The Road to Calvary

I'm looking forward to a new sermon series that I'll be preaching during Lent. Check out the video preview below and, if you're in the neighborhood on a Sunday morning, stop by Calvary Presbyterian Church for corporate worship at 10 o'clock. We'd love to worship with you!

A Word for Preachers...Campbell Morgan on Being Crucified with Christ

"It is the crucified man that can preach the cross. Said Thomas 'except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails...I will not believe.' Dr. Parker of London said that what Thomas said of Christ, the world is saying about the church. And the world is also saying to every preacher: Unless I see in your hands the print of the nails, I will not believe. It is true. It is the man...who has died with Christ,...that can preach the cross of Christ."

Campbell Morgan
cited in John Stott's The Cross of Christ

Beyoncé at Halftime: Children, Social Justice & the Empowering of Women

John Stonestreet of Breakpoint had some good thoughts related to Beyoncé's halftime show at the Super Bowl. Please take a minute and read or listen to it in its entirety.

In all fairness, I didn't even see the halftime show, so I can't comment directly on its content. What I can heartily agree with though are some of the broader themes Stonestreet discusses as he addresses the hypersexualization of youth in our culture and the damaging effects it has. He states,

This is a social justice issue. And to the hipster Christian writers so concerned with social justice who celebrated Beyoncé’s performance as “empowering women,” shame on you. Beyoncé is unbelievably talented. But using sexuality for power is not a triumph for feminism. It only leads to the objectification and victimization of women, especially young ones. I will tell you that wives, watching their husbands watch Beyoncé, weren’t empowered.

Click here for the entire post.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Stanley Gale on Prayer and God's Sovereignty

"Prayer is a means by which God enfolds us int the outworking of his eternal plan. Prayer is God's means for God's ends. God executes his plan and accomplishes his purposes through the mediation of our prayers as his people. Prayer is intended by God to engage us in the accomplishment of his purposes for his own glory and goals.

"We can say that in praying we can expect God to do something he would not have done had we not prayed, not to limit God but to exalt the glory of his unfathomable providence that governs all causes, mediate and immediate. In other words, to suggest God waits on our prayers does not make God smaller. It makes him bigger than we could ever possibly fathom. Who is like God, governing means and ends, including the acts and prayers of his creatures, without violating their free agency and still maintaining their responsibility and culpability?

"We can take it even a step further: God's sovereign plan not only does not invalidate responsible action, it establishes it because that is the way God has designed things. Our prayers are not intruders on God's plan but instruments in that plan."

Stanley D. Gale
Why Do We Pray?

A Word for Preachers...Chapell on Grace-Focused Preaching

"No matter how great your skill or accolades, you are unlikely to lead others closer to God if your heart does not reflect the continuing work of the Savior in your life. A grace-focused ministry recognizes the repentance our prayers must consistently express, confess the divine aid that grants us the strength of our resolutions, obeys God in gratitude for forgiveness Christ supplies, expresses the humility appropriate for a fellow sinner, exudes the joy of salvation by faith alone, and reflects the Love that claims our own souls and accepts our service without any merit of our own. Preaching without a grace focus concentrates on means of earning divine acceptance, proofs of personal righteousness, and contrasts with those less holy than we.

"The necessity of grace in balanced preaching inevitably points both preacher and parishioner to the work of Christ as the only proper center of our sermons. Christ-centered preaching is not merely evangelistic, nor confined to a few gospel accounts. It perceives the whole of Scripture as revelatory of God's redemptive plan and preaches every passage within this context--a pattern that Jesus himself introduced to us (Luke 24:27)...(T)he Bible requires us to construct our messages in such a way as to reveal the grace that is the ultimate focus of every text, the ultimate enablement for ever instruction, and the only source of true holiness."

Bryan Chapell 
Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

You'll Find Your Way

Being the father of a young man who is growing up so very quickly, this beautiful song is just as quickly becoming one of my favorites from Andrew Peterson...

Making Sure Christ is the Object of Our Faith

Some folks tend to reduce the Christian faith to nothing more than a way of life. They contend it doesn't really matter what exactly you believe, so long as you live a Christian lifestyle. Still others seem to suggest that what you do doesn't really matter, it's just acknowledging the right set of facts (i.e., that Jesus died for my sins) that counts.

In response to both ends of this spectrum, Michael Horton posted a good article yesterday at The White Horse Inn's blog, Out of the Horse's Mouth. In it he makes the point,

According to Scripture, the object of our faith is neither our actions or our knowledge, but the person of Jesus Christ. Of course, trusting a person involves knowledge and assent, but we’re saved by Christ, not by doctrines. The purpose of the doctrine is to direct us to the right person and to keep us looking to him until that day when faith yields to sight.

 He continues:

Faith is not mere assent to truths, much less blind submission. It’s trust in Christ. To trust in someone, you have to know something about them and have some confidence that they can do what they promise. However, faith is not saving as a virtue in itself, but because it embraces Christ who is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. A weak faith clings to a strong Savior. 

 Click here to read the rest of the article.

(HT: Vitamin Z)

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Ryken on Prayer and God's Sovereignty

"Imagine for a moment that God is not sovereign in grace, but that salvation ultimately depends on the sinner's own choice. How then should we pray? Do we say, 'Dear Lord, I realize that there may not be much that you can do about this, but if there is, please help my friend somehow to become a Christian'? Of course, no one actually prays this way: the very idea is absurd. But what makes it so absurd is that, deep down, every Christian believes in the sovereignty of God's grace. When we pray for sinners to be converted, therefore, we ask God to do something for them that we know they are utterly incapable of doing for themselves. We ask God to invade their minds, change their hearts, and bend their wills so that they will come to him in faith and repentance. In short, in our intercession we depend on God to save them."

Philip Ryken

What is a True Calvinist?

A Prayer for the Body

Almighty God,

who heaven and the highest heavens cannot contain,

whose greatness cannot be captured in mere words,

whose perfect holiness can hardly be comprehended...

On our own we come before you

as finite creatures,

whose own words consistently reveal an overvalued self-worth,

and the depths of whose sin we hardly can fathom.

But thankfully, we do not come before you on our own.

Rather we come before you in the name of our Lord,

washed clean of our sin by the blood of Christ Jesus,

robed in His righteousness alone.

So now, instead of enemies, rightfully the objects of your scorn and wrath,

            we come before you as beloved children,

            recipients of grace,

            joint heirs with Christ your Son.

As such may we conformed to His likeness:

May our minds dwell on that which is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent and praiseworthy;

May our feet be swift to walk in those good works which you have prepared for us.

May our mouths proclaim good news of happiness, and publish salvation; saying to the people of God: "Your God reigns."

May our hands be holy, as they are raised before you in prayer.

May our hearts be glad, and our whole being rejoice; for we dwell secure in your love.

And may it all be so, by your grace and for your glory,

For we ask it in the matchless name of Christ Jesus, our Lord.

A Word for Preachers...T.H.L. Parker on the Example of Calvin

"There is no threshing himself into a fever of impatience or frustration, no holier-than-thou rebuking of the people, no begging them in terms of hyperbole to give some physical sign that the message has been accepted. It is simply one man, conscious of his sins, aware how little progress he makes and how hard it is to be a doer of the Word, sympathetically passing on to his people (whom he knows to have the same sort of problems as himself) what God has said to them and to him."

T.H.L. Parker (regarding John Calvin)
Calvin's Preaching
as cited in The Expository Genius of John Calvin by Steven J. Lawson

Fellowship in the Gospel

For those of you who (like me) are in eastern Michigan and love to fellowship with brothers in Christ as we bask in the glow of the Gospel, let me alert you to what is sure to be a great event May 3rd and 4th. Fellowship in the Gospel is a two day conference hosted by Berean Baptist Church in Livonia, Michigan, and it is dedicated to the idea that the Gospel is the key to preaching and teaching, the key to relationships, and the key to an ongoing life of transformation.

This year's keynote speaker will be Dr. Bryan Chapell of Covenant Theological Seminary. During my time at Covenant, Dr. Chapell did as much as anyone to increase my understanding of and appreciation for the grace of God and the good news of the Gospel.

The schedule includes three plenary messages from Dr. Chapell, as well as three elective sessions. For those interested, there is also a pre-conference workshop by Brian Vickers focusing on Abraham's Sanctification by Faith.

Click here for information regarding registration.

A Quick Thought About Righteous Anger

In Luke 19:45-48, we read of what is probably the paradigmatic example of righteous anger: Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple. In this passage, we often find for ourselves a pass to experience and express anger. After all, if Jesus did it, it can’t be wrong.

We ought to be very careful about such a line of thinking though. First of all, His anger was ignited not because He had been offended, but because His Father had. My otherwise righteous anger is far too often intertwined with my own self-interest. I am not just angry that a Holy God was sinned against; I am angry that I was sinned against. And even if I try my hardest, it is impossible for me to untangle these strands.

This leads me to a second point: There is indeed a lesson for us to be learned from this passage, where we read of the cleansing of the temple. I believe it is quite informative to consider verses 45-48 in light of verses 41-44. In those immediately preceding verses, we read the following:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” 

It seems that before Jesus was angry at sin, he was grieved by it. And the same should be true of us. Make no mistake, there is a place for righteous anger. But for every ounce of righteous anger we express, let us first experience 100 pounds of humble sorrow. And for every time our blood boils, let us be sure our tears have first fallen.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Sean Lucas on our Blessings in Christ

"All the spiritual blessings we have come through and with Jesus. And yet, the greatest blessing that we receive through our union with Christ is not justification, not holiness, not glorification, not the spirit of adoption, not the spirit of prayer, not simply even the fact that God rejoices over us. Rather, the greatest blessing we receive is Jesus -- that we are united to him and enjoy communion with the living God in and through Him. He is our greatest blessing. He is our greatest delight."

Sean Lucas
What is Grace?

The Selfless Love of a Brother

Perhaps it's because I I've been thinking a lot lately about how we are to relate to one another within the church, but when I watched this video, I couldn't help but think the following:

How beautiful would it be if I loved my brothers and sisters in Christ as selflessly as Conner loves his brother?

Yesterday's Sermon: Glorious Humility

Yesterday's sermon was from Philippians 2:1-11 and dealt with fact that pride is often a stumbling block to the unity which Christ expects from His Church. But if we are to call ourselves followers of Him who went to the cross, we have no other option than to humbly love one another.

It wasn’t just the painful, physical humiliation. It wasn’t just the degrading, emotional humiliation. It was the fact that Christ Jesus became a curse for us, taking upon himself the sins of the world. Paul says (quoting Deutoronomy 21:23), "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" (Galatians 3:13). On the cross, Jesus Christ not only bore the curse for us, he became a curse for us. And that’s what makes it all the more incredible that Paul can say, ”far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).

He can boast in the cross, because at the cross, Christ didn’t just endure suffering, he didn’t just endure ignomy, he didn’t just endure the curse. Acts 20:28 tells us that at the cross he also purchased the church for his own possession with his own blood. So we have nothing to commend ourselves to God – we only have faith (as a gift from him) that Christ Jesus paid for our sins. So we trust in him.

And a second application is this: If Christ Jesus so loved the church so much that he not only took on human flesh, but he went to the cross for her -- if he loved the church that much -- then we must love the church as well.

Click here for audio of the sermon.

A Word for Preachers...Alexander on the Authority of Scripture

"(O)utside Holy Scripture, we have no authoritative Word from God. With the eroding of confidence in the authority of Scripture in our own generation, it is not at all surprising that there has been an evacuation of authority from the pulpit. The decline in preaching is almost inevitably a result of such an absence of conviction concerning the authority of Scripture. The history of the Christian church bears ample and sad testimony to this connection.

"The whole cast of a truly biblical ministry will be a concern that people should recognize our only interest is not in selling our own line, or persuading people of our own opinion, or seeking that they might adopt our own view on a particular issue, but in humbly, obediently, and openly seeking to deal with what Holy Scripture says, opening it up and making it plain. The task has never been more clearly illustrated than in the ministry of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 8 where the people are met together under the Word of God. The ministry which the Levites fulfilled was to 'read from the book of the the Law of God, making it clear and giving meaning so that the people could understand what was being read' (Neh. 8:8)."

Eric J. Alexander
What is Biblical Preaching?