Wisdom and the sufficiency of Christ (Proverbs 3.1-12)

preached by Rob Sturdy on June 27th, 2010

My philsophy of ministry (that I stole from Horatius Bonar)

When I first started preaching regularly at Trinity, one of the things I heard from time to time was “why do you preach the Gospel every Sunday? When are we going to move beyond that and get to discipleship?”  I tried from time to time to provide a satisfactory answer and I have long desired to write a small outline about the Gospel and how it fits into our understanding of not only how we become Christians, but how we grow spiritually.  Thankfully, I ran across ch. 10 of Horatius Bonar’s The Everlasting Righteousness, which spells out more clearly than I ever could the philosophy of ministry that we seek to embody at Trinity Church.  Take the time to read the excerpt below.  I’ve linked to the whole book as well as to this crucial chapter below. 

We are justified that we may be holy. The possession of this legal righteousness is the beginning of a holy life. We do not live a holy life in order to be justified; but we are justified that we may live a holy life. That which man calls holiness may be found in almost any circumstances,–of dread, or darkness, or bondage, or self-righteous toil and suffering; but that which God calls holiness can only be developed under conditions of liberty and light, and pardon and peace with God. Forgiveness is the mainspring of holiness. Love, as a motive, is far stronger than law; far more influential than fear of wrath or peril of hell. Terror may make a man crouch like a slave and obey a hard master, lest a worse thing come upon him; but only a sense of forgiving love can bring either heart or conscience into that state in which obedience is either pleasant to the soul or acceptable to God.
False ideas of holiness are common, not only among those who profess false religions, but among those who profess the true. For holiness is a thing of which man by nature has no more idea than a blind man has of the beauty of a flower or the light of the sun. All false religions have had their “holy men,” whose holiness often consisted merely in the amount of pain they could inflict upon their bodies, or of food which they could abstain from, or of hard labor which they could undergo. But with God, a saint or holy man is a very different being. It is in filial, full-hearted love to God that much of true holiness consists. And this cannot even begin to be until the sinner has found forgiveness and tasted liberty, and has confidence towards God. The spirit of holiness is incompatible with the spirit of bondage. There must be the spirit of liberty, the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. When the fountain of holiness begins to well up in the human heart, and to fill the whole being with its transforming, purifying power, “We have known and believed the love that God has to us” (1 John 4:16) is the first note of the holy song, which, commenced on earth, is to be perpetuated through eternity.
We are bought with a price, that we may be new creatures in Christ Jesus. We are forgiven, that we may be like Him who forgives us. We are set at liberty and brought out of prison, that we may be holy. The free, boundless love of God, pouring itself into us, expands and elevates our whole being; and we serve Him, not in order to win His favour, but because we have already won it in simply believing His record concerning His Son. If the root is holy, so are the branches. We have become connected with the holy root, and by the necessity of this connection are made holy too.
Forgiveness relaxes no law, nor interferes with the highest justice. Human pardons may often do so: God’s pardons never.
Forgiveness doubles all our bonds to a holy life; only they are no longer bonds of iron, but of gold. It takes off the heavy yoke, in order to give us the light and easy.
The love of God to us, and our love to God, work together for producing holiness in us. Terror accomplishes no real obedience. Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness. Only the certainty of love, forgiving love, can do this. It is this certainty that melts the heart, dissolves our chains, disburdens our shoulders, so that we stand erect, and makes us to run in the way of the divine commandments.
Condemnation is that which binds sin and us together. Forgiveness looses this fearful tie, and separates us from sin. The power of condemnation which the law possesses is that which makes it so strong and terrible. Cancel this power, and the liberated spirit rises into the region of love, and in that region finds both will and strength for the keeping of the law,–a law which is at once old and new: old as to substance (“Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart”); new as to mode and motive. “The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus bath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2); that is, The law of the life-giving spirit which we have in Christ Jesus has severed the condemning connection of that law which leads only to sin and death. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh (i.e. unable to carry out its commandments in our old nature), God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” (Rom 8:3,4).
The removal of condemnation is the dissolution of legal bondage, and of that awful pressure upon the conscience which at once enslaved and irritated; disenabling as well as disinclining us from all obedience; making holiness both distasteful and dreadful, to be submitted to only through fear of future woe.
Sin, when unforgiven, oppresses the conscience and tyrannizes over the sinner. Sin forgiven in an unrighteous way, would be but a slight and uncertain as well as imperfect relief. Sin righteously and judicially forgiven, loses its dominion. The conscience rises up from its long oppression, and expands into joyous liberty. Our whole being becomes bright and buoyant under the benign influence of this forgiving love of God. “The winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come” (Song 2:11,12).
Condemnation is the dark cloud that obscures our heavens. Forgiveness is the sunshine dissolving the cloud, and by its brilliance making all good things to grow and ripen in us.
Condemnation makes sin strike its roots deeper and deeper. No amount of terror can extirpate evil. No fear of wrath can make us holy. No gloomy uncertainty as to God’s favour can subdue one lust, or correct our crookedness of will. But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin, and withers all its branches. The “no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” is the only effectual remedy for the deadly disease of an alienated heart and stubborn will.
The want of forgiveness, or uncertainty as to it, are barriers in the way of the removal of the heart’s deep enmity to a righteous God. For enmity will only give way to love; and no suspense, however terrible, will overcome the stout-hearted rebelliousness of man. Threats do not conquer hearts; nor does austerity win either confidence or affection. They who would trust to law to awaken trust, know nothing either of law or love; nor do they understand how the suspicions of the human heart are to be removed, and its confidence won. The knowledge of God simply as Judge or Lawgiver will be of no power to attract, of no avail to remove distrust and dread.
But the message, “God is love,” is like the sun bursting through the clouds of a long tempest. The good news, “Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins,” is like the opening of the prisoner’s dungeon-gate. Bondage departs, and liberty comes. Suspicion is gone, and the heart is won. “Perfect love has cast out fear.” We hasten to the embrace of Him who loved us; we hate that which has estranged us; we put away all that caused the distance between us and Him; we long to be like one so perfect, and to partake of His holiness. To be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), once so distasteful, is henceforth most grateful and pleasant; and nothing seems now so desirable as to escape the corruptions that are in the world through lust.

Read the whole thing here

Read the book here

It’s done

“… the secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”

– Kevin DeYoung, DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed

An Account of the Life and Persecutions of John Bunyan

This great Puritan was born the same year that the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth. His home was Elstow, near Bedford, in England. His father was a tinker and he was brought up to the same trade. He was a lively, likeable boy with a serious and almost morbid side to his nature. All during his young manhood he was repenting for the vices of his youth and yet he had never been either a drunkard or immoral. The particular acts that troubled his conscience were dancing, ringing the church bells, and playing cat. It was while playing the latter game one day that “a voice did suddenly dart from Heaven into my soul, which said, ‘Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to Heaven, or have thy sins and go to Hell?'” At about this time he overheard three or four poor women in Bedford talking, as they sat at the door in the sun. “Their talk was about the new birth, the work of God in the hearts. They were far above my reach.”

Owen made easy

Disciples

Some people claim that we can be Christians without necessarily becoming disciples. I wonder, then, why the last thing Jesus told us was to go into the world, making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that He commanded? You’ll notice that he didn’t add, ‘But, hey, if that’s too much to ask, tell them to just become Christians–you know, the people who get to heaven without having to commit to anything.’

-Francis Chan, Crazy Love

Refreshing

Some-days things seem off or unfulfilled.

Open your Bible and let the refreshment of a Holy God overwhelm you.

J.C. Ryle: How laxity in doctrine damages the church

Thanks to Bruce Geary for passing this along

“I cannot withhold my conviction that the professing church of the ninetheenth century is as much damaged by laxity and indistinctness about matters of doctrine within as it is by sceptics and unbelievers without. Myraids of professing Christians nowadays seem utterly unable to distinguish things that differ. Like people afflicted with colour blindness, they are incapable of discerning what is true and what is false, what is sound and what is unsound. If a preacher of religion is only clever and eloquent and earnest, they appear to think he is all right, however strange and  heterogeneous his sermons may be. They are destitute of spiritual sense, apparently, and cannot detect error. Popery or Protestantism, an atonement or no atonement, a personal Holy Ghost or no Holy Ghost, future punishment or no future punishment, high church or low church or broad church, Trinitarianism, Arianism, or Unitarianism, nothing comes amis to them: they can swallow all, if they cannot digest it! Carried away by a fancied liberality and charity, they seem to think everybody is right and nobody is wrong, every clergyman is sound and none are unsound, everyone is going to be saved and nobody is going to be lost. Their religion is made up of negatives; and the only positive thing about them is that they dislike distinctness and think all extreme and decided and positive views are very naughty and very wrong! ”
 
JC Ryle Holiness

The Lord’s Supper: from the Jesus Storybook Bible

The JSB's story about the Lord's Supper

 

Buy the Jesus Storybook Bible here

Hearts Aflame: Reformed Piety

by Philip Ryken

Calvinism is well known and widely respected for its theology. But can we say the same thing about its piety?

It is sometimes said that Calvinists do not make very good Christians. According to one critic: “Nothing will foster pride and indifference as will an affection for Calvinism. Nothing will destroy holiness and spirituality as an attachment to Calvinism. The doctrines of Calvinism will deaden and kill anything: prayer, faith, zeal, holiness.”

Perhaps it is true that some people who call themselves Calvinists are not very good Christians — the “frozen chosen,” they are sometimes called. But if they are not very good Christians, then they must not be very good Calvinists either, because a true understanding of Reformed theology results in a vibrant Christian experience that is full of spiritual vitality. Far from hindering warm personal piety, the doctrines of grace help cause it to flourish.

read the rest here

Salvation is a gift, a free Gift

there are two men seeking food and shelter. One has money and wishes to be treated in accordance with his means. They both ask for something to eat, but the second man is poor and does not have a penny, so he begs for alms. They both have something in common, for they both seek food, but the first has money with which to satisfy his host. Thus, after eating and drinking well and being courteously entertained, the host, for his part, will be happy to receive his payment, no longer thinking that his guest is in any way indebted to him. Why? Well, he has been satisfied and has even gained from it. But the life of the poor man who asks for alms depends upon the one who can provide him with food and shelter, for he can give him nothing in return. In the same way, if we seek to be justified by the law we must deserve that justification; for then God will receive from us and we from him in a reciprocal manner. Is such a thing possible?

Not at all,…. We must, therefore, conclude that we cannot obtain righteousness by the law, and that if we believe we can make God our debtor, we will only provoke his wrath. The only option is to come as poor beggars, that we may be justified by faith. Not as if faith were a virtue proceeding from us, but we must come humbly, confessing that we cannot obtain salvation except as a free gift.

John Calvin, Justification is by Grace Alone – Galatians 2:15-16

The Jesus Story Book Bible: A first look

My dad was a pretty well travelled businessman.  He was frequently out of town, working hard all (literally)  over the world.  One of the things he would do when he went out of town was get me some small present that he picked up on his travels.  Though I don’t go out of town nearly as much as my dad, I have picked up the habit of grabing my son David a little gift when ever I do have to go out of town.  My wife and I spent this past weekend in Charleston, attending the New Wine conference at St. Andrew’s Mount Pleasant (fantastic!) as well as getting some much needed one on one husband and wife time.  We left David in Myrtle with his godparents. On the way home we stopped at Barnes and Noble and were pleased to see that they carried the Jesus Story Book Bible.  Having received many good recommendations about this children’s Bible, I sat down and read a few of the stories and quickly determined to purchase it for David.  Let me just say before we get too far along, I’m very excited about this book, not only for David but also for myself and Stephanie.  As Dr. Tim Keller has said, “I would urge not just families with young children to get this book, but every Christian.”  This may sound like a bit of an exageration, but having read through it I must agree.  This is a great book for kids, but I’m ready to go ahead and go out on a limb, adults should purchase this book.  Seminarians should purchase this book.  Pastors should purchase this book.  And yes, it’s just a children’s Bible.  So what makes it so good?

The full title of the book is The Jesus Story Book Bible: every story whispers his name.  Many Christians have a difficult time connecting the Old Testament with the New Testament.  Like many children’s bibles, the The Jesus Story Book Bible covers the major episodes of the Old Testament.  However, unlike many children’s bibles, The Jesus Storybook Bible links every story in the Old Testament to Jesus, and applies the Gospel to every story in both the Old and New Testaments as part of the lesson.  For example, below is a caption from the creation story in Genesis.

 

God looked at everything he had made, "Perfect!" he said. And it was. But all the stars and the mountains and oceans and galaxies and everything were nothing compared to how much God loved his children. He would move heaven and earth to be near them. Always. Whatever happened. Whatever it cost him, he would always love them. And so it was that the wonderful love story began...

 

This is the Jesus Story Book Bible’s version of the creation.  Note how this Bible is preparing us for the fall as well as for our redemption.  “God loved his children,” the story reads, “Whatever happened.  Whatever it cost him, he would always love them.” Just as the cover advertises, ever story whispers his name, and this Bible is very good at whispering the name of Jesus in ever story, as well as his highlighting his marvelous and merciful work on the cross.  This will not only help children connect the dots between the O.T. and the N.T., but I think it would be a great help to adults.

It might surprise you to hear me say again that I think adults should purchase this book for themselves.  Let me give two examples.  A good friend of mine, and fabulous preacher, Hamilton Smith, has already confessed to using some of the points made in The Jesus Story Book Bible in his sermon prep.  And before you pick on Hamilton for using a children’s bible for sermon prep, consider that the famous preacher and author, Timothy Keller, uses the story of Abraham and Isaac from The Jesus Story Book Bible almost word for word in a conference message about the church engaging postmoderns.  That’s how good this children’s bible is.

It’s not just the content that impresses me.  I consider the artwork to be outstanding and highly engaging.  David loves it, but so do I.  Below are some of my favorite pics from this little book. (problems loading, will post later)

 

from the JSB's creation storyThe JSB's story about incarnation of the Son of GodThe JSB's story about the Lord's Supper

 

 

The JSB's story about incarnation of the Son of GodThe JSB's story about the Lord's Supper

 

You were on the cross

Dangerous Book

“Have you ever heard of anyone in history being imprisoned or executed for distributing copies of Grimm’s fairy tales?  What would you say if you’d heard that copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey had been banned in Saudi Arabia and North Korea?  Imagine people trying to smuggle copies of Hans Christian Andersen’s works into China?  Such ideas are comical, but the Bible, which has been called a mere collection of myths and fairy tales, has suffered all of these fates.  Throughout history and even today, copies of the Bible are banned and burned, and those possessing it are persecuted and imprisoned.  There’s something about this ancient book that threatens and frightens those in power, especially those who use power to oppress people weaker than themselves.  And they have every reason to be frightened.”

Eric Metaxas, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about God (Colorado Springs, 2005), page 155.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

He gives life

“The Lord Jesus came into this world not primarily to say something, not even to be something, but to do something; He came not merely to lead men through His example out into a ‘larger life,’ but to give life, through His death and resurrection, to those who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

—J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith? (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 113