Growth Pains

This Sunday in church, we sang a new hymn. Actually, it's not a new hymn, per se, just a new hymn for our congregation. Its words were written almost 250 years ago by John Newton (who also wrote Amazing Grace and many other hymns).

In an age where so many in the church seem to promise nothing but smiles and happiness for those who follow Jesus, our own experiences can quickly disavow us of such thinking. Sanctification is a struggle and the march to humble holiness is a long, hard, and (at times) painful one. For this reason, hymns like this one are necessary. I know it speaks to my experience. Perhaps it speaks to yours as well.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Paul David Tripp on Spiritual Maturity

"It is quite easy for (seminary) students to buy into the belief that biblical maturity is about the precision of theological knowledge and the completeness of their biblical literacy. So seminary graduates, who are Bible and theology experts, tend to think of themselves as being mature. But it must be said that maturity is not merely something you do with your mind (although that is an important element of spiritual maturity). No, maturity is about how you live your life. It is possible to be theologically astute and be very immature. It is possible to be biblically literate and be in need of significant spiritual growth."

Paul David Tripp
Dangerous Calling

The Attraction to Legalism

This morning I saw a really helpful post by Matthew R. Olson entitled The Attraction to Legalism. In it he discusses how easy it is to become a legalist, and how hard it is to identify yourself as such. He makes the following point:

I have heard the argument, “I am not a legalist, because I believe that salvation is by grace through faith and not of works.” Wrong. Legalism is more than just a false doctrine of justification; it is also false doctrine of sanctification. Paul made this very clear in Galatians. They had begun “by means of the Spirit” and were now attempting to live their lives “by means of the flesh.” It is possible to be an orthodox Christian and still be a legalist. The same error that plagued the Jews, and early church, is alive today—in all of our churches.

Indeed, legalism is an enemy of the gospel and can ever so easily threaten each our churches. I recommend that you click here and read the entire post.

(HT: David Crabb)

A Word for Preachers...Baxter on Taking Heed to Ourselves

"We are the nurses of Christ’s little ones. If we forbear taking food ourselves, we shall famish them; it will soon be visible in their leanness, and dull discharge of their several duties. If we let our love decline, we are not like to raise up theirs. If we abate our holy care and fear, it will appear in our preaching: if the matter show it not, the manner will. If we feed on unwholesome food, either errors or fruitless controversies, our hearers are like to fare the worse for it. Whereas, if we abound in faith, and love, and zeal, how would it overflow to the refreshing of our congregations, and how would it appear in the increase of the same graces in them!...Above all, be much in secret prayer and meditation. Thence you must fetch the heavenly fire that must kindle your sacrifices: remember, you cannot decline and neglect your duty, to your own hurt alone; many will be losers by it as well as you. For your people’s sakes, therefore, look to your hearts. If a pang of spiritual pride should overtake you, and you should fall into any dangerous error, and vent your own inventions to draw away disciples after you, what a wound may this prove to the Church, of which you have the oversight; and you may become a plague to them instead of a blessing, and they may wish they had never seen your faces. Oh, therefore, take heed to your own judgments and affections. Vanity and error will slyly insinuate, and seldom come without fair pretences: great distempers and apostasies have usually small beginnings. The prince of darkness doth frequently personate an angel of light, to draw the children of light again into darkness. How easily also will distempers creep in upon our affections and our first love, and fear and care abate! Watch, therefore, for the sake of yourselves and others."

Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor

Wednesday's* Words of Wisdom...Matt Chandler on Gospel-Centeredness

Oops! I didn't post this yesterday. But "Thursday's Words of Wisdom" just isn't quite as catchy...

"(A)ll your church attendance, all your religious activities, your Sunday school attendance medals, your journals, having a "quiet time," reading the Scriptures -- it's all in vain if you don't have Christ. When you read (1 Corinthians 15:1-7; Galatians 1:6-9; Galatians 2:20-3:5 and Philippians 3:4-9) together, you get a feel for his attack on the Christian, moralistic, therapeutic deism of his day. We are saved, sanctified, and sustained by what Jesus did for us on the cross and through the power of his resurrection. If you add to or subtract from the cross, even if it is to factor in biblically mandated religious practices like prayer and evangelism, you rob God of his glory and Christ of his sufficiency."

Matt Chandler
The Explicit Gospel

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Carson on Sanctification

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."

D.A. Carson
For the Love of God, volume 2

Grace That Saves and Sanctifies

O LORD GOD,
Teach me to know that grace precedes, accompanies, and follows my salvation,
     that it sustains the redeemed soul,
     that not one link of its chain can ever break!
From Calvary's cross, wave upon wave of grace reaches me,
     deals with my sin,
     washes me clean,
     renews my heart,
     strengthens my will,
     draws out my affection,
     kindles a flame in my soul,
     rules throughout my inner man,
     consecrates my every thought, word, work,
     teaches me Your immeasurable love.

From Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

A Word for Preachers...T. David Gordon on Preaching Redemptively

"Now, since Christ rescues us from both the guilt and the power of sin, one aspect of his work is the work of sanctification, whereby he renews us into the image of God and conforms us to his own likeness.  So Christian proclamation includes the shaping of a Christian moral vision, and preaching Christ does not exclude, but intentionally includes such a vision.  But it is never appropriate, in my estimation, for one word of moral counsel ever to proceed from a Christian pulpit that is not clearly, in its context, redemptive.  That is, even when the faithful exposition of particular texts requires some explanation of aspects of our behavior, it is always to be done in a manner that the hearer perceives such commended behavior to be itself a matter of being rescued from the power of sin through the grace of Christ.  When properly done, the hearer longs to be rescued from that depravity from which no sinner can rescue himself; and the hearer rejoices to know that a kind and gracious God is both willing and able to begin that rescue, which will be completed in glorification."

T. David Gordon
Why Johnny Can't Preach: The Media Have Shaped the Messengers

Jesus: Far More than a Fix-It Man

At his blog, A Mind Full of Mud Puddles, my friend Brett Barton had some great thoughts today on our dependence on Jesus. He humbly and wisely points out the following, which is uncomfortably familiar to my own life:

I call myself a Christian -- a follower of Jesus -- but in all honesty, I am a terrible Christian. I rarely do the things the Bible says that Christians should do (pray, read my Bible, feed the hungry, give to the poor, etc.) and am much more skilled at finding new and creative ways to sin. It took me a while before I realized that I was a perfect candidate for being a Christian since I was hopelessly dependent on the saving work of Jesus. However even in that, I have had a distorted view of Jesus as something other than my living savior and treated him more as if he was my primary care physician.

Far too often we espouse the kind of "prosperity gospel" that treats Jesus merely as a means to getting health, wealth and happiness.  As such, we often just want Jesus to fix the things that are wrong with our lives so that we can become self-sufficient, no longer needing him until our next problem.

I am reminded of a dear woman in our congregation who was facing all sorts of physical and emotional trials. As I prayed with and for her, I recall how much the content of her prayers impressed me. She prayed not primarily for healing and relief, but rather for strength and courage to endure her difficulties. She knew that a loving and sovereign God was working in and through them for her growth, and she wanted to trust him more to do so.

I think this is the kind of faith that Brett is trying to encourage in his blog. He goes on to point out:

When Jesus said that he was (and is) the Way, the Truth and the Life, I believe that he is saying that he is not only the means to an end, but he is also the end. So now it is becoming more clear that I have been praying and asking Jesus to help me save myself, when he is the one in the business of savings lives. He is the savior. I am the savee. He must increase. I must decrease. Why am I asking him to fix me so that I don't need him as much? That's not really fixing me, now is it?

This is how the weak can say they are strong and the poor can say they are rich. It's not that once Jesus comes into the picture, they will no longer be sick and struggle to pay their bills. No, it's that the weak have something better than bulging muscles and a clean bill of health. They have given up their striving to save themselves and are at peace in the hands of the savior.

May we all (beginning with me) look to Jesus not only as a solution in the midst of difficulties.  Rather, let us see him as the one who has already solved our biggest problem: our estrangement from God; and the one who teaches us that true health, wealth and happiness are found only in an abiding relationship with him.

Click here to read Brett's entire post.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

    
"When people observe our lives, they ought to be able to see the character of God in us, because as his children, we are those in whom his image has already begun to be restored."
 
Sinclair Ferguson

More Nuggets of Gospel Gold

 

As I mentioned elsewhere, I've been reading through the book Don't Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day and sharing some of what I perceive as highlights.  One of the things that has really impressed me is the fact that even though there are a myriad of authors from various backgrounds, there is such a consistently God-glorifying, grace-exalting, gospel-proclaiming message in this book.  What a joy it is to come back to the gospel time and time again! 

Some of the golden nuggets I've come across in the last few chapters I've read:

From Ben Peays on the New Birth...

"While it is crucial that we repent, confess, believe, trust, give thanks, and so on, these responses do not bring about the new birth.  God causes it to happen, and we live out the transformation."

and...

"Salvation is ultimately saving us from God's wrath at judgment, but it also saves us into a life with Christ today.  The reality changes our priorities, our desires, what we treasure, and how we will spend our time and energy on earth."

From Jay Harvey on Justification

"...we do not grow in sanctification in order to be justified.  We grow in sanctification because we are justified.  The declarative act of justification is gracious soil out of which grace-filled lives will grow."

 and...

"In our increasingly non-Christian culture, more people in out church will come to Christ with deep struggles in their past or present.  Young people are more likely to engage in sexual sins of all kinds at younger ages than before.  Pornography threatens to strangle a whole generation of young men.  Of course, these sins must be fought against.  But they cannot be battled until we know they are forgiven."

From Owen Strachan on Sanctification...

 "The struggle against our inherent unrighteousness is not a one-time cataclysm, but a lifelong war."

even so...

"Sanctification is doxological, motivated by an overarching purpose transcendent above all others: the glorification of the God whose perfect holiness requires nothing else.  Sanctification is of God, and sanctification is for God."

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

“For God is not gracious and merciful to sinners to the end that they might not keep his Law, nor that they should remain as they were before they received grace and mercy; but he condones and forgives both sin and death for the sake of Christ, who has fulfilled the whole Law in order thereby to make the heart sweet and through the Holy Spirit to kindle and move the heart to begin to love from day to day more and more.”

Martin Luther

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom

"It is indeed true, that we are justified in Christ through the mercy of God alone; but it is equally true and certain, that all who are justified are called by the Lord, that they may live worthy of their vocation.  Let then the faithful learn to embrace him, not only for justification, but also for sanctification, as he has been given to us for both these purposes, lest they rend him asunder by their mutilated faith."

--John Calvin, Commentary on Romans, pg. 294.

We All Need the Gospel...Continually

Tullian Tchividjian, Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, posts the following quote today from B.B. Warfield:

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ’s sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His “blood and righteousness” alone that we can rest.

This quote is in the same vein as a post from Tullian a couple weeks ago which spoke of our ongoing need for the Gospel. I highly recommend his blog, On Earth as it is in Heaven, as his Gospel-exalting, Christ-centered theology constantly deepens my appreciation for the grace of God.