Worth Reading

Psalm 51

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare. We also encourage you to read 2 Samuel 11-12 in preparation for this Sunday.

The Legacy of One-Point Calvinism and Casual Churchianity

Good follow up on last week’s sermon as well as a tie in to this week’s:

I grew up among a few million “one-point Calvinists” who misunderstood their one point: “once saved, always saved.” In general, it meant, if Johnny asked Jesus into his heart at age six, left the church at sixteen, mocked Jesus for ten years, and died in Vietnam with a bullet hole through his playboy bunny, he was in heaven.

In my first year in the pastorate, I told a young woman who was committing fornication that if she didn’t repent and turn to Jesus, she would go to hell. She was not happy with that theology. Later she accepted it. I did her wedding, and for twenty years she wrote me at Christmas to say thank you for the warning. No one had ever told her that growing up in a Christian home...

Don’t Waste Your Vacation

You never take a vacation from your Christianity, so why would our modern concepts of vacation sway us away from attending worship on the Sunday of our vacation?

Touched by Biblical Beauty

The world may be "death impregnated," as one of my mentors used to say, and most of us know the bite of suffering in one form or another, but it also is brim-full of beauty because it everywhere bears the mark of his thumbprint, his "It was very good" (Gen. 1:31). The common graces of tastes, sights, touch, sounds, enduring friendship, love, joy, community. And much, much beauty has been squeezed into the world through the funnel of God's good Word, the Bible.

Westminster Shorter Catechism #82

Q: Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
A: No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but does daily break them in thought, word and deed.
Romans 3:20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

We've picked apart the 10 commandments pretty extensively over the last several months. I think it's pretty clear to us now that no one is able to keep the law of God perfectly. This should not be a surprise to us. And it is definitely not a surprise to God. God always knew his people could not and would not keep the law. And God did not give us the law so that we could earn merit with him. It was not given as another path to salvation (keep that in mind! The law was given in the Old Testament AFTER God already saved his people through the exodus). Rather, it was given to show us his character and nature, it was given to us to show us our sin and our need for a redeemer, and it was given to us so that we can, as God's redeemed people, know how to strive to live for our own good, for the good of our neighbor, and for the glory of God. When we think about and examine the 10 commandments, we should be reminded deeply of our dependency upon Jesus Christ and his life of perfect obedience, and we should rejoice in knowing that the infinite Holy God has made his character known to us so that we, as finite beings, can know how we can live in a way that glorifies and enjoys God! 

Worth Reading

Psalm 96

Do you come to our gathered worship service expecting God to speak to you through his Word? We encourage you to prayerfully read through the passage that will be preached prior to the service to help you prepare.

God’s Beauty for the Bored, Busy, and Depressed

Psalm 96:6: “Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his  sanctuary."
Good read as we prepare to look at Psalm 96 this Sunday:

To escape our bondage to sin, we must come alive to the glory of God in Christ. He’s our only hope. On this theme, theologian Jonathan Edwards was a master. He discovered God’s glory and beauty all over Scripture, and he centered his understanding of the Christian life there. . . So what does God’s splendor have to do with my daily life right now — in my busyness, in my temptations, in my boredom, and in my spiritual dryness? I recently sat down to talk with Dane Ortlund, who serves as the Bible publishing director at Crossway.

The Role of Singing in the Life of the Church

Psalm 96:1: Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD all the earth!
Another good one to prepare us for gathered worship:

Christianity is a singing faith. It’s one of the chief things followers of Jesus are renowned for, both down through the ages and now all around the world. While the proportion of singing has varied from time to time and from place to place, most churches today devote about a third of their gathering time to congregational singing and invest a considerable amount of time, money, effort, and energy into the musical side of church life. But why do we sing? What does our singing accomplish? What purposes does it fulfill? According to Scripture, God has both created and called us to sing for three principal reasons: to help us praise, to help us pray, and to help us proclaim. Let’s look at each of these reasons in turn.

In Celebration of the PCA

I could celebrate the fact that a south-born Church has repented of racial sin, and taken steps to walk in repentance. I could celebrate our pursuit of God’s truth in our study of Gender roles in the Church. Both of which cause me to rejoice.

But I want to celebrate something less structural but just as significant:

I praise God for the work accomplished on the Assembly floor, but I’m just as thankful for our witness outside of the convention center.

I have no idea if the World is watching our assembly debates, but I know that men and women working around Mobile noticed us, and I’m proud of the fact that the PCA loved them well.

Westminster Shorter Catechism #81

Q: What is forbidden in the tenth commandment? 
A: The tenth commandment forbids all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his. 
James 3:14–16 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 

I think it's important to note this commandment doesn't just forbid dissatisfaction with what we've been given, but also envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor. To me, "grieving" is a strange word to use here. We usually think of grief as a proper response to great loss and sadness in our lives. We grieve when loved ones die, or when someone falls into deep, unrepentant sin, or when we or someone we know and love suffers some kind of tragedy. These are all right expressions of grief. But as the catechism points out, there's another kind of grief, a sinful kind of grief that actually flows out of our failure to keep the tenth commandment. We can actually be overtaken, overwhelmed with sadness and grief because we covet what our neighbor has. For anyone who has experienced the "right" kind of grief, that seems like a remarkable statement. It's hard to imagine that envy could lead us to feel the kind of deep and encompassing sadness we have felt when grieving in the "right way". 

Does the catechism go too far in using the word, "grieving"? Perhaps not. There are many cases throughout the Bible where envy has actually led someone to commit a violent act against another person (Ahab in 1 Kings 21, for example). We can look at our own world and see tremendous acts of violence committed against each other because of envy. Perhaps this is why Shakespeare referred to jealousy as "the green eyed monster". As the people of God, it's a monster we have to constantly fight and guard against, or else we risk finding ourselves being taken down a road that is truly grievous to ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbors, and to God himself. 

Westminster Shorter Catechism #80

Q: What is required in the 10th Commandment?
A: The tenth commandment requires full contentment with our own condition, with a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbor, and all that is his. 
Philippians 4:11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 

Sometimes I think this commandment is the hardest one to truly keep. Our culture thrives on envy. We are raised in a culture that teaches us to never be satisfied with what we have. In fact, covetousness, the drive to have more than the next person, has in many ways fueled our society. We're constantly looking at what others have and think, "Why should they have X and not me?" We overlook so quickly how the Lord takes care of us day in and day out, becoming dissatisfied with his numerous good gifts, and why? Because our house isn't as big, our car not as new, our bank accounts not as full as the person next to us. And what does that lead to? It leads to us despising our neighbors. Yet this commandment does call us to find contentment in all situations, to be thankful in what the Lord has indeed done for us, and to again, love and be charitable towards our neighbor, regardless of the "income gap" between you. 

We need to keep perspective when it comes to this issue. Starr Meade says, "We can be content with our status in life because whatever we have is a gift from God and is more than we deserve." We all need to think about that when we start comparing ourselves to our neighbors, when we begin to feel covetousness and envy creeping into our hearts. We've been given far more than we ever deserve in this world, and even more than our material possessions, we as God's people have been given God himself!