Hallelujah, All I Have Is Christ

Hebrews 4:14-16

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Hallelujah, Jesus is my life.

Joy

"My sin in the past: forgiven. My current struggles: covered. My future failures: paid in full all by the marvelous, infinite, matchless grace found in the atoning work of the cross of Jesus Christ."


Chandler, Explicit Gospel. p.15

Wonderful Reminders

John Newton:

"My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things--

That I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior."

Forever Forgiven

From Sam Storms' meditations on Colossians, The Hope of Glory...#20, p.72...

"God has taken your sin and placed it out of sight behind his back. All he sees now when he sees you is the blessed righteousness of his own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the love of forgiveness.

Still not good enough? Still not convinced? Still afraid that your sins will do you in? Then pay close attention to the word of the prophet Micah...He has something important to say about the kind of God we have:

 "Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea" (Mic. 7:18-19).

How much more graphic do you demand God to be before you enter into the joy of his forgiving love? All vestige of condemning guilt is gone. Again, "just as God said he put our sins behind his back, so here he says he will hurl them into the depths of the sea. They will not 'fall overboard' ; God will hurl them into the depths. he wants them to be lost forever, because he has fully dealt with them in his Son, Jesus Christ."

Jesus: The End to Anxiety

Calvin famously assessed the nature of our human hearts by noting they are "factories of idols." Idolatry is essentially believing in other things to save us, and a functional disbelief in Jesus' salvific accomplishment at the cross. With this disbelief in Christ comes and overwhelming sense of anxiety. Transitively, one could then say, the human heart is a factory of anxiety--functional disbelief.

This manifests itself in so many ways. Those daily, repetitive, pestering questions of the sin-sick soul--"Am I good enough? How do I measure up to everyone around me? What do people think of me? Where the heck is my life going right now? What does the future hold? When am I going to meet the woman/man I will eventually marry? Am I being a good husband? Father? Wife? Mother? Where is my ministry going? Will it be successful? How will my finances ever work themselves out? Am I OK? 

Endless. Tiresome. Frenetic. On edge. Restless. Weary. Frustrated.

The festering angst of our souls finds storm quelling rest and peace in 2 Cor. 1:20 

"For all the promises of God find their Yes in him."

No matter what our past, present, or future holds, we have the approval from the only source that matters. In Jesus, we already have whatever we think we need to be OK. All of our life questions become of little significance in comparison to the soul-satisfying Yes we have in Jesus.

Augustine's Prayer

"O God, command what you will, and grant what you command"

Galatians 2:11-16

"For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I id not receive it from any man, nor was I thought it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me..."


No explanation needed.

Paul's Confidence

Throughout my life with Jesus so far, a particular passage in scripture has really captured my attention. I always find myself coming back to it, never really diving deeply into it--not attempting to exegetically or hermeneutically disassemble it and make sense of it--I have more so just observed it from afar, as I would a potentially dangerous animal I'm unfamiliar with.

It wasn't until a week ago that I made any progress with this particular passage--nothing groundbreaking, you'll learn exponentially more from Doug Moo's commentary, but regardless, it struck me.

Romans 3:10-18: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.


I've always taken this passage and held it up as my mirror to look into, frightened by my reflection. That's the thorough description of Erik Most's depravity. It wasn't until I took my eyes off myself, looked through a broader scope, and realized that this is also the depravity of humanity as a whole...including the one writing the epistle, Paul.

 It seems as if Paul wants to make his point here very clear. He's not saying "you guys are pretty bad, but I'm alright." In the first 2 verses, 11 and 12, Paul uses words to reference the complete failure of all people 8 times. Surely he knows he's lumping himself into this group.

Why would Paul say such a thing about himself?! How could he! Especially in a culture that held the law in the highest regard! How could Paul say that in the midst of a culture that endlessly perpetuated the notion that righteousness is humanly resourced?

Well, If we keep reading through Romans 3, it is evidently clear that Paul has full confidence in an external righteousness. An alien righteousness. Paul can own his depravity with full confidence! "Yep! That's me! I'm the chief of sinners!" He can do this because he's insanely secure in the righteousness of Christ. To the degree that he expounds on his depravity, is to the degree that he is fully relying on the redemption that is in Christ, despite his depravity.

In the same way, lets not kid ourselves. We are not the people who our idolatrous, sinful hearts project us to be. We don't have it together. We're not sweet theologians. We're not awesome super Christians.  In thinking we are and we do these things, we unknowingly shackle ourselves to our own agenda and forfeit the reckless freedom we have in Christ.

So lets own Romans 3:11-18, because in doing so, we then cast ourselves on the resplendent majesty of Christ's righteousness. We are freed, like Paul, to stop trying to earn, deserve, and project. Were freed  to living with reckless abandonment knowing we are secure in the righteousness of another, Jesus.

Edwards on the Loveliness of Heaven

Per Kevin Deyoung

The Apostle tells us that God is love, 1 John 4:8. And therefore seeing he is an infinite Being, it follows that he is an infinite fountain of love, Seeing he is an all-sufficient Being, it follows that he is a full and overflowing and an inexhaustible fountain of love. Seeing he is an unchangeable and eternal Being, he is an unchangeable and eternal source of love. There even in heaven dwells that God from whom every stream of holy love, yea, every drop that is or ever was proceeds.

There dwells Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the Prince of peace and love, who so loved the world that he shed his blood, and poured out his soul unto death for it. There dwells the Mediator, by whom all God’s love is expressed to the saints, by whom the fruits of it have been purchased, and through whom they are communicated, and through whom love is imparted to the hearts of all the church. There Christ dwells in both his natures, his human and divine, sitting with the Father in the same throne.

There in heaven this fountain of love, this eternal three in one, is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it. There this glorious God is manifested and shines forth in full glory, in beams of love; there the fountain overflows in streams and rivers of love and delight, enough for all to drink at, and to swim in, yea, so as to overflow the world as it were with a deluge of love. (The Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, 245)

Not Past The Gospel, but Deeper Into The Gospel

My Heart Is Filled with Thankfulness

Came across this in church this morning. Peace to my soul.

Col 2:6-7 - "Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done."


My heart is filled with thankfulness to him who bore my pain; who plumbed the depths of my disgrace and gave me life again; who crushed my curse of sinfulness, and clothed me in his light, and wrote his law of righteousness with pow'r upon my heart

My heart is filled with thankfulness to him who walks beside; who floods my weaknesses with strength and causes fear to fly; whose every promise is enough for every step I take; sustaining me with arms of love and crowning me with grace.

My heart is filled with thankfulness to him who reigns above; whose wisdom is my perfect peace, whose every thought is love. For every day I have on earth is given by the King. So I will give my life, my all, to love and follow him.

Gateway Gospel vs. Pathway Gospel

The gospel is not something that merely "gets us into Christianity" and then is to be forgotten as we graduate on to self resourced "sanctification." That's just not it. The gospel is both the ignition to and the fuel for the Christian life. In a recent sermon Dane Ortlund made this very clear by focusing on the "gateway gospel" versus the "pathway gospel." Here are some gospel soaked excerpts...

"The gateway gospel forgives your past sins and sets you on a new road of doing more and more for Jesus. The pathway gospel forgives your past, present, and future sins and sets you on a new road enjoying more and more what Jesus has done for you."

"The gateway gospel draws you to the idea of forgiveness. The pathway gospel draws you to the person of Jesus."

"The gateway gospel is a march. The pathway gospel is a dance."

"The gateway gospel was at work in us believers. The pathway gospel is at work in us believers."

 

 

Be Strong, For I Will...

In Haggai's command to Zerubbabel, Joshua, and the people of God to rebuild the temple, we see holy orders fastened, guided, and supported by a holy God

Haggai 2:1-9

 In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, "Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, 'Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, declares the Lord. Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake the nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.'"

So, we see the Lord saying by the hand of Haggai to

1. "Be strong"
2. "Work"
3. "Fear not"

Yet these are not just strict orders to be followed blindly. We are to work hard, but with sweet, sweet assurances.

1. "I am with you"
2. "According to the covenant" 
3. "I will give"

Life seems like the impossible task of rebuilding a broken, shattered templed with limited resources. Constantly attempting to repair a life with sinful minds and hearts which all too easily flee to the seemingly sweet pleasures of idolatry is a recipe that stirs the idolatrous cauldron of spiritual depression, anxiety, restless hearts, restless minds, restless bodies, and misguided affections.

Yet, where our sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. We are to work, for He is with us. According to the covenant fulfilled by Jesus Christ, with the freely given gift of salvation.

Re-read just the bold parts of the passage.

And he will, and he will, and he will give peace.

Keller, Generous Justice

"For indeed, grace is the key to it all. It is not our lavish good deeds that procure salvation, but God's lavish love and mercy...It is the generosity of God, the freeness of his salvation, that lays the foundation for the society of justice for all."

Generous Justice p. 40