Strengthened by grace

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  2 Timothy 2:1

“First, then, there is a call to be strong.  Timothy was weak; Timothy was timid.  Yet he was called to a position of leadership in the church – and in an area in which Paul’s authority was rejected.   It is as if Paul said to him, ‘Listen Timothy, never mind what other people say, never mind what other people think, never mind what other people do; you are to be strong.  Never mind how shy you feel, never mind how weak you feel; you are to be strong.’  That is the first thing.

Second, you are to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  If the exhortation had simply been ‘be strong,’ it would have been absurd indeed.  You might as well tell a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as to tell a weak man to be strong or a shy man to be brave.  But Paul’s calling Timothy to fortitude is a Christian and not a stoical exhortation.  Timothy was not to be strong in himself.  He was not just to grit his teeth and clench his fists and set his jaw.  No, he was, as the Greek literally means, to be strengthened with the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to find his resources for Christian service not in his own nature but in the grace of Jesus Christ.”

John Stott, Urbana 1967.  Italics original.

Grace is not an excuse for weakness; it is an endless resource for strength.

(HT: Ray Ortlund)

The Gospel Rewrites Our Stories

“….Through union with Christ, you are righteous (having been justified), new (regenerated), and holy (definitively sanctified). In this unbreakable union with Christ we are given a new history, a new identity, and a new destiny.

• We are given a new history, because his past counts as our past: his perfect life and obedient death is credited as ours. His death to the ruling power of sin counts as ours, securing our freedom from sin’s tyranny.

• We are given a new identity, because when we are joined to Christ, God sees us in his Son. In fact, we become saints, children of God, and heirs with Christ.

• We are given a new destiny, because in the resurrection of Christ, the age to come has dawned. His resurrection guarantees that we will be raised from the dead as well, and, in fact, empowers us to live in newness of life in the here and now.

Jesus has not just given us a ticket to heaven. He has changed our essential identity. He has irrevocably altered the effect of our past on our present and future by causing his death and resurrection to count as ours. We really are new creatures, even as we press on by God’s grace to become more holy.

The point is that sanctification (freedom from the dominion of sin), no less than justification (freedom from the guilt of sin), comes through faith in Christ alone.[v] Everything we need for life and godliness is found in him! Transformation can happen in no other way.”

Brian G. Hedges, Christ Formed in You: the power of the gospel for personal change, (Wapwallopen, Pennsylvania: Shepherd Press, 2010), p.103

Three Features of Free Grace

From Tyler Kenny:

In Miscellanies #191, Jonathan Edwards defines free grace as the kind of grace in which “the abundance of the benevolence of the giver is expressed, and gratitude in the receiver is obliged.” Then he outlines three ways through which this kind of grace—which he also calls gospel grace—is realized (spacing and italics added):

Now I think these three things do constitute the freedom of grace. . .

(1) When the gift is to an offender, without satisfaction paid by him. . . .

(2) When ’tis given without retribution by way of condition, or without the receiver’s profiting or pleasuring the giver. . . .

(3) When ’tis given without our worthiness; I mean without that excellency in our persons or actions that should move the giver to love and beneficence.

Our Threefold Duty with Regard to the Gospel

John Stott:

The gospel is good news of salvation. It was promised from eternity, was secured and purchased by Jesus Christ, and is now offered to friends.

First, we must communicate it faithfully, we shall undoubtedly suffer for it.

And when we suffer for it, we shall be tempted to trim it and to eliminate the elements that provoke opposition.

So then, third, and above all, we must guard it against every possible corruption, keeping it pure whatever the cost.

Guard it faithfully, spread it actively, suffer for it bravely—that is our threefold duty.

You can read below transcripts of Stott’s expositions of each chapter of 2 Timothy along these lines, first delivered over 40 years ago:

1. Guard the Gospel
2. Suffer for the Gospel
3. Continue in the Gospel
4. Preach the Gospel

In his final message Stott summarizes the exhortations of 2 Timothy as follows:

Guard it—the gospel is a treasure;
Suffer for it—the gospel is an offense to the people;
Be willing to suffer for it—the gospel is profitable;
Continue in it—proclaim it, for the gospel is good news.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Christmas as an Alternative Religion

Michael Gerson on Christmas:

Christmas has become a kind of alternative religion, offering watered-down versions of profound theological doctrines. Its miracles are found on 34th Street, not in Bethlehem. The visitation of Gabriel has become the visitation of Clarence, assuring us that it is a wonderful life. The modern cult of Christmas offers a domesticated form of transcendence. Naughty or nice instead of good or evil. A jolly old elf rather than an illegitimate child, destined for an early death…

I choose to take a more liberal view of the Christmas cult. Its tacky materialism can be unattractive. But the desire for Christmas miracles and visiting angels – for Tiny Tim not to die and for hooves on the rooftop and for George Bailey to be the richest man in town; for just one night of calm and hope – are not things to be lightly dismissed.

‘If I find in myself,’ says [C.S.] Lewis, ‘a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’ In this argument, the sentimental desires of Christmas are hints and rumors and reminders of a birth that somehow represents their culmination. Put another way: The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.

(HT: Denny Burk)

Standing on the brink of eternity

Christians stand on the very brink of eternity. Jesus Christ, the last Adam, has completed the work of the first Adam and entered the new creation. Because Christ did this for us, we now belong to him and share in the rights and privileges of the world-to-come. We have been ‘justified by his grace as a gift’ (Rom. 3:24) and made ‘fellow heirs with Christ’ so that ‘we may also be glorified with him’ (Rom. 8:17). We have been ‘raised with Christ’ (Col. 3:1) and thus our ‘life is hidden with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3) and our ‘citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil. 3:20). Because Jesus has ‘passed through the heavens,’ we today may ‘with confidence draw near to the throne of grace’ (Heb. 4:14, 16), having ‘confidence to enter the holy places’ (Heb. 10:19). We eagerly await Christ’s return from heaven when he will ‘transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body’ (Phil. 3:21) and we will see ‘a new heaven from God … ’ (Rev. 21:1–2). In light of these things, God has called us ‘to wait for his Son from heaven …’ (1 Thess. 1:10).

— David VanDrunenLiving in God’s Two Kingdoms(Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2010), 73

(HT: Of First Importance)

Infinite, and an infant

I do believe that the very angels have never wondered but once and that has been incessantly ever since they first beheld it. They never cease to tell the astonishing story, and to tell it with increasing astonishment too, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born of the Virgin Mary, and became a man. Is he not rightly called Wonderful? Infinite, and an infant — eternal, and yet born of a woman — Almighty, and yet hanging on a woman’s breast supporting the universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother’s arms — king of angels, and yet the reputed son of Joseph — heir of all things and yet the carpenter’s despised son. Wonderful art thou O Jesus, and that shall be thy name for ever.

— Charles Spurgeon, “His Name – Wonderful!”

(HT: Of First Importance)

Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian?

Al Mohler:

Must one believe in the Virgin Birth to be a Christian? This is not a hard question to answer. It is conceivable that someone might come to Christ and trust Christ as Savior without yet learning that the Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. A new believer is not yet aware of the full structure of Christian truth. The real question is this: Can a Christian, once aware of the Bible’s teaching, reject the Virgin Birth? The answer must be no.

Read the entire article HERE.

The Grammar Of The Gospel

Justin Taylor fantastically summarizes a section from Sinclair Ferguson’s talk earlier this year at the 2010 Basics conference. This is gospel gold. Take notes.

There is, according to Ferguson, a very clear grammar in the gospel: the mood, the tense, and the prepositions.

The Mood of the Gospel

We need to learn that the grammar of the gospel has its appropriate mood.

In our languages today we speak in the indicative mood and the imperative mood. The indicative mood is saying these are the things that are true. The imperative mood is saying these are things you need to do. And in the gospel, the structure of the grammar is always indicative gives rise to imperative. . . .

The Tense of the Gospel

There’s also a tense of the gospel: the present is to be rooted in the past. You need to go backward to what Christ has done in order to go forward in what you are to do. There is an emphasis of the already and the mopping-up operation of the not-yet.

The Prepositions of the Gospel

Do you remember how Paul uses prepositions in Galatians 2:20-21, where in a few words he summarizes the work of Christ:

The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me;
and therefore I am crucified with Christ;
nevertheless, I live, but not I; Christ lives in me.

In these three prepositions the apostle Paul has, in a sense, summarized the basic structure of our union with Christ.

Since we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, he came as our substitute and representative—there is this sense in which we now know through faith that we were crucified with Christ. And the past that dominated us has been nailed to the cross; the dominion of sin that reigned over us has been broken—so that  he has died for us and we have been crucified with him, and wonder of wonders there is this third dimension of our union with Christ: a mutual union, in which not only are we are said to be in Christ, but Christ the Lord of glory, in all the fullness of his role as our benefactor comes to dwell in the heart of the merest believer.

Justin has provided the video of Dr. Ferguson’s talks here. And you can access the audio here.

(HT: Tullian Tchividjian)

God means to fill us with himself

If we would rise to the full measure of God’s standard for us, let us realize the magnitude of God as well as of our own being, for it is with nothing less than Himself that He means to fill us.

Let us take in the full dimensions of His resources of grace, their length, their breadth, their depth, their height; and then let us measure, if we can, the magnitude of God who is the living substance and personal source of all this grace, and we shall have some approximation at least to what the apostle means when He exclaims, ‘Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.’

— A.B. Simpson, quoted by Fred Sanders inThe Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything(Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 103-104

(HT: Of First Importance)

Christmas as the End of History

John Piper (1981):

Creation out of nothing was an awesome event. Imagine what the angelic spirits must have felt when the universe, material reality of which they had never imagined, was brought forth out of nothing by the command of God.

The fall was an awful event, shaking the entire creation.

The exodus was an amazing display of God’s power and love.

The giving of the law, the wilderness provisions, the conquering of Canaan, the prosperity of the monarchy—all these acts of God in redemptive history were very great and wonderful. Each one was a very significant bend in the river of redemptive history, bringing it ever and ever closer to the ocean of God’s final kingdom.

But we trivialize Christmas, the incarnation, if we treat it as just another bend on the way to the end. It is the end of redemptive history.

And I think the analogy of the river helps us see how.

Picture the river as redemptive history flowing toward the ocean which is the final kingdom of God, full of glory and righteousness and peace. At the end of the river the ocean presses up into the river with its salt water. Therefore, at the mouth of the river there is a mingling of fresh water and salt water. One might say that the kingdom of God has pressed its way back up into the river of time a short way. It has surprised the travelers and taken them off guard. They can smell the salt water. They can taste the salt water. The sea gulls circle the deck. The end has come upon them.

Christmas is not another bend in the river. It is the arrival of the salt water of the kingdom of God which has backed up into the river of history. With the coming of Christmas, the ocean of the age to come has reached backward up the stream of history to welcome us, to wake us up to what is coming, to lure us on into the deep.

Christmas is not another bend in the river of history. It is the end of the river. Let down your dipper and taste of Jesus Christ, his birth and life and death and resurrection. Taste and see if the age to come has not arrived, if the kingdom has not come upon us. Does it not make your eyes sparkle?

(HT: Justin Taylor)

The Silent Monks

Not with a bang but a whimper

From Carl Trueman:

“That God would take human flesh, and that not of one of the great and the good but of a child born of apparently dubious parentage to a young woman scarcely more than a child herself, that he would be delivered in a stable – these are things that are an affront to us as human beings. That God would make himself weak and helpless, vulnerable to all of the things that plague this fallen world is outrageous. That he would risk his person through being born in a stable, without even the most rudimentary of medical assistance then available, is ridiculous. Indeed, had one stood at the door of the stable in Bethlehem on that first Christmas night, and seen the tiny mite lying in a manger, it is very doubtful that anyone could have persuaded you that you were gazing upon the very fulfillment of history, the arrival of the last Adam, and were thus in the presence of God himself.

“If we are to be rescued and redeemed, we want it to be on our terms, by a redeemer worthy of us: a great and mighty one, powerful in word and deed, one who strikes instant fear and commands immediate respect. It is an insult to us that we should be rescued by one weaker than ourselves. And yet that is the glory of the gospel. Of course, as Paul points out, this gospel foolishness culminates in the cross on Calvary; but it is foreshadowed in the absurdity of the manger. God needs no advice from us; he does not pander to our expectations; the eternal explodes into time, not with a bang, but with the whimper of a new born infant.”

(HT: Todd Pruitt)

A Social Network Christmas

(HT: Denny Burk)

God uses critics to help us

“Christ uses critics to guard our souls from self-destructive tendencies. We gain ears to listen to others when we gain ears to listen to Him….Critics, like governing authorities, are servants of God to you for good (Rom. 13:4). He who sees into hearts uses critics to help us see things in ourselves: outright failings of faith and practice, distorted emphases, blind spots, areas of neglect, attitudes and actions contradictory to stated commitments, and, yes, strengths and significant contributions. God uses critics to help us. Even if I think that a criticism is mistaken, I shouldn’t leap too quickly to the defense. Is there something I am doing or saying (or not doing and not saying) that makes that particular misinterpretation plausible? Do I leave implicit or understated something that needs to be made explicit? Does my attitude or tone or way of treating people send a mixed message? Am I not answering some important question that this person is asking? Am I not addressing some important problem that this person cares about? In my experience, the answer to these questions is usually Yes.

“Let’s commit to starting candid, constructive conversations, and let’s keep them going. I need your questions and criticisms, and you need mine. This has something to do with all that talk in the Bible about ‘one another,’ and ‘different gifts distributed by the Spirit,’ and ‘growing up,’ and the ‘body of Christ,’ and ‘every nation, tribe, tongue, and people,’ and ‘the sons of Issachar understood the times,’ and ‘speaking the truth in love we grow up into Him.’ The Lord’s sovereign eye is on every impulse of every heart.”

- David Powlison, from the article “Does the Shoe Fit?”

(HT: Josh Harris)

Ten Reasons for Expository Preaching

1. Expository preaching identifies exactly what is at the heart of the Christian message
2. Expository preaching requires that the shepherd concern himself with the intent of the Divine Author for every text.
3. Expository preaching respects the integrity of the textual units given through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
4. Expository preaching keeps the pastor from riding his favourite hobby horses.
5. Expository preaching requires the preacher to preach the difficult or obscure texts and challenging truths of the Bible.
6. Expository preaching will encourage both pastor and students alike to become students of the Bible.
7. Expository preaching gives us boldness in preaching for we are not expounding our own fallible views but the Word of God.
8. Expository preaching gives confidence to the listener that what he is hearing is not the opinion of man but the Word of God.
9. Expository preaching is of great assistance in sermon planning.
10. Expository preaching provides the context for a long tenure in a particular place.

(HT: Matthew Harmon)

The true Christmas spirit

“The Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor–spending and being spent– to enrich their fellow men, giving time, trouble, care, and concern, to do good to others–and not just their own friends–in whatever way there seems need. There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be.”

-JI Packer, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus, p. 72.

(HT: Justin Childers)

Bethlehem and Golgotha

The opening words from John Donne’s Christmas sermon delivered on December 25, 1626:

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die Martyrs, but Christ was born a Martyr. … His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas-day and his Good Friday, are but the evening and morning of one and the same day.

(HT: Tony Reinke)

The History of Redemption

This short video, The History of Redemption, is a wonderful resource that will enable a better grasp of the story-line of the Bible, using only 47 passages of Scripture. Outstanding!

You can view some of the artwork here.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

The Jesus Storybook Bible – Light of the Whole World

“Every [Bible] story whispers his name.”