should live… Yet Christ meekly bored all these injuries without resentment or one word of reproach, and with heavenly quietness of spirit pass through them all…On the contrary, he prayed for his murderers, that they might be forgiven, even when they were nailing him to the cross; and not only prayed for them, but pleaded in their behalf with His Father, that they knew not what they did.”  

(Jonathan Edwards, Charity and its Fruits, 1738)

HT: Graced Again

Passing on what is of first importance: an explanation of the Gospel

Gospel means “good news.” The good news is: you are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe yet you can be more accepted and loved than you ever dared hope at the same time because Jesus Christ lived and died in your place. As the apostle Paul said, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

That is the simple formulation of the gospel. More thoroughly we could say that the whole Bible is the gospel. It is a book about the God who rescues people from their moral and spiritual rebellion against him. The teaching of the Bible, the gospel, can be summarized under four heads: God, Man, Jesus Christ, and Our Response.

Firstly, the gospel teaches that God is our creator. Thus he has the right to rule and command us as he does in his law. God is also holy, that is, he is absolutely pure morally, and he hates and punishes rebellion on the part of his creatures. He is more holy than anyone would ever imagine.

Secondly, the gospel teaches us about human beings. We are creatures made by God and for God. We were originally created to live in relationship with God and we were morally pure. But because our first parents rebelled against God (just as we also all have done), human beings are now cut off from relationship with God and are subject to his condemnation. We are more sinful than we ever dared believe.

Thirdly, the gospel teaches us what Jesus Christ has done for sinners like us. He became a man and lived a life of perfect obedience to God’s law, and then died as a sacrifice in our place under the judgment of God. He was raised from the dead and now reigns in heaven. The condemnation that he suffered takes away the necessity that we suffer judgment for our own sins- “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.” The righteous life he lived is credited to us, not because we are actually righteous, but because of God’s mercy and grace- “in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Fourthly, the gospel teaches us how to respond to the good news. We turn away from our rebellion and put our trust in Jesus Christ. Despairing of our own worthiness to stand before God, we believe the promise that those who trust in Jesus Christ will be forgiven and declared righteous. Those who put their faith in Jesus Christ are accepted as loved sons and daughters of God, and God sends his Spirit to live in them.

Counterfeit Gospels

Martin Luther said that a sinner trying to believe the gospel was like a drunk man trying to ride a horse; he will always be falling off on one side or the other. The two errors that the sides of the horse represent are 1) legalism or moralism and 2) pragmatism or relativism or antinomianism.

Moralism is the view that a person is made acceptable to God through his own attainments. Moralists are usually very religious, and often very conservative in their religion. Legalism tends to stress truth without grace. Moralists are usually very rules oriented, and depending on their success in keeping the rules they will be either arrogantly self-righteous or depressed and morose. If they go to Jesus for forgiveness, it is just to ask him to fill in the gaps they have left in their own religious performance. For the moralist, the cross is not the only basis for acceptance by God, but is an adjunct to our performance.

Pragmatists are often irreligious, or prefer more liberal religion. They tend to stress grace over truth, assuming everyone is accepted by God and that we each have to decide what we think is true for us. Often relativists will talk about God’s love, but since they do not see them selves as deeply sinful people, God’s love for them costs him nothing. For them the cross is not the necessary condition of our acceptance by God.

The gospel holds out to us a whole new system of approach to God. It rejects our attempts to justify ourselves before God, to be our own saviors and lords. It rejects both our pragmatic presumption and our religious attempts to earn our way into God’s favor. It destroys the perception that Christianity is just an invitation to become more religious. The gospel will not let us think Jesus is just a coach to help us get stronger where we are weak. To be a Christian is to turn from self-justification of all sorts and to rely exclusively on Jesus’ record for a relationship with God.

Christians and non-Christians both stumble over the two counterfeits of the gospel. Many Churches are deeply moralistic or deeply relativistic. Christians who understand the gospel very clearly still look like the drunk man on the horse, as the desire to justify ourselves and trust in our own performance continually reappears.

The gospel tells the pragmatist that he is more flawed and sinful than he ever dared believe. The gospel tells the moralist that he is more loved and accepted than he ever dared hope.
HT:  Dennis Griffith (with echoes from Tim Keller)

Sinclair Ferguson: the most alarming weakness in church - prayer

Sinclair Ferguson has recently been outlining what he considers to be some of the weakness in today's church life.  The following are his comments on a general dearth of vibrant, Spirit-empowered prayer ...

Again there is the lack of prayer and of the Church praying. This is to me the most alarming, for this reason: we have built apparently strong, large, successful, active churches. But many of our churches never meet as a congregation for prayer. I mean never! What does that indicate we are saying about the life of the Church as a fellowship? By contrast, the mark of a truly apostolic spirit in the church is that that we give ourselves to prayer and the Word together (Acts 6:4). No wonder “the Word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied” (Acts 6:7). If this is so, it should not surprise us that while many churches see growth, it is often simply reconfiguration of numbers, not of conversion. I greatly wish that our churches would learn to keep the main things central, that we would learn to be true Churches, vibrant fellowships of prayer, Gospel ministry and teaching, genuine mutual love. At the end of the day, such a Church simply needs to “be” for visitors who come to sense that this is a new order of reality altogether and are drawn to Christ.

HT Thabiti Anyabwile

Unbelief: selectively accepting reality

I don't know if Bill Watterson , creator of Calvin and Hobbes, is a Christian or not, but he is certainly insightful in exposing the workings of the unbelieving, reality denying human 'heart' from a Gospel worldview perspective.  See Romans 1: 18-21. 

Yes!

G'dnight y'all!