(HT: Timmy Brister)
Filed under: Discipleship, Faith, Prayer, Suffering, The Persecuted Church
November 9, 2009 • 9:36 pm 0
It Is Christ
“Remember, sinner, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee – it is Christ; it is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee – it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that is the instrument it is Christ’s blood and merits; therefore, look not to thy hope, but to Christ, the source of thy hope; look not to thy faith, but to Christ, the author and finisher of thy faith; and if thou doest that, ten thousand devils cannot throw thee down.”
(The Forgotten Spugeon, Iain Murray, 42.)
(HT: Monergism)
Filed under: CH Spurgeon, Christ our Mediator, Doctrine, Faith, Jesus Christ, Joy, Union with Christ
October 31, 2009 • 11:08 am 0
Luther on Idolatry and Trust
Martin Luther’s Large Catechism begins with a shrewd reflection on the first commandment:
“You are to have no other gods.”
That is, you are to regard me alone as your God. What does this mean, and how is it to be understood? What does “to have a god” mean, or what is God?
Answer: A “god” is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.
—Martin Luther, Large Catechism, “[The First Part: The Ten Commandments],” The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert; trans. Charles Arand, et al.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 386.
Luther proceeds to elaborate further on the relationship between idolatry and trust (386–92). You can read it via Google Books.
(HT: Andy Naselli)
Filed under: Faith, God centredness, Idolatry, Love for God, Martin Luther, Worship
October 21, 2009 • 11:00 am 0
Spiritual Life & Faith in Jesus
“Spiritual life and faith in Jesus come into being together. The new life makes the faith possible, and since spiritual life always awakens faith and expresses itself in faith, there is no life without faith in Jesus. Therefore, we should never separate the new birth from faith in Jesus. From God’s side, we are united to Christ in the new birth. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. From our side, we experience this union by faith in Jesus.”
- John Piper, Finally Alive (Scotland, UK; Christian Focus, 2009), 32.
(HT: Of First Importance)
Filed under: Doctrine, Evangelical, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Monergism, New Birth, Regeneration, Repentance, Saving faith, The word of God, Union with Christ
February 7, 2009 • 12:35 pm 0
Changed by the cross
(HT: Rick Ianniello)
Filed under: Christ our Mediator, Christ our righteousness, Christ our treasure, Christian Hope, Discipleship, Evangelical, Faith, God's Love, God's grace, God's mercy, God's worthiness, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Salvation, Sanctification, The Christian Life, The Church, The Cross, The Gospel, The glory of Christ, The word of God
January 13, 2009 • 12:06 pm 1
Suffering for Christ
What constitutes suffering for the name of Christ? Often we recall the most severe examples of suffering—Stephen crying out to the Lord as enraged Jewish leaders hurled rocks at his body; Paul and Silas with feet shackled to a Philippian prison, still feeling the pain of their earlier beating; Jim Elliot and his four missionary friends rushed by armed Huaorani Indians. These are all graphic examples of Christians enduring great sacrifices for the advance of the gospel.
Scripture teaches (even promises) that all Christians will suffer, but these graphic examples are not the norm for faithful Christians in the West today. So what does suffering for the name of Christ look like in twenty-first century America?
During one panel discussion at the Together for the Gospel conference, Ligon Duncan and I interviewed our friend John Piper on this issue.
——
Ligon Duncan: John, you have done a pretty extended exposition on kinds of suffering, available on the Desiring God website. You have done it in different forms. You are addressing this very question that, that suffering just means taking a bullet or getting your head hacked off. You make a great point in that message about how any kind of suffering can become suffering for Christ if you will embrace it that way.
John Piper: If you pick a text on suffering and you try to apply it to cancer, when it is dealing with persecution, a lot of people will say, “I don’t think that applies to me, because that is really applying to getting suffering from somebody hurting you or saying something evil.” So I have developed an argument: All suffering that a Christian endures in the path of obedience is suffering with Christ and for Christ (though not in the same way).
And there are a couple of reasons for that.
One is that in suffering, the temptation is the same whether it is coming from cancer or slander. And the temptation is to say, “God is not good and it is not worth serving him, and escaping from this suffering in some sinful way is to be preferred.” Those are the same. And so the real battle is the same, whether it is coming from a physical thing or another.
Secondly, I don’t think historically you can draw a line between suffering from persecution and physical suffering. Just try to imagine a particular kind of Pauline persecution, like being whipped 39 lashes, five times (2 Corinthians 11:24). Well, let’s just take the third time. You can imagine what his back must have looked like—39 times five is a lot—and it healed five times. So the third time his back is turned into jelly again.
Now they don’t know anything about antibiotics. When they are done with him, they throw him on the floor and his back is now covered with dirt. What happens when your back is lacerated and it is covered with dirt? I’ll tell you what happens: infection happens. What happens when you get an infection? Fever happens.
Now which is the physical suffering here and which is the persecution suffering? Where are you going to draw that line between the fever and the lashes? Which is why I say that any fever experienced in the path of obedience—getting my sermon ready, making hard calls, staying up late with the suicide situation, and not enough rest and I have got this awful sore throat—tell me these are not the same suffering as being criticized for your ministry. It is the same essential suffering.
And so I think I can develop textual and thoughtful arguments for why almost all texts on suffering can help our people, whether their pain is coming from a difficult marriage, coming from slander, coming from cancer, or coming from wherever.
The issue is in all suffering, when we trust him and keep trusting him, we will find some evidences of his sovereign mercy toward me. And the source of it is a very minor part when it comes to the real battle down here of “Will I trust him? Will I hold on to him or not?”
C.J. Mahaney: Knowing you, John, and knowing your church, you have devoted much time to addressing the topic of suffering and to preparing your church for suffering. Why and how would you recommend that local pastors here do the same?
JP: Well, the why is because the Bible promises, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22, ESV). It is a given that to come to Jesus is to compound your suffering, not minimize your suffering. Certain kinds of sufferings get minimized. The suffering that comes from drunkenness will probably go down. So don’t hear me saying nothing changes or is beneficial. That is not true. There are amazing releases for conscience. A lot of psychological things will improve, but others will get worse.
So, if you are now in a marriage where one of you is a believer and one is not, that is this sort of thing. They will suffer.
And the second is because you see it out there. You see the little Down-syndrome kids, and you see the people in the wheelchair, and you see the painful marriages that are out there. You see it, and you either are going to just ignore it, or you are going to give them something to help.
Third, I don’t think Christ is glorified anywhere more than when suffering people rejoice in him as their treasure. If everything is going rosy for all my people, the possibilities of us making a name for Jesus in the city is smaller than if things are going hard for our folks. Then the possibility of making a name for Jesus is greater. What the world wants to see is not for you to tell them, “Jesus makes things go well for me.” Things are going well for them, too, probably better than for you, and it is money and doctors that are doing it for them. So that argument has teeny-weeny effectiveness.
Rather, when neighbors know that the baby in your womb has a liver outside his body, no spinal column, and you have carried this baby to the end and they watch you, the possibilities of making much of Jesus are staggering.
Not many people see life that way. My job as a preacher is to help that mom, way before the pregnancy, get ready for it so that she has some resources. And one of the most satisfying things in ministry, guys, is to do this long enough so that you get a steady stream of testimonies that come to you at funerals and in hospitals and other places where a mom or a son or a relative just takes you by the hand and says, “So glad we have been at Bethlehem. We would be insane if we didn’t have a big God, if we didn’t have a strong God, if we didn’t have a sovereign God, if we didn’t have a holy God.”
I love those testimonies and I get a lot of mileage of late-night work out of testimonies like that, and they are pretty common stream.
We have got a lot of strong women at our church. They bear a lot of things. They endure pain through marriages and through kids that are disabled…Strong women are magnificent testimonies to Christ because, if they are complementarian, they are combining things the world can’t explain. They are combining a sweet, tender, kind, loving, submissive, feminine beauty with this massive steel in their backs and theology in their brains.
————
Listen to the T4G panel discussion here.
Filed under: CJ Mahaney, Christ our treasure, Christian Ministry, Discernment, Discipleship, Evangelical, Faith, God's wisdom, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Sanctification, Sovereignty of God, The Christian Life, The Church, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God
September 26, 2008 • 2:56 pm 0
Reasons Believers in Christ Need Not Be Afraid
Adrian Warnock pointed me in the direction of this encouraging piece from John Piper:
1. We will not die apart from God’s gracious decree for his children.
“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
“See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.” (See Job 1:21;1 Samuel 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7)
2. Curses and divination do not hold sway against God’s people.
“There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel.”
3. The plans of terrorists and hostile nations do not succeed apart from our gracious God.
“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.”
“Take counsel together [you peoples], but it will come to nothing; speak a word, but it will not stand, for God is with us.” (See 2 Samuel 7:14; Nehemiah 4:15)
4. Man cannot harm us beyond God’s gracious will for us.
“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?”
“In God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
5. God promises to protect his own from all that is not finally good for them.
“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.”
6. God promises to give us all we need to obey, enjoy, and honor him forever.
“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ . . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
7. God is never taken off guard.
“Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
8. God will be with us, help us, and uphold us in trouble.
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
“For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, ‘Fear not, I am the one who helps you.’”
9. Terrors will come, some of us will die, but not a hair of our heads will perish.
“Then [Jesus] said to them, ‘. . . there will be terrors (!) and great signs from heaven. . . . and some of you they will put to death. . . . But not a hair of your head will perish.’”
10. Nothing befalls God’s own but in its appointed hour.
“So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” (See John 8:20; 10:18)
11. When God Almighty is your helper, none can harm you beyond what he decrees.
“So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’”
“If God is for us, who can be against us?”
12. God’s faithfulness is based on the firm value of his name, not the fickle measure of our obedience.
“And Samuel said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. . . . For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake.’”
13. The Lord, our protector, is great and awesome.
“Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome.”
Trusting firm promises with you in fragile times,
Pastor John
Filed under: Attributes of God, Christian Hope, Communion with God, Death, Disaster, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Faith, God the Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, John Piper, Power of God, Providence, Sanctification, Sovereignty of God, The Bible, The Christian Life, The Cross, The Gospel, The word of God
September 18, 2008 • 9:35 am 2
Before I Was a Missionary
“…thought my past made me unworthy. But decided, He is worthy.”
“…dad said I would die in Africa. He was right, I died to self.
“…affraid to leave the comfort of home. Found something more important than comfort.”
I love this video!
(HT: Allsufficientgrace)
Filed under: Christian Ministry, Dead to self, Discipleship, Evangelical, Evangelism, Faith, God centredness, God's worthiness, Jesus Christ, Missions, The Christian Life, The Gospel, The glory of Christ
September 9, 2008 • 10:13 am 0
“fossilized” theology?
My thanks to Martin Downes for these excellent quotes:
A. A. Hodge once said to a Yale teacher who was making fun of the “fossilized” theology of Princeton:
“The trouble with you Yale theological professors is that you only teach your students to think…In Princeton we let God do the thinking and teach the students to believe.”
From David Calhoun’s wonderful book Princeton Seminary Volume 2: The Majestic Testimony, 1869-1929, p. 408-9
Filed under: Church History, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, Faith, Truth
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