Perez Prado - Guaglione (1958)

Just for the sheer fun of it ...

Sunday Sermon: What Jesus did next ... (1)

So, we didn't get very far yesterday in our introduction to the Book of Acts, too much else going on!  But we'll pick up the thread again next time.  You can listen to the sermon below, or download it here.

Sunday Sermon: Gospel Shaped Community 04

 

You can listen below, or download here.

When the truth is lost

Alec Motyer:

"In Romans 1:18-32 we have a profound diagnosis of the world and its need. We note how the stress falls throughout on knowledge and truth (v's: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, 32) so that it becomes plain that in all the main areas of life - philosophy (v18-21), religion (v25) and ethics (v28) - man has gone astray because the truth has been lost:  it has been stifled (v18), ignored (v21), changed (v25), limited (v28) and discounted (v32)."
In his foreword to Haddon Robinson's Expository Preaching (p.ix).

Imitate their faith - not their style

George Beverly Shea, longtime singer at the Billy Graham crusades, has just gone to glory. Below, Ray Ortlund helpfully reflects on his legacy of faith, service and commitment to the Lord.

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.  Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”  Hebrews 13:7

"It doesn’t say, “Imitate their style,” but “Imitate their faith.”  George Beverly Shea was a man of profound faith in Christ.  He put the Lord first.  That was a personally costly thing for him to do.  But he did it, by faith.  And he moved thousands, even millions, of others to put the Lord first, by their own faith.  His singing moved people to tears, showing them Jesus in his grace and glory.

"One of the sins of our generation is treating both preaching and music as a “gig,” as a platform for self-display, as a way of getting ahead.  Do we want those who follow us to imitate that?  Where would that take us, in another two or three generations?

"As I watch Mr. Shea singing in this video, it seems to me that this is what it means to sing in the Holy Spirit.  He is utterly sincere, wholehearted, all-out for the glory of Christ alone.  I find this very moving.

"Where are the men and women today who will remember selfless leaders like George Beverly Shea, who spoke (or sang) to us the priceless word of God?  Where are the men and women who will consider the outcome of this older, humbler way of Christian life and service?  Where are the new leaders now who will, in their own style, imitate this powerful faith that puts Jesus first, whatever the cost?

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold

I’d rather be His than have riches untold

I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands

I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand

I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause

I'd rather be faithful to His dear cause

I’d rather have Jesus than worldwide fame

I’d rather be true to His holy name

Than to be the king of a vast domain

And be held in sin’s dread sway

I’d rather have Jesus than anything

This world affords today

"A faith worth imitating!"

Sunday Sermon: Gospel shaped community 03

You can listen below, or download here.

My Peace I leave with you, but not as the world gives...

HT: BW

It's a painful truth, but we all want to be the King of the Jungle, the Master of the Universe, and the Captain of our souls. We want the world, and everyone in it, to revolve around us. We want peace on our terms, but it will never come.

Jesus said: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27

True peace in life is found in submitting our lives to Christ, not in trying to be our own gods (Genesis 3). Jesus' peace comes, not despite of the horror of the cross, but because of His victory won on the cross over our sinful rebellion and self-assertion. 
It's the only way.

Fiddling while life ebbs away

HT: VitZ

Spurgeon: I preached my own experience

One Sabbath morning, I preached from the text, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” and though I did not say so, yet I preached my own experience. I heard my own chains clank while I tried to preach to my fellow-prisoners in the dark; but I could not tell why I was brought into such an awful horror of darkness, for which I condemned myself. 

On the following Monday evening, a man came to see me who bore all the marks of despair upon his countenance. His hair seemed to stand up right, and his eyes were ready to start from their sockets. He said to me, after a little parleying, “I never before, in my life, heard any man speak who seemed to know my heart. Mine is a terrible case; but on Sunday morning you painted me to the life, and preached as if you had been inside my soul.” 

By God’s grace I saved that man from suicide, and led him into gospel light and liberty; but I know I could not have done it if I had not myself been confined in the dungeon in which he lay. 

I tell you the story, brethren, because you sometimes may not understand your own experience, and the perfect people may condemn you for having it; but what know they of God’s servants? You and I have to suffer much for the sake of the people of our charge. . .  
You may be in Egyptian darkness, and you may wonder why such a horror chills your marrow; but you may be altogether in the pursuit of your calling, and be led of the Spirit to a position of sympathy with desponding minds. (An All Round Ministry, 221–222)
HT: Zach Nielsen

God on the Cross? "That's the God for me!"

Consideration of Jesus' death saved John Stott from atheism ...

"I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. 
The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the Cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of this world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from the thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered into our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us."
~ John Stott
HT: Dennis Griffiths

Shakespeare for Dummies?

For those beginning to cram for your English exams, you may find the following aide memoire somewhat helpful ...

Original found here.