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QUOTES FOR REFLECTION “Do you live with an awareness not only of his atoning work for your sinfulness but also of his longing heart amid your sinfulness?” “For the penitent, his heart of gentle embrace is never outmatched by our sins and foibles and insecurities and doubts and anxieties and failures. For lowly gentleness is not one way Jesus occasionally acts toward others. Gentleness is who he is.” “Jesus deals gently and only gently with all sinners who come to him...If we never come to him, we will experience a judgment so fierce it will be like a double-edged sword...If we do come to him, as fierce as his lion-like judgment would have been against us, so deep will be his lamb-like tenderness for us...To no one will Jesus be neutral.” “Fallen, anxious sinners are limitless in their capacity to perceive reasons for Jesus to cast them out. We are factories of fresh resistances to Christ's love. Even when we run out of tangible reasons to be cast out, such as specifics sins or failures, we tend to retain a vague sense that, given enough time, Jesus will finally grow tired of us and hold us at arm's length.” “He cannot bear to part with his own, even when they most deserve to be forsaken. ‘But I...' Raise your objections. None can threaten these invincible words: ‘Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.'” “The Spirit's role...is to turn our postcard apprehensions of Christ's great heart of longing affection for us into an experience of sitting on the beach, in a lawn chair, drink in hand, enjoying the actual experience. The Spirit does this decisively, once for all, at regeneration. But he does it ten thousand times thereafter, as we continue through sin and folly, or boredom to drift from the felt experience of his heart.”~Dane Ortlund, pastor and author of Gentle and Lowly “Your very sins move him to pity more than to anger...as all his anger is turned upon your sin to ruin it; yes his pity is increased the more towards you, even as the heart of a father is to a child that has some loathsome disease or as one is to a member of his body that has leprosy, he hates not the member, for it is his flesh, but the disease, and that provokes him to pity the part affected the more.”~Thomas Goodwin, English Puritan pastor, 17th centurySERMON PASSAGEHebrews 6:1-12 (ESV)1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits. 4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.9 Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. 11 And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, 12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/editorialtpv El día de hoy hablaremos sobre la segunda parte del libro "El Corazón de Cristo en el cielo hacia los pecadores en la tierra", de Thomas Goodwin. Páginas 61-122. Ver aquí: https://teologiaparavivir.com/goodwin-el-corazon-de-cristo/ . El programa de hoy examina como Jesucristo, incluso en el cielo, conserva un corazón compasivo hacia los pecadores de la Tierra. Goodwin utiliza las escrituras, en particular Hebreos 4:15, para apoyar la afirmación de que la empatía de Cristo por la debilidad humana perdura. Se presentan tres argumentos clave: el mandato perpetuo de Dios a Cristo de amar a los pecadores, la naturaleza misericordiosa inherente de Cristo como Hijo de Dios y la presencia continua del Espíritu Santo. Por último, el Goowin explora los papeles continuos de Cristo como Sumo Sacerdote y Cabeza de la Iglesia como una prueba más de su amor y compasión perdurables. Siguenos: - Web: https://teologiaparavivir.com/ - Blog: https://semperreformandaperu.org/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teologiaparavivir/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teologiaparavivir/ - Youtube: https://www.instagram.com/teologiaparavivir/
Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/editorialtpv El día de hoy hablaremos sobre la primera parte del libro "El Corazón de Cristo en el cielo hacia los pecadores en la tierra", de Thomas Goodwin. Páginas 1-60. Ver aquí: https://teologiaparavivir.com/goodwin-el-corazon-de-cristo/ . El programa de hoy explora el El corazón de Cristo en el cielo hacia los pecadores en la tierra, de Thomas Goodwin, una obra puritana del siglo 17. Se destaca su vida y sus contribuciones teológicas en el contexto de la Guerra Civil Inglesa y el auge del puritanismo. El podcast también contiene una obra más breve, titulada "Un aliento para la fe", que explora temas similares sobre el amor de Dios y Cristo por los pecadores. Siguenos: - Web: https://teologiaparavivir.com/ - Blog: https://semperreformandaperu.org/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teologiaparavivir/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teologiaparavivir/ - Youtube: https://www.instagram.com/teologiaparavivir/
What are we to make of a book that has evidently been a blessing to many, contains truths vital for the church to recover, and which is yet unbalanced and problematic at points? Jeremy Walker shows the way with grace and discernment in his review of Dane Ortlund's Gentle and Lowly (2020). We read Jeremy's review, and then spend a little more time with Thomas Goodwin and his view of the heart of Christ. Featured Content: – Jeremy Walker 'Precious but Flawed: A Review Article', Banner of Truth Magazine, Issue 691 (April 2021). – Excerpt from Michael Reeves, 'Goodwin, Sibbes and the Love of Christ', Banner of Truth Magazine, Issue 578 (November 2011). About the Contributors: Jeremy Walker is pastor at Maidenbower Baptist Church, Crawley, West Sussex. He is the author of a number of books, including Our Chief of Days: The Principle, Purpose, and Practice of the Lord's Day. Michael Reeves is President and Professor of Theology at Union Theology (https://uniontheology.org/) Explore the work of the Banner of Truth: www.banneroftruth.org Subscribe to the Magazine (print/digital/both): www.banneroftruth.org/magazine Leave us a voice message: www.speakpipe.com/magazinepodcast
When young Thomas Goodwin and his friends went out to have fun, they decided to go to a funeral. Whether they had nothing else to do or were planning to sneer, the sermon Goodwin heard changed his life forever. Join Trinity, Emma, and Christian as they interview Dr. Michael Horton, J. Gresham Machen Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary California, who has written a thesis about Thomas Goodwin. Find out how Goodwin's sermons and writings affected the people of his time and how they continue to speak to us today by pointing us to Christ, not ourselves or our faith. Thanks to the generosity of our friends at Reformation Heritage Books, we are excited to offer a bundle of Simonetta Carr's books to two lucky listeners! The winner will be selected just in time for Christmas. Register here to win this special giveaway! Show Notes: Dr. Horton recommended the following books to our listeners: Christ Set Forth by Thomas Goodwin: https://banneroftruth.org/us/store/theology/christ-set-forth/ The Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth by Thomas Goodwin: https://banneroftruth.org/us/store/christian-living/the-heart-of-christ/
A new MP3 sermon from Jon Jacobs/Grace Presbyterian Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The English Reformation: Thomas Goodwin Subtitle: The English Reformation Speaker: Dr. Jon Jacobs Broadcaster: Jon Jacobs/Grace Presbyterian Church Event: Teaching Date: 8/14/2024 Length: 38 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Jon Jacobs/Grace Presbyterian Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The English Reformation: Thomas Goodwin Subtitle: The English Reformation Speaker: Dr. Jon Jacobs Broadcaster: Jon Jacobs/Grace Presbyterian Church Event: Teaching Date: 8/14/2024 Length: 38 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Jon Jacobs/Grace Presbyterian Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The English Reformation: Thomas Goodwin Subtitle: The English Reformation Speaker: Dr. Jon Jacobs Broadcaster: Jon Jacobs/Grace Presbyterian Church Event: Teaching Date: 8/14/2024 Length: 38 min.
A new MP3 sermon from The Narrated Puritan is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: The Temporary Believer - Useful Observations Subtitle: The Warnings in Hebrews Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: The Narrated Puritan Event: Audiobook Date: 6/23/2024 Bible: Hebrews 6:7-8 Length: 24 min.
Thomas Goodwin made it his life's mission to take Christians' minds off themselves by filling their gaze with the glory of Christ. Today, Michael Reeves describes the Christ-centered preaching of this eminent Puritan. Get Michael Reeves' Teaching Series 'The English Reformation and the Puritans' on DVD and the Digital Study Guide for Your Gift of Any Amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3404/english-reformation-puritans Meet Today's Teacher: Michael Reeves is president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in the United Kingdom. He is the featured teacher for the Ligonier teaching series The English Reformation and the Puritans. He is author of many books, including The Unquenchable Flame, Delighting in the Trinity, and Rejoice and Tremble. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Don't forget to make RenewingYourMind.org your home for daily in-depth Bible study and Christian resources. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
This week we hone in on Thomas Goodwin, 'The Atlas of Independency', and read Ian Hamilton's recent article, Thomas Goodwin: The Evangelical Puritan, before turning to an extract from Goodwin's own Christ Set Forth, As the Cause of Justification and as the Object of Justifying Faith (Puritan Paperback). Featured Content: – Thomas Goodwin: The Evangelical Puritan, Ian Hamilton, featured in The Banner of Truth Magazine: No. 725, February 2024 – Extract from Thomas Goodwin, Christ Set Forth, As the Cause of Justification and as the Object of Justifying Faith (Chapter 3, pages 15–26). Buy the book: https://banneroftruth.org/store/theology/christ-set-forth/ Explore the work of the Banner of Truth: www.banneroftruth.org Subscribe to the Magazine (Print/Digital/Both): www.banneroftruth.org/magazine
QUOTES FOR REFLECTION “Gather ‘round, ye children, comeListen to the old, old storyOf the pow'r of death undoneBy an infant born of glorySon of God, Son of Man. So sing out with joy for the brave little boyWho was God, but He made Himself nothingHe gave up His pride and He came here to die like a man.”~ Andrew Peterson, “Gather ‘Round, Ye Children, Come” “Now the same Spirit dwelling in Christ's heart in heaven, that does in yours here, and always working in his heart first for you, and then in yours by commission from him; rest assured, therefore, that that Spirit stirs up in him bowels of mercy infinitely larger towards you than you can have unto yourselves.”~ Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ in Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth “As Bunyan says, describing his first and illusory conversion, ‘I thought there was no man in England that pleased God better than I.' Beaten out of this, we next offer our own humility to God's admiration. Surely He'll like that? Or if not that, our clear-sighted and humble recognition that we still lack humility. Thus, depth beneath depth and subtlety within subtlety, there remains some lingering idea of our own, our very own, attractiveness. It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little - however little - native luminosity?”~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”~ Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit, by J.R.R. TolkienSERMON PASSAGEMicah 6:1-8 (ESV)1 Hear what the Lord says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.2 Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lord has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel.3 “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.5 O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”6 “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Man's Restoration by Grace by Thomas Goodwin audiobook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Thomas Goodwin The Work of the Holy Spirit on the Temporary Believer Short of Regeneration. 1616-1680 Confessional, Affordable, Theological Education CBTS is a Confessional Reformed Baptist Seminary Providing Affordable Online Theological Education to Help the Church in its Calling to Train Faithful Men for the Gospel Ministry. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cbtseminary/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cbtseminary/support
Thomas Goodwin The Work of the Holy Spirit on the Temporary Believer Short of Regeneration. 1616-1680 Confessional, Affordable, Theological Education CBTS is a Confessional Reformed Baptist Seminary Providing Affordable Online Theological Education to Help the Church in its Calling to Train Faithful Men for the Gospel Ministry.
In this episode, I walk through another great paragraph of Thomas Goodwin's "A Discourse of Thankfulness." We'll talk about some critical truths if we are to be genuinely thankful to God.
In this episode, I begin walking through Thomas Goodwin's "A Discourse of Thanksgiving." We'll briefly discuss the difference between giving God glory and giving him thanks.
Temporary and the Twofold Working of the Spirit. The Twofold working of the Spirit is the title of a chapter in A W Pink's commentary on Hebrews where he details the work of the Holy Spirit upon the non-elect. It is also called -The Common Influences of the Holy Spirit. An examination of Thomas Goodwin's treatise from Works Volume 6 -The Holy Spirit and the Temporary Believer- is also opened up with a story in this lesson also from Davis W Clark's Deathbed Scenes, 1851 The Apostate.
"Thomas Goodwin - The Child of Light Walking in Darkness" For more information visit: https://cbtseminary.org --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cbtseminary/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cbtseminary/support
"Thomas Goodwin - The Child of Light Walking in Darkness" For more information visit: https://cbtseminary.org
February 13, 2023 KEVIN HAY, who has pastored churches in Ohio, Indiana & West Virginia, is a D.Min student of Expository Preaching @ The Master's Seminary, the editor of the book, “Assurance: Our Confidence In Christ”, by Thomas Goodwin, & a regular, contributing writer @ Expository Parenting & G3Min.org, who will address: "The NECESSITY of EXPOSITORY PREACHING” & announcing the upcoming conference, "From Shadows to Substance!" Subscribe: iTunes TuneIn Android RSS Feed Listen:
Here I offer five recommendations for books to get started engaging with the Puritans. Links: 1) Samuel Rutherford's Letters: https://www.amazon.com/Loveliness-Christ-Samuel-Rutherford/dp/0851519563/truthunites-20 2) John Owen, The Mortification of Sin: https://www.amazon.com/Mortification-Sin-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/0851518672/truthunites-20 3) Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ: https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Christ-Vintage-Puritan/dp/1941129218/truthunites-20 4) Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed: https://www.amazon.com/Bruised-Reed-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/1848718039/truthunites-20 5) Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor: https://www.amazon.com/Reformed-Pastor-Puritan-Paperbacks/dp/1848712111/truthunites-20 Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/
While the English Book of Common Prayer had early use in Scotland, it is a fixed liturgy, providing a range of fixed prayers and detailed tables of fixed lessons. It is therefore not easy to compare it with the Directory. However, the Directory does very much follow the Book of Common Order used in Scotland from 1564, which derived from Knox's Forme of Prayers used in the English Congregation in Geneva. This book affords discretion in the wording of the prayers and no fixed lectionary.--The Directory was produced by a parliamentary subcommittee among the Westminster divines. The chair of the subcommittee was Stephen Marshall. Other members included Thomas Young, Herbert Palmer, and Charles Herle. Representing the Independents were Philip Nye and Thomas Goodwin, and representing the Scottish Presbyterians were Alexander Henderson, Robert Baillie, George Gillespie, and Samuel Rutherford. The text appears to be in the style of Nye's writing. from the wiki article
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Aggravations Of Sinning Against Knowledge Conclusion Subtitle: Puritan Audio Books Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/14/2022 Bible: Proverbs 1 Length: 62 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Aggravations Of Sinning Against Knowledge Conclusion Subtitle: Puritan Audio Books Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/14/2022 Bible: Proverbs 1 Length: 62 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Aggravations Of Sinning Against Knowledge Conclusion Subtitle: Puritan Audio Books Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/14/2022 Bible: Proverbs 1 Length: 62 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Aggravations Of Sinning Against Knowledge Part 2 Subtitle: Puritan Audio Books Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/12/2022 Bible: Romans 1:18-32 Length: 48 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Aggravations Of Sinning Against Knowledge Part 2 Subtitle: Puritan Audio Books Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/12/2022 Bible: Romans 1:18-32 Length: 48 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Aggravations Of Sinning Against Knowledge Part 2 Subtitle: Puritan Audio Books Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/12/2022 Bible: Romans 1:18-32 Length: 48 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Aggravations Of Sinning Against Knowledge Part 1 Subtitle: Puritan Audio Books Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/11/2022 Bible: Romans 1:18-32 Length: 38 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: A Discourse On Thankfulness Part 3 Subtitle: Digital Puritan Final Volume Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/6/2022 Bible: Ephesians 5:20 Length: 33 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: A Discourse On Thankfulness Part 3 Subtitle: Digital Puritan Final Volume Speaker: Thomas Goodwin Broadcaster: Puritan Reformed Church of the UK & US Event: Audio Book Date: 12/6/2022 Bible: Ephesians 5:20 Length: 33 min.
Four preachers from the English Puritan era of the 17th century. The period of King Charles 1 - 11- Oliver Cromwell- William of Orange- the Great Ejection and -Black Bartholomew's Day on August 24 1662.---The final study looks at the ministry of Swiss born Pierre Viret, a close friend of John Calvin. Viret, an outstanding gospel orator but largely forgotten Reformer was born in the Swiss village of Orbe, near Lausanne.
Four preachers from the English Puritan era of the 17th century. The period of King Charles 1 - 11- Oliver Cromwell- William of Orange- the Great Ejection and -Black Bartholomew's Day on August 24 1662.---The final study looks at the ministry of Swiss born Pierre Viret, a close friend of John Calvin. Viret, an outstanding gospel orator but largely forgotten Reformer was born in the Swiss village of Orbe, near Lausanne.
Day 191 Today's Reading: 1 Timothy 1 Erwin Lutzer, author and long-time pastor of Moody Church in Chicago said, “There is more grace in God's heart than there is sin in your past.” This is something the apostle Paul knew and wrote about in today's chapter: "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 1:12-14) A. W. Tozer tells us how right Paul is: Sometimes I go to God and say, “God, if Thou dost never answer another prayer while I live on this earth, I will still worship Thee as long as I live and in the ages to come for what Thou hast done already.” God's already put me so far in debt that if I were to live one million millenniums I couldn't pay Him for what He's done for me. The only currency we have to offer God for all He has done for us is thanksgiving. And sometimes we don't do well with gratitude. How can we get better? Here's a good place to start from Priscilla Maurice: Begin by thanking Him for some little thing, and then go on, day by day, adding to your subjects of praise; thus you will find their numbers grow wonderfully; and, in the same proportion, will your subjects of murmuring and complaining diminish, until you see in everything some cause for thanksgiving. The apostle Paul starts off by thanking God for putting him in the ministry. The Message says it like this: I'm so grateful to Christ Jesus for making me adequate to do this work. He went out on a limb, you know, in trusting me with this ministry” (1 Timothy 1:12). And just like Priscilla Maurice said, as he started thanking God, the list grew. After thanking God for trusting him with the ministry, his heart went into the past and realized that God had gone out on a limb to pick Paul to represent Him. Here is the limb God went out on for Paul: “Even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus” (verses 13-14). Paul used three words that built to a climax—blasphemer to persecutor to violent aggressor. What's crazy is how important our crazy past is. Instead of being tempted to hide it or ignore it, he shared it. Author Brennan Manning encourages us to do the same—to tell our terrible stories: “In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.” And as Warren Wiersbe reminds us: “The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you.” That means Paul used his crazy past to guide his gratitude and thanksgiving. Maybe we don't think enough of our past and so our praise limps. Here is what Paul did. The thing that stands out in this passage is Paul's insistence on remembering his own sin in a very revealing ascending order. He piled up his words on top of one another to show the awfulness of what he had done and the kind of person he really was. Paul said he was an insulter of the church. He'd flung hot and angry words at the Christians, accusing them of crimes against God. Then he moved up to being a persecutor, taking every means to annihilate the Christian church. Then he moved up again and admitted he became a violent aggressor. The word in Greek indicates a kind of arrogant sadism; it describes someone who is out to inflict pain for the sheer joy of inflicting it. Paul was showing us a dark heart. He had found delight in the suffering of other people, especially Christians. That was what Paul once was. Then Paul, amazed, said that God went out on a limb to put him in the ministry. That's definitely something to thank God about. The Puritan pastor, Thomas Goodwin, wrote an insightful letter to his son: When I was threatening to become cold in my ministry, and when I felt Sabbath morning coming and my heart not filled with amazement at the grace of God, or when I was making ready to dispense the Lord's Supper, do you know what I used to do? I used to take a turn up and down among the sins of my past life, and I always came down again with a broken and a contrite heart, ready to preach, as it was preached in the beginning, the forgiveness of sins. I do not think I ever went up the pulpit stair that I did not stop for a moment at the foot of it and take a turn up and down among the sins of my past years. I do not think that I ever planned a sermon that I did not take a turn round my study table and look back at the sins of my youth and of all my life down to the present; and many a Sabbath morning, when my soul had been cold and dry, for the lack of prayer during the week, a turn up and down in my past life before I went into the pulpit always broke my hard heart and made me close with the gospel for my own soul before I began to preach. When we remember how we have hurt God, hurt those who love us, and hurt others, and when we remember how God and our neighbors have forgiven us, that memory must awake the flame of gratitude within our hearts. That's exactly what Paul did here in 1 Timothy. Let's read what Paul said after he recounted his awful past: Grace mixed with faith and love poured over me and into me. And all because of Jesus. Here's a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I'm proof—Public Sinner Number One—of someone who could never have made it apart from sheer mercy. And now he shows me off—evidence of his endless patience—to those who are right on the edge of trusting him forever. (verses 14-16, MSG) Paul's past was forgiven and now he was telling others the amazing forgiveness and mercy of God. Let's follow his example.
A new MP3 sermon from Mission Africa is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Free Mercy by Thomas Goodwin Psalm 86:15 Subtitle: Old Paths Readings Speaker: Jim Robinette Broadcaster: Mission Africa Event: Devotional Date: 9/14/2022 Bible: Psalm 86:5 Length: 2 min.
In this episode we dive into some of the rich depths of Psalm 73. We resonate with the frustration of Asaph as he watched the ungodly of the world strutting in luxury while he pained himself in obedience to God. We also look to the solution in the cross of Christ and we saw how as Chrsitians we are to lift up the eyes of our hearts to our hope of glory beyond this life only. At the close, we finish with a beautiful encouragement written by the puritan Thomas Goodwin on the heart of Christ in heaven unto sinners like us. Enjoy!Time:AfternoonMinister:Pastors Daniel & TaylorTexts:Psalm 73Colossians 3:1–4Series:Midweek Musings
Hello!Thank you for listening to Into the Pray. We hope you're being encouraged as you listen.Please consider supporting our work here and/or here. You can watch the YouTube video of the same title here. Martin Luther once slammed Desiderius Erasmus by saying:"Your thoughts of God are too human."Luther was right, but then again, so too were his thoughts of God too human. This is true for all of us but, for some, more terminally true - for those who think they know God when they do not. Recent content: The Context of the Power - For God's sake, pick up a cross and take Jesus to people. If you have any testimonials, please reach out, make contact across the 'digital divide', and let us know!How to pray for Ukraine (and other nations)? See a new video here. Order our new gospel tract for your parish here. Let's smash this fake gospel up.Our flagship content:
Hello! It's good to be back after a short break! On this episode of History and Christianity and I want to focus on a little sentence, in this little book -- but I'll get to that in a little bit.FIRST, I have a question: What would YOU say to someone who had abandoned you at a critical moment -- what would be the first thing you would say to them if you had a chance to run into them AFTER they had abandoned you?This question came to mind as I was reading Thomas Goodwin's little book, "A Habitual Sight of Him." Today Thomas Goodwin was a minister, writer and teacher who was born in the year 1600 in a coastal community in England.Now I know what you're thinking -- I never heard of Thomas Goodwin, why should I care about what he has to say about anything? That's a good question. He's not well-known today, but he influenced people whose names you're probably familiar with -- John Cotton, the guy who influenced the development of New England along the East Coat in what was then known as the New World. Goodwin influenced Jonathan Edwards -- When hear his name you probably think "the Great Awakening"--that's right--- and there he also influenced George Whitefield, an important leader of the Methodist movement of the 1700s.But the reason Thomas Goodwin was popular was because he was very Christ-centered, as I think you'll see.The question I raised about abandonment stems from my reading of his insights regarding Jesus after the Resurrection, when Christ first appears to His disciples. So let's just dive right in. Today young people talk about "ghosting," which is a form of abandonment. Psychologists tell us the impact on us can vary depending on how we react to it. Jesus felt abandoned, too, but this is a very different form of abandonment. He had "been subjected to an exhausting series of late-night inquests, brutalized by Roman guards and marched through the streets of Jerusalem under a crushing weight; he is now nailed to the wood and suffering excruciating pain." We can't relate to that and neither could his friends because we are told in the New Testament that when they saw the Lord Jesus get arrested "they all abandoned Him and fled." They ran off to save themselves rather than admit allegiance to Jesus, which would have likely meant they, too, would have been crucified along with Jesus on a cross. Imagine that.Now with this context in mind, let's fast-forward to the first appearance of Jesus after he had been abandoned by the disciples --Thomas Goodwin writes: Now when Christ comes first out of the OTHER world -- that is, from the dead, and he appears first to a woman named Mary Magdalene, he is --get this -- clothed with that heart and body which he was to wear in heaven -- and Goodwin asks, what message does He send first to them? Goodwin says since the disciples could not relate to Him in His sufferings -- the phrase he uses is -- they did not know Him in His sufferings -- remember they didn't understand why the Messiah had to die, they fled -- so how could they relate to Him in his glory?This is a reference to Jesus' body after the Resurrection. Now, to quote Don Stewart on this point:"The body Jesus possessed, though like His pre-resurrection body, was in some aspects different. He could suddenly appear and disappear. In the locked upper room, Jesus suddenly appeared in the midst of His disciples. His new body had abilities the previous one either did not have or did not demonstrate. He did not have to eat or rest. He also ascended into heaven when his earthly ministry was finished. Consequently there are similarities, as well as differences, between the body that Jesus had while upon the earth and the one in which he was raised."So Thomas Goodwin notes, "We would all think that as the disciples would not know Him in
What is one of the most precious yet underestimated doctrines in Reformed theology? In this episode of Open Book, Stephen Nichols and Joel Beeke speak on the strength and comfort we receive from Jesus' heavenly intercession for His people. Read the transcript: https://openbookpodcast.com/joel-beeke-on-thomas-goodwin/
Welcome to Recharge Radio! This is a Christian podcast dedicated to increasing worship in the Christian's daily life. We are back with the Waterwheel and we are going over a sermon excerpt from "Christ the Mediator" by Thomas Goodwin.
Luke 18:15-17 // How does the example of children help us receive and enter the Kingdom? By embracing our powerlessness, growing in trust and forgiveness, & develop vulnerability and resistance. “Christ's own joy, comfort, happiness and glory are increased and enlarged by His showing grace and mercy, in pardoning, relieving and comforting His members here on earth.” ~ Thomas Goodwin
Return to MeOur Scripture reading this morning is from Zechariah chapter 1, found on page 943. Our focus this morning will be on verses 3-6, but I'll be reading starting at verse 1.Reading of Zechariah 1:3-6PrayerIntroductionIn the year 383 AD something happened that has had lasting but unfortunate impact in the church. What happened? Well, a new version of the Bible was published. But wait, how can a new version of the Scriptures cause an unfortunate result? It started with the good intentions to write a new more accurate version translated into Latin. A well-educated scholar, St. Jerome, took the best-known manuscripts at the time and began the task. But because of the difficult task of translation and the differences in how Greek and Latin are structured, a couple of key Bible verses were mis-translated.One of those verses is Matthew 4:17 – Jesus' first words as part of his public ministry. Our translations say this: “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand”But the new Latin translation at the time essentially said this: “do repentance, for the kingdom of God is at hand” or “do penance.” You see, it attached an outward activity to the inward call of repentance. And over the ensuing centuries, the church sadly took and ran with it. The church began requiring people do things like going to a priest in a confessional, or saying things like the rosary (a prayer to Mary), you could even pay money as part of your penance. Really, it suppressed the Gospel. It made faith and repentance works oriented.But in the year 1517, a young boisterous monk had had enough. Martin Luther, the great reformer, posted his famous 95 theses against the abuses of the Roman Catholic church. And his first four theses focused on repentance. In other words, Luther saw the false teaching about repentance as the center of the problem. Luther wrote that the entire life of believers should be one of inner repentance. And not the false teaching of doing penance. Luther referenced Matthew 4:17 in his very first theses. And he went on to explain what the word “repentance” means and what it doesn't mean.There is no “do” in repentance. Rather, it's a heart felt turning from your sin and to God.And as we come to these few verses at the beginning of Zechariah, that's exactly what we learn. Our text this morning focuses in on repentance. It teaches us what repentance is. And it helps us to understand the need for repentance. And let me say, repentance applies to everyone, everywhere. God calls each and every one of us to repentance. Along with faith, repentance is foundational to life. They go hand in hand.Now, you may be thinking, “but wait, why are you saying that these verses focus on repentance? I only see that word one time down in verse 6” Well, I'm glad you asked! That root word for “repentance” used in verse 6 is actually used 4 times in these verses. It's the same word translated as “return” used twice in verse 3 and once in verse 4. So, repentance is the focus of these verses. Once we get into it, that will become more apparent.BackgroundBut before we dig in, let me start with some quick reminders about Zechariah and who God was speaking to through him.First, if you remember from last week, the Babylonians had overthrown Judah and Jerusalem. They destroyed almost everything, killed many of the people, and dragged many of the remaining inhabitants to Babylon. That's known as the Babylonian exile or captivity. When Zechariah came on the scene, it had been almost 70 years since that started. Zechariah and his generation were born in Babylon. So it was their father's generation whom God was punishing, but they experienced that punishment as exiles. The Persians now controlled the region. They actually helped the Jews to return to Jerusalem. And Zechariah was one of the remnant of God's people who returned. He was a young man at the time. And he was prophesying to his generation who had recently returned from Babylon. That pretty much summarizes the historical context from last week.But let me also add something. This morning we read from Haggai chapter 1. Haggai's prophecy was only 2 months earlier than Zechariah's prophecy. And it gives us very helpful insight into what was going on with the people who returned. God said to them “my house lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.” The Lord was speaking about his temple. The foundations had been laid, but then the work stopped. And part of what happened was the people turned inward. They started working on their own houses without care for God's house.That's one reason God called them to return to him. He wanted their hearts and minds to return to the one true living God.Really, that's the purpose of the entire book of Zechariah. Its focus is spiritual rebuilding. That's different from the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra focuses on physically rebuilding the temple. Nehemiah focuses on God's call to physically rebuild the walls of the Jerusalem. But these verses at the beginning of Zechariah show us the need for God's people to be spiritually built up and renewed. God wants his relationship with them to be restored. It's why, as we'll see over the next weeks and months, Zechariah emphasizes God's salvation, his sovereignty, and his presence. He's calling them and he's calling us to be built up as a people who know the Lord, who trust in him, who give him glory, and who receive his mercy.And the starting place for that spiritual rebuilding is repentance.And let me say, these are helpful and powerful verses about repentance. They hit the very center of what repentance is.1. What are we turning toThis morning, we're going to start with what we are turning to in repentance before what we are turning from. I know that sounds backwards, but the emphasis on what we are turning to is so prevalent in these verses, that I think we should begin there. Then we will consider why we need to repent.And I think you already know the answer to what or who we need to turn to. It's pretty obvious, here. We need to turn to the Lord. We're to return to him. The turning is focused on God and our relationship with him. Look at verse 3. Let's count together the number of times that the Lord is referenced including pronouns. “Thus declares the Lord of hosts (first), return to me (second), says the Lord of Hosts (third), and I (fourth), will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts (fifth).” That's five times in just that 1 verse. And in the first 6 verses there are a total of 15 direct and indirect references to the Lord. These verses overwhelmingly reference the LordAnd did you notice that the word Lord is all capitalized. That is God's covenant name. Yahweh. It's a name that references the covenant relationship that God has with his people. And added to the word Lord is the phrase “of hosts.” That expands the meaning here to include God's heavenly army. His spiritual army. Some translations actually say, “the Lord of armies.” He is the Lord of hosts. The sovereign covenant keeping God with a vast army of angels.And our Lord wants you. He wants your heart. I'm using “heart” in a biblical sense. He wants your deepest beliefs, your identity… the very center of who you are is to be about him. When God says, “Return to me,” he wants to be in a relationship with you or a restored relationship with you… He wants to be the center of your life.And the foundation to repentance is returning to him – to God, in a restored relationship with him. That idea is also captured in God's response, here. He says, “return to me” …and if you do, he then says, “I will return to you!” Even though that is the same word as repentance, God is not saying he is repenting. No, his return to them is about his presence. He will again be with his people. And to say it again, “do” is not a part of repentance. This is not a transactional kind of relationship where if you do these things, then God will reciprocate. No, this springs from God's very nature. His desire to know you and to be known. He wants your heart.Our primary call in repentance is to turn our lives to God – to the Lord of Hosts. If you don't remember anything else from this sermon, I want you to remember this. God wants you. Repentance is turning your life to him.2. What are we turning fromLet's continue on, though. Let's now ask, what are we turning from? The short answer is, we are to turn from our sin, away from our sin. You see that right there in verse 4. “Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.” The Lord was talking about their father's generation there. And it's good summary of sin – evil ways and evil deeds. We'll take a moment to work that out. But first I want to point out that when we sin, we separate ourselves from God. The sin of their father's generation, mentioned here, caused them to be separated from God. That's the effect of sin. It says there at the end of verse 4, “they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord.” Their sin separated them from God, and he called them to turn from it and back to him. That's the very straightforward definition of repentance - turning away from our sin, and turning back to God.But I think we don't often consider all the ways we sin. The different categories of sin. So let's think of what “evil ways” and “evil deeds” refers to. Think about this. When you think of your sin, I'm guessing you usually think of the things that you do, which break God's commands. Right? Like a lustful thought or action to repent of. Or kids, anger against your brother or sister or classmate. Those are “evil deeds.” The things we think, say, or do that go against what God's tells us not to do. But that's only one category of sin. The other category of sin are the things we don't do that God calls us to do. That would be the “evil ways.” We take our own path. We're not following God's path. For example, God calls us to worship him, to pray to him, to trust him. He calls us to make disciples. When we don't do those things, we're also in sin. We're not following God's way. Both of those avenues of sin, move us away from God, away from his presence, and not towards him.Let's go back to the temptations of Zechariah and his generation. Even though they were back in Jerusalem, it didn't bring them closer to God. They mistakenly thought that by returning to the city, they were returning to God. That certainly wasn't the case for their forefathers. Who were, after all, in Jerusalem. They had the temple, but they rejected God. And so Zechariah's generation returned, but their excitement turned to disappointment and frustration. They didn't feel settled. And they began working on their own homes. They weren't following God's ways. Instead, they began to focus on themselves. And that's when God called them to return to him.Now, we'd be here all day if we were to work through all of our “evil ways” and “evil deeds.” So rather than think of specific sins. Let me give you some categories. And I want you to think about your own life and areas that need repentance. Here's the list:• Things or people you worship above God or alongside God• Times or situations when you are anxious and not trusting in him• Not coming into God's presence in prayer• Fear of man – of what other people think of you and not what God thinks• Sinful reactions when you are sinned against. Or other relational sins that you commit against one another• The big category of coveting and lust – wanting something that is not yours, or sexual desires that you act on in your thoughts or actions• Ways in which you are not loving your neighbor – like things we talked about in Sunday school this morning – that includes prejudice or injustice. • Laziness or slothfulness spent through hours and hours of wasted time. Let me get specific on this one… on games, watching sports, or shows• And last, one for the kids – ways in which you are not honoring your parents or loving your siblingsThere are many more.And God says to each of us, turn from those things and return to me. If you've walked away from God in some area of your life or if you've never come to him. He wants you to be grieved about those sins. He wants you to turn from them and to him.3. Why should we turnAnd this brings us to the third point. Why. Why should we turn from our sin?In some way, that question has already been answered. Our sin separates us from God. It's one reason why God calls us to return to him. But the why is also deeper and harder than that.Let's go back up to verse 2. “The Lord was very angry with your fathers.” He was angry at their fathers because of their sin. Because of their evil ways and evil deeds. Because God hates sin. Sin is so contrary to God's holiness and righteousness. And that holiness evokes in him a righteous justice at the presence of sin. The punishment on their fathers was a result of their sin. Exile. Using a worldly kingdom to overthrow them. And God says to Zechariah's generation “Do not be like your fathers”. He was telling them that the call to repentance, turning from sin and to God, included the warning of God's judgment.And we even see here a jab of sorts from God to Zechariah's generation… Verse 5. “Your fathers, where are they?” God was not only saying, don't be like them, he was telling them why. Because they received the just punishment of their sin. God was warning them that he will follow through. And look at that last part of verse 8. Zechariah's generation realized that. Realized that God will follow through. See what they said, “As the Lord of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so has he dealt with us.” The “us” meaning God's people, they and their fathers. This was a recognition that God will do what he says. Sin will be punished.And this goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 2 and 3. Genesis is the first book of the Bible. When God created man and woman, he gave them one prohibition. Not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And if they did, God promised that they would die. And when they ate of it, God fulfilled his promise. They didn't immediately die, no, God was gracious. But they spiritually died, they were banished from the presence of God, and they would begin the process of physically dying.You see, God will follow through. There's no escaping punishment for sin.If you've been reading along in our “Gentle & Lowly” book study, the chapter this week, chapter 15, focuses in on God's wrath. It's an unavoidable topic in Scripture, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Pastor Ortlund, the author, works through the books of Lamentations and Hosea, and then he quotes Thomas Goodwin, who he has gone to many times before. Goodwin wrote, “God's wrath and his word do torment men forever…” and Ortlund clarifies, “those who persist in sin and do not repent.”So why repent? Because God is a holy and just God, who will punish sin and the sinner.But beloved, there's another reason why we should repent.And that is because God is merciful. Yes, God hates sin, but he also is merciful to those who repent. It's right there in verse 3. We've already looked at it. “Return to me… and I will return to you.” God's warning of his anger is matched by his offer of mercy. It's a promise. “I will return to you.” I will relent. I will stay my hand. I will be in your presence again. Turn back to me, from your sin, and I will return to you. And his mercy should invoke in us a desire, a heart-felt desire, to return to him.And there's an amazing thing that happened in verse 6. “They repented.” This is most likely referring to Zechariah's generation. A reference back to verse 3. “Say to them” meaning say to Zechariah's generation. And verse 6 is their response. Repentance. In other words, they were not like their fathers, no, instead they repented. We have record in other books that these remnant and their leaders in Jerusalem repented. They turned from their sin to God, and God turned from his anger and back to them.Let's go back to Gentle & Lowly chapter 15. As much as that chapter is about God's wrath, the chapter is even more so about God's mercy. You see, God is just, yet that doesn't diminish his mercy in any way. No. As Ortlund writes, “God's attributes are not pieces of a pie making a whole pie,” rather “God is every attribute perfectly.” You see, we repent to God because of both his wrath and his mercy. But it's not like when we repent that all of a sudden God switches gears from wrath to mercy. No, that would be moving the pieces of the pie around and that is not how God's attributes work. Rather, God receives our repentance through the very act that both upholds his perfect wrath against sin and his perfect mercy to the repentant sinner. That is the cross of Christ. Through Jesus' death on the cross, God's perfect justice and mercy were both satisfied through his perfect sacrifice.God received their repentance through Christ who was to come, and he receives our repentance through Christ who has come.I think the Westminster Catechism summarizes repentance so well. Look back at it again in your bulletin. “Repentance unto life is a saving grace,” yes it is, God's work in us! “whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.” A heart turning from our sin because of the God's mercy in Christ... and a new desire to follow him and his ways.ConclusionLet me end where we began. Jesus words. “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The warning is there, but so is the mercy. The Lord of armies is calling you to turn to him. If you have never repented and turned to the Lord. This is where it all begins. Turning from your sin and coming to the Lord by faith in Jesus. Turn to him and he will turn to you.And if you have already repented and turned to the Lord. That day that you turned to him… it's not the end of your repentance. No, it should be the first day of an ongoing life of renewed faith and renewed repentance…. In the presence of our holy, covenant keeping merciful God. Let's pray to him.
De puritein Burroughs was een invloedrijke figuur in zijn tijd. Thomas Brooks noemde hem de prins van de predikers. Van 1643-1646 nam Burroughs deel aan de Westminster Synode, gelijktijdig met mannen als Samuël Rutherford en Thomas Goodwin. Uit eigen ervaring kende Burroughs de spanning van persoonlijke standpunten en kerkelijke strijd. Hij verbleef enige tijd in Nederland, uit veiligheidsoverwegingen. Ook daar kreeg hij te maken met kerkelijke twist. Hij leerde strijden voor de vrede.
Anchor: Allison Rauch Producer: Alex Harrison Reporters: Alex Harrison, Melissa Perry, Thomas Goodwin, Linus Hoeller
Producer: Sara Kadoura Anchor: Maria Ximena Aragon Reporters: Matthew Shelton, Thomas Goodwin, Pari Pradham
Pastor Andy Davis preaches a sermon on Job 14:14. In this verse, Job asks what will happen after death - the fundamental question of our mortal lives. Job presents his view of the afterlife, although he was a better man than any of us will ever be, we have a better hope than he ever had. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - Well, I'm just crackling with energy to preach this sermon to you today. I've been thinking about this one question, it began somewhat academically for me, but began to emerge as one of the key questions in my entire studies in the book of Job. And the question had to do with what did Job believe about the resurrection? And to try to understand that, and to go through his various statements, and to feel the weight of them, and to look at the words honestly, and to do it with some evangelical commentators in the book of Job, and be troubled by the fact that as they wrote their commentaries, it seemed that they'd forgotten about Jesus, that bothered me. And I wanted to look at the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament. The surest interpretation of the Old Testament is always the New Testament. And I wanted to bring that to bear, but there were just significant issues as we walked through. And now last week I shared with you the conviction I have that in the wisdom of God through the power of the Holy Spirit as he assembled the cannon of the 66 books of the Bible. One of the reasons he has given us the book of Job is that we as believers in Jesus Christ can say, Job 13:15, as it appears in all of the English translations, as, “Though he slay me yet will I hope in him." But you must know foundational to that testimony is a belief in resurrection from the dead. Hope is a feeling in the heart that the future is bright based on the promises of God. We must have a hope in the resurrection in order to be able to make that assertion. No matter what happens in my earthly life, no matter what happens with my possessions, no matter what happens with my loved ones, no matter what happens with my health, even if I die, I'm going to hope in God. What is the basis of that but the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And so for me, it is a challenge. It's a challenging book, hermeneutically, interpretatively. I want to share with you the fruits of my meditations, but I also want to teach you as readers of the Bible for yourselves, what to do with the book of Job. How, first of all, not to skip it, but first two chapters, exciting, last few chapters, great, middle…hmm. Lots and lots and lots. One dear sister said, "Boy, there's a lot in Job, isn't there?" Yeah, there is. What a long book, and the details. But to deal with it honestly, and to try to walk through it. And we come this morning to Job 14:14, the question that Job asked, "If a man dies, will he live again?" It's a fundamental question of our mortal lives isn't it? Is this world all there is? Does death actually end everything? Are we truly, in the end, just an assemblage of atoms that when disassociated from one another cease to exist as life, whatever life is? Are our hopes, and dreams, and thoughts, and feelings merely biochemical illusions that will end when the chemicals can no longer react like that? Is it really like the brilliant cosmologist atheist, Stephen Hawking, said before he died, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairytale for people afraid of the dark." Many people think that. Is there hope beyond the grave? Or as Job puts it plainly, "If a man dies, will he live again?" Now for us as Christians, we have the answer to that question. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead is the single most significant event in all of human history. The empty tomb, the mysteriously vacant grave clothes, stone rolled away. Then even more, the resurrection appearances as he appears to the women, and as he appears to the apostles in the upper room, and as he appears to more than 500 eyewitnesses, and as he shows them the evidence of his death on the cross and of his resurrection. That single event, all the evidence written for us in the pages of the New Testament, changes everything for us. Now, the challenge for us in the book of Job is to understand Job's perceptions of the afterlife, but to do so in light of what Christ has accomplished for us. Now, today, I'm going to argue one central proposition, one thesis. And here it is: Job was a better man than any of us will ever be, but we have a better hope than he ever had. "Job was a better man than any of us will ever be, but we have a better hope than he ever had." I want to tell you the story about that proposition. This is a funny story, it wasn't in my outline. I actually don't care how long the sermon is, but I do, but I don't. Anyway, I was driving home from an elders meeting, I was talking to my son, Calvin, and those words popped in my mind, I was talking about Job and the rumination I've been doing on this question. And I said, "Job is a better man than will ever be, but we have a better hope than he ever had." And then I just stopped, I said, boy, that was good. I said, "Calvin, write that down and text it to me." Because I was driving in the dark I couldn't do anything about it. So he did. That's the way I didn't forget it. What do I mean by Job was a better man than will ever be? If you had Job's level of hope you would not have done so well. You would not have been so loyal to God. You would not have handled it as well as he did. You would not be the one human being on planet earth that God boasted about to Satan. You just wouldn't have done as well as him. His piety, his godliness, his care for the widow and the orphans, all of his credentials are in order, Job 31 will make that plain, I believe every word there. That's the man he was: better than us. But we can hope better than he did. And I think in the overall 66 books of the Bible, as God and his wisdom, his eternal wisdom, he's chosen what books to give us. And as we believe in a progression and unfolding of wisdom, and understanding, and comprehension from the first statement in the garden of Eden about the seed of woman crushing the serpent's head, what does that mean? And then things unfolded, God gave more and more and more light to his people, it just unfolded. We have a record of that unfolding. We have these 66 books. I've come to realize that the point of it all is to bring us to saving faith in Jesus Christ. And as a part of that, to give us a vibrant, energetic hope, that totally affects how we live our lives here on earth, makes us fruitful, makes us light shining in a dark place until finally we're done with our days here on earth and go to the heaven he's prepared for us. That's what the Bible is given to do for us. And each book of the Bible has its role to play. So a number of years ago, I saw this insight concerning the book of Ecclesiastes. Now I add a paired or matched statement with the book of Job. The book of Ecclesiastes it's ‘vanity of vanity's, life is empty, it's meaningless, everything that we do ends up dust in the wind,’ that's the theme of the book of Ecclesiastes. And then Job thrashing around from time to time, saying openly insulting things about God, like the end of chapter 14, when he says that God just levels men's hopes. And he says those kinds of things, and then other times speaks as someone who does believe in life after death and all that. So here are my paired statements: The book of Ecclesiastes is what life would look like if there were no resurrection from the dead. It's all in vain. But Paul has told us that because Christ has risen our labor in the Lord is, what? Not in vain. That's the answer to Ecclesiastes. Then the book of Job is what suffering would look like if there were no resurrection from time to time. So I just give you that going forward, as you have opportunity to read those books. Christ has risen. We get to say that. We get to face suffering in this world, maybe less than Job, but whatever God brings in our lives, we get to face it with the knowledge that this world is not all there is, and there is a glorious heaven yet to come. And so 1 Corinthians 15:20 says, "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." We have that as a statement of a historical fact that's already occurred. Job didn't have either the statement or the fact yet. I. Job’s Struggle with Doubt All right. So let's walk through Job’s struggle with doubt. What did Job really believe about the grave? He posed a question here, which I've already quoted a couple times, Job 14:14, "If a man dies, will he live again?" It is not entirely clear that he believed the answer was yes, not in this chapter anyway. Look back at verses seven through 12, which you just heard Mike read for us, "At least there is hope for a tree: if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump may die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. But man dies and is laid low; he breathes last and is no more. As water disappears from the sea or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, so man lies down and does not rise; till the heavens are no more. men will not awake or aroused from their sleep." It's like Job is saying that a tree that is felled is better than a man who dies. Trees have been known to recover. Buds come up from the hidden subterranean root system, and a tree has a second life. But the man, when he dies, you never see him again, to the end of history. So then two verses later, “If a man dies, will he live again?” After that, I'm thinking, I don't think he knows. Or right now it seems like he thinks the answer's no. And this is just evidence of what pain can do to a mind, what afflictions can do to our soul. It is possible for us to be moved off of convictions that we have through our pain and our suffering and have moments like this. That's part of the function of the book of Job, to make you realize what it's going to be like to fight the battle of pain. Now, along with this comes the theology of Sheol, the Hebrew word for the grave. There's a lot of issues with Sheol, what did they believe? What is it? What is the grave to the Hebrew mind? So if you go back, you don't have to turn there, but just listen. Job 7:9-10, he says, "As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so is he who goes down to the grave, he does not return. He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more." Job 10:20-22, he says, "Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me," he says to God, “Turn away from me so I can have a moment's joy before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and deep shadow, to the land of deepest night of deep shadow and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.” A few chapters later, Job 17:13-16. It says, "If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in darkness, if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘my sister,’ where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me? Will hope go down to the gates of death? Will we, hope and I descend together into the dust?" That's just poetical hopelessness friends. In none of Job's assertions like this, about death and the grave is it certain that he has any clear view of resurrection. He doesn't talk about it. Just darkness. Now there is one statement that he makes in chapter 19, probably the most famous statement in the book. You can turn ahead and look there if you want. Job 19:25-27, there Job says this, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" Now I'm going, God willing, to have the opportunity to preach on that chapter in due time. And that statement in due time, but I want to reach ahead for it and say that's I think his best testimony connected to resurrection. Some of you who know and love classical music Handel's Messiah is one of the greatest pieces of classical music ever written. And the climax of Handel's Messiah of course, is the “Hallelujah Chorus.” People know that very well. Sing it at Christmas time. But in the Messiah, there's a piece right after that, a sweet soprano aria based on this text in the KJV. “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.” It's one of the sweetest pieces of music I've ever heard. And only a genius Handel would know what to do after the “Hallelujah Chorus.” I mean you just end it. All right, we're done, go home. But no, he comes back with this incredibly sweet-sounding meditation on resurrection. KJV text says, “The worms destroy this body yet in my flesh, I shall see God.” Now, like I said, I'm going to deal with that amazing statement in due time. I don't want to break off and preach on that. It's a great text. But I would say it's enough to say that his view, his idea of life beyond the grave was in his mind at that point in a positive way, but other times not. So in and out inconsistent and frankly, even in that statement, it's unclear what he's meaning by it. Is he looking at healing, he's going to be healed in the end, God's going to swoop in at the last minute and heal his body? Which he does do at the end of the book. Even if Job were not thinking only of present physical healing, he may have only had a view of resuscitation, a kind of renewal back into the physical life he's always known, of continued extended long life in this present form. II. Old Testament Heroes Hoped for the Next World I don't believe any Old Testament hero had any vision of the resurrection bodies such as we have today. So let's talk about those Old Testament heroes and what they hoped for in this world concerning the future world. Take for example, Abraham, you remember how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, his own son, his only son, Isaac, whom he loved? Offer him as a burnt offering, some place that God would show him? And he went off on a three day journey with his son and with some servants. And when he reached Mount Moriah, where he was to obey God's command, he said to his servants in Genesis 22:5, “Abraham said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." Wow. It's interesting moment. What was he thinking? Well, the author to Hebrews tells us what he was thinking. In Hebrews 11:17-19, it says, "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, of whom God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead and, figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.” All right, so he had a view of the possibility of resurrection after death. But I think even then, home based to the Genesis 22 account is he imagined that Isaac would just come back to life again after Abraham had killed him in the same form and pattern he was in before, “I and the boy will go worship and we will come back.” He will still be a, I don't know, a young teenage boy in the same body after that event. And so as you look at the theology of Sheol of the grave, not just in Job, but in the Psalms, it seems to be a consistent question. Like Psalm 6:5, it says, “For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?" The people in Sheol don't remember and they don't praise. And then Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going." So whatever you have in mind to do, do it now, because when you go to the grave, that's all done. And then Hezekiah said in Isaiah 38, when he was facing his own death through illness and then God healed him miraculously. He said this, Isaiah 38:18-19, “For Sheol,” the grave, “Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit, do not hope for your faithfulness. The living, the living, he thanks you as I do this day.” So God, if you want praise, keep us alive. Just between us, I'm going to tell you, I think the praise God has up in heaven is better than whatever we do here on earth. That's no offense to Wes and his team at all, you do a great job brother, but I just think this is a dim dress rehearsal of what kind of worship and praise is going on up there. And we're going to enjoy that. But Hezekiah doesn't seem to have a vision of that. Now the best we can say comes from Hebrews 11:13-16, all of these heroes of the faith had some kind of vision or understanding of life after death. The author writes in Hebrews 11:13-16, “All of these people,” these heroes of the faith, “Were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they're looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would've had opportunity to return. Instead,” says Hebrews 11:16, “They were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." So they at least had some dim view of a life-after-death world back in those days, in the old covenant days. Now listen, as I was doing all of this and getting so incensed that these supposedly evangelical commentaries on Job, that don't seem to know anything about Jesus and I've stopped reading some of them, I'm done. It just stirs me up. It gets me angry. And I shouldn't be in that state when I'm writing a sermon. Amen? So I just set him aside. I'm a Christian, I'm going to read Job like a Christian, but I realized that I was being too loyal to Job and trying to protect him too much, I just need to let Job say what he said. My loyalty is to Jesus, and to him we give first place. And then you know who helped me with this? Athanasius. I was reading Athanasius on the incarnation. Now, Athanasius lived in the 4th century AD, three and a half centuries after Jesus died and ascended, rose again and ascended. And so that was at the end of the time, the era of the Roman persecution, it was done. Constantine had declared himself to be a Christian, Athanasius came after that. And he was defending the Orthodox doctrine of the incarnation against Arianism, the heresy we now know in the form of the Jehovah's Witness, deep teaching, that Jesus is God's greatest created being. So he was fighting that and he wrote this incredible book on the incarnation. And this is what he wrote, "Before the divine advent of the Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death and mourned the dead as those who perish." That's Job. They feared death and they mourned dead people pretty much like people who had no hope. Athanasius said, "But now that the Savior has raised his body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and they prefer to die rather than deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed and become incorruptible through the resurrection." Listen to this, Athanasius, "Death has now become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot as he now is, the passers-by jeer at him, hitting him, and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage because of the king who has conquered him. So death has been conquered and branded for what it is by the Savior on the cross. It is bound, hand and foot, all who are in Christ trampled death as they pass by and as witnesses to him deride it, scoffing and saying, "Where O death is your victory? Where O grave is your sting?"” Well, that's good writing friends, it's even better theology. Death has been defanged, death has been conquered, death is in a cage, death has been conquered and we don't need to be afraid of it anymore. So we don't want to give the top honor to the hero Job. He did better than any of you would've done under the circumstances, but he was an Old Testament saint who did not have the clear hope in resurrection that we have. Because the Son of God had not yet triumphed, his hope, Job's hope, therefore, was small and pale, and indistinct and vacillating compared with what ours should be. Even the most insignificant Christian today has every reason to have a vastly superior hope in resurrection than that of Job. So, as we've said, Job was a better man than any of us will ever be, but we have a better hope than ever he had. "So we don't want to give the top honor to the hero Job. He did better than any of you would've done under the circumstances, but he was an Old Testament saint who did not have the clear hope in resurrection that we have. " III. A Better Hope is Introduced Now let me take that last statement and root it in Scripture. And for that, we go to the book of Hebrews. A better hope, let's talk that phrase, it's biblical, it's a biblical phrase. Hebrew 7:18-19 is talking about the Mosaic Covenant, Old Testament, regulations, all of that. The author to Hebrews writes these words, Hebrew 7:18-19, "The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect) and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God." A better hope, better than what? Better than they had, better than the Old Testament hope, it's a better hope. And then in the next chapter, we showed the grounds of the better hope. Remember what is hope? Hope is a feeling, a sense in the heart that the future's bright. That's true of any hope, secular hope, any kind of hope, but Christian hope is, we add the phrase, based on the promises of God, based on the promises of God. Well, that's Hebrews 8:6. "The ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises." So you just take those phrases. Hebrews 8:6, better promises, Hebrews 7:19, produce a better hope. Better promises produce a better hope. Now, I would expand the word promises to say better history. We have the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, we have the history of Christ's death, resurrection, and his ascension. We have that history. So all of that, the word of God, the New Testament word just is the ground for a better hope. So what is the author to Hebrews seeking to do? He's seeking to show how infinitely superior Jesus is to everything in the Old Testament, all of the Old Testament, heroes and leaders and all of that. So Christ is superior to angels who mediated the Old Testament, Christ is superior to Abraham, Christ is superior to Moses, Christ is superior to Aaron, Christ’s priesthood is superior to the Levitical priesthood. Christ's final, once-for-all sacrifice is superior to all of the animal sacrifices ever offered. And then it says in Hebrews 2:14-15, that Christ has by his death freed us all from fear of death. Look at Hebrews 2:14-15, now just listen, if you're not there, just listen, "Since the children," that's us, his children, "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too,” Christ, “Shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." How powerful is that? Jesus by his death destroyed Satan and destroyed any fear we should have of death. Now, we see some of that slavery even in a man as great as Job, some of that fear. There was a vagueness to his belief, there was a weakness to his hope, but when Christ rose from the dead he gave to even his weakest followers the spoils of his mighty victory. As JC Ryle said, "Christ has thrown open the gates to heaven,” for all believers. So I love what Jesus said in his resurrection glory to the apostle John on the island of Patmos, he said in Revelation 1:17-18, "Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last. I am the living one and behold, I am alive forever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and Hades," that's the Greek form of Sheol. I've got the key to it all. I'm never going to die again. Death has no mastery over, I'm in complete charge of death. And so he says in John 14:19, "Because I live, you also will live." And in the texts to us doubting Thomas's, he shows us his hands and his side, and we can read it, and we can come under that incredible blessing. He says to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you believe. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." That's all of us, amen? We've not seen, and yet we believe that Christ has conquered death. And we do not believe in merely a resuscitation, we believe in a glorious resurrection in a body like his, a resurrection body. I can't go over 1st Corinthians 15:42-44 enough with you friends. This is probably the 20th time I've quoted this passage to you. I still think, I, and all of you think about it too infrequently. Let me read it again, "So it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown as perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." So our resurrection bodies that we're going to get for all eternity will be, first of all, imperishable, they will never die again, and they don't perish along the way in heaven, we're not going to age in heaven. And we believe in a resurrection body that will be glorious, it will shine like the sun in the kingdom of our fathers. We're going to be radiantly beautiful in our resurrection bodies. And we believe in a resurrection body that is powerful, pulsating with energy and life and vigor. And like Isaiah 40 says, "We will run forever; we will run and not grow weary, we will walk and not be faint." We believe in a resurrection body that is mysteriously spiritual, a spiritual body. I put those two together, spirit, body. It's a spiritual body. I think, you know, when it talks about may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, there is a sense of heaven in earth, and then in Revelation, the New Jerusalem descends out of heaven to earth and the new heaven and new earth become one in some sense. It's difficult for me, but in the resurrection body, there's a perfect combination of the spiritual and physical. That's the best I can make of spiritual body, but we're going to have that. And never again any sins, no lusts, no evil thoughts, no corruption, just pure as light. Now, let me tell you something, the Old Testament saints didn't have that sense, that certitude, those words, they didn't have any vision of that, but we do. And look at it at work, look at Steven in Acts 7, when he preaches one of the greatest sermons ever. And he proves to a hostile Sanhedrin, the Jewish rulers, that their regular pattern throughout their history has been to assault and oppose the deliverers and the messengers that God sent, that was his point. And when he rang the bell on his climax of his sermon, they became enraged and did it again. It's what they did. And so they wanted to kill him. You remember this account in Acts 7:56-60, while they were coming down to stone him, he looks up and he says, “”Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Well at this, they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out the city and began to stone him…and while they were stoning him,” Jesus or “Steven prayed, "“Lord Jesus receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he said that he fell asleep.” Oh, that's a great way to die. A vision of the resurrected glorified Christ at the right hand of God, ready to receive you, no hostility whatsoever to the persecutors and then just falls asleep and he's gone. But even better and even clearer on this whole theology of a New Testament, a hope and resurrection is the apostle Paul. So in this, in my sermon, I'm to some degree at this point in the sermon, I'm kind of comparing and contrasting Job and Paul and saying, which is better? It should be obvious. I mean, Job's maybe a better man than Paul ever was, it's true, but it is so different how Paul talks about death and the world beyond. And don't think that his losses weren't comparable to Job. He said, because of Christ, I've lost everything in this world. And Job never had people fasting until they could assassinate him. He never went through the systematic beatings, and floggings, and imprisonments that Paul went through for years, so he knew what it was to suffer. But look what says in Philippians 1:20-24, he says this, "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage. So that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death," you see that? I am confident that through the spirit, I will be courageous and Christ will be exalted in me whether I live or die. Sound familiar? Though he slays me, I'm going to be confident in him, whether...and then he says, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I'm torn between the two." The most staggering statement I think any Christian’s ever made, I'm torn between whether I will keep getting beat up for the gospel or get to go and be with Christ, which he says is better by far. And if the Lord gave me a choice, I actually think I would choose to stay here because it's more important for you, Philippians, that I continue in the body, and that's what I think is going to happen. So for me, I know what's going to happen when I die. I'm going to depart and I'm going to be with Christ because to live as Christ and to die is gain, what does that mean? More Christ, more of Christ, a clear view of Christ, of his glory, of his beauty, that's what I get when I die. But in the meantime, energetic, fruitful service, and friends, that frankly is my point in this whole sermon series. That you would be so filled with hope no matter what afflictions God brings you through that you'll be fruitful and Christ will be glorified in your body, and you'll bear fruit for eternity while you live. Because there's going to come a time, you'll die and you'll depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. In the meantime, let's be fruitful. And the way you're maximally fruitful is to be filled with hope, energetic hope in the resurrection. It's especially true if God chooses to bless you, if you look at it properly, with a cancer diagnosis and you get to go be the one believer in that cancer ward. You're the one person with a radiant buoyant hope in eternal life and all of those people that have the same affliction you do, and none of them have your hope. Would God do that? Would he put you on that? Would he light a lamp and put it up on that stand? Yes he would. The question is, will you be radiantly filled with hope at that time or not? Well, that's the question. So throughout church history, the heroes of church history were willing to die courageously for the gospel. Athanasius said this, "Everyone is by nature, afraid of death." It's normal. We're afraid of death and bodily disillusioned, “The marvel of marvels is that he who is enfolded in the faith of the cross despises this natural fear and for the sake of the cross is no longer cowardly in the face of it. The natural property of fire is to burn. Suppose then that there were a substance such as the Indian asbestos is said to be, which had no fear of being burnt, but rather displayed the impotence of the fire by proving itself unburnable. If anyone doubted the truth of this, all he would need to do is wrap himself up in the substance in question, then touch the fire.” So do a scientific experiment on asbestos and see what happens, “So it is with the followers of Christ. They would naturally be terrorized by death, but they wrap themselves up in their faith, in the risen Savior, and they lose all fear of death.” "Would God do that? Would he put you on that? Would he light a lamp and put it up on that stand? Yes he would. The question is, will you be radiantly filled with hope at that time or not?" Polycarp is a very clear example of this in the second century, in the year 156, he died as a martyr for Jesus in Smyrna. They arrested him for being a Christian. He was 86 years old. And they brought him down to the amphitheater and the proconsul threatened to burn him at the stake, not an idle threat at all, very hard way to die. And he said to the proconsul, "You threaten a fire that burns for a little while and then it goes out. You know nothing about the fire of future judgment and the eternal punishment that is reserved for the ungodly. But why do you delay? Do what you want!” There's zero fear in Polycarp of being burned at the stake, utterly fearless. And so Puritain pastor Thomas Goodwin said this is as he lay on his deathbed, he said, "Ah! Is this dying? How have I dreaded as an enemy this smiling friend?" Adoniram Judson, "I'm not tired of my work, and neither am I tired of the world; yet when Christ calls me home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school." You remember last day of school, you remember that? School's out for summer, you remember that? And you're just running. Teachers don't try to teach anything that day. No one's listening. People are already, they're already, and Judson said that, ‘I am going to run into heaven.’ Charles Spurgeon said this, "Every day, Christ is overcoming death for he gives his Spirit to his saints, and having that Spirit within them they confront death with songs…they face death with a calm countenance, and they fall asleep in peace. ‘I will not fear the death—why should I?’ You look like a dragon, but your sting is gone.” “For these saints to die has been so different a thing from what they expected it to be, so lightsome, so joyous; they have been so unloaded of all care, they've felt so relieved instead of burden that they have wondered whether this could be the monster they had been afraid of all their days. They find it a pin’s prick when they feared it would be a sword thrust; it is the shutting of the eye on earth, and the opening of it in heaven." IV. Fighting Fear and Doubt Like Job Did…and Better than Job So for us, what applications can we take? Well, I think it's pretty clear. Let's fight fear and doubt, like Job did, but better than him. Job says in Job 14:13, "If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me till your anger has passed!" It's terrifying, utterly terrifying, to have the God of the book of Job as your enemy, your prosecuting attorney. That is terrifying. And that's one of the themes of the book of Job. Some people actually should be terrified of death because they're not yet Christians. They're in danger of the fire that Polycarp spoke of. It is not easier for them to escape their earthly situations and then go to judgment. That's infinitely harder. Jesus said in Luke 12:4-5, "I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has the power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” So no sorrow we face in this life could ever compare with that. I'm going to talk more about that in Job 21, that's a very important topic, I'm not going to say much more about it. But we cannot understand and celebrate the atoning work of Christ if we don't understand hell. Because honestly Christians go through, in some ways, a harder life because they become Christians. But not after they die, not at all. The greatest danger we face is the just wrath of God against us for our sins. Job had a sense of that in Job 14:16-17, he says, "Surely then you'll count my steps but not keep track of my sin. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag; you will cover over my sin.” That is fulfilled only in the atonement of Jesus Christ. Because it says in Romans 3:23-25, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified," that means forgiven, made righteous in the sight of God, "Justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a propitiation,” sacrifice of atonement, “A propitiation through faith in his blood.” Propitiation is the taking away of the wrath of God, the just wrath of God, through the payment of a sacrifice. That's what that word means. And we believe that Jesus on the cross did that for us. So therefore God's wrath is completely removed and therefore he will not count our sins against us. As it says in Romans 4:7-8, "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered." The very thing he said, ‘I want my sin put in a bag and God not look at them anymore.’ Okay? Covered in the blood of Christ. Atoned for. And Job said, "If only you would hide me in the grave and conceal me until your anger has passed!" Well, if you're a Christian, God's anger has passed forever. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It says in Romans 5:1, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." My question is, do you know that? Is that your lot? Do you know that you're a Christian? Just because you're here in this building, doesn't make you a Christian. Just because you're watching the live stream doesn't make you a Christian. Is Jesus your Savior or not? I'm saying if he's not, you ought to be utterly terrified of death and flee to Christ, flee to Christ. But if you are a Christian, you should have no fear of death whatsoever. It's a portal, a doorway into a glorious life that we can scarcely put into words. So I'm asking you prepare to die well in front of your loved ones, in front of the medical care, in front of the on watching world that needs to see you die well, prepare now to die well based on your faith in Christ. Final word, at the end of this chapter Job says one of the worst things I think he says in this whole book, Job 14:18-19, it says, "But as a mountain erodes and crumbles and as a rock is removed from its place, as water wears away stones and torrents wash away the soil,” speaking to God, he says, “So you destroy men's hope." I would say, Paul would say, brother Job, can I tell you? It's just not that way. God feeds the hope of his people, feeds it. “For everything that was written in the past,” Romans 15, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through the endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope. So dear brothers and sisters hope in Christ, hope in him.” Close with me now in prayer. Lord, thank you for what we have studied today, complex topic, what did Job believe, what should we believe? We thank you for the godliness of this man, his piety, his courage, his willingness to suffer, and to not give up his confession of his hope in God. But I thank you that in your kind providence, as history has unfolded, you've given us better promises, better promises, and resulting in a better hope. Lord, I pray that you would feed our hope, help us to be in your word, help each of my brothers and sisters to be every day in your word, feeding their hope so they can be lights shining in a very dark world. Lord we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
In this interview with Pastor Murray Brett we talk about the Christian's communion with the Triune God and how communion with God is the essence of the whole of the Christian life. There is the ever present danger of theological abstraction and self-sufficiency that can creep into our theology whereby we abstract or sever our theology from our communion with the Trinity. Pastor Murray, "Therefore, to enjoy the love of God the Father, the grace of God the Son, and the power and comfort of God the Spirit, we must by faith elevate Christ and his righteousness above self and self-righteousness." Recommended Resources: "Growing Up in Grace: The Use of Means for Communion with God" by Murray Brett (https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/growing-up-in-grace-the-use-of-means-for-communion-with-god-brett.html) “Delighting in the Trinity,” by Michael Reeves in which he gives an overview of the Trinity and why practical Trinitarianism makes such a big difference (Reading Level: Basic) “The Trinitarian Devotion of John Owen,” by Sinclair Ferguson is the place to start in and understanding of communion with each member of the Trinity. This is the best overview and summary of John Owen's book, “Communion with God” of which I'm aware. Its short and easily digestible, which is what is so greatly needed. This book and “Communion with God” must not simply be read, but imbibed! (Reading Level: Basic to Intermediate) “Communion with the Triune God” by John Owen, eds. Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor have made the original “Communion with God” a bit more accessible by changing antiquated spelling, defining unfamiliar words, breaking long paragraphs down, inserting section titles, and translating all Hebrew, Greek, and Latin into English. (Reading Level: Intermediate). “Our God,” by Octavius Winslow is one the best studies on the attributes of God for the average reader that I've ever read. He can't speak of one member of the Trinity, but what he speaks of all, and he's always Christ-centered and very warm. (Reading Level: Basic) “Meditations and Discourses on The Glory of Christ,” in Volume 1 of “The Works of John Owen.” This is one of the finest books on John 17:24, I've ever read. (Reading Level: Intermediate to Difficult) “The Mutual Intercourse of the Trinity,” by Thomas Goodwin on John 17:21 in “The Works of Thomas Goodwin,” Volume 9:145-148. (Reading Level: Intermediate) “Matchless Love and Inbeing,” by Richard Sibbes, is typical Sibbes preaching Christ to the heart, framed thoroughly in Trinitarian thought. (Reading Level: Intermediate)
Audio Transcript: We're back. Hallelujah. Praise you Jesus. I've gotten a lot more charismatic over the past six months. Praising God. Hallelujah. Praise you Jesus. I'm so glad we're back. Welcome if you're new to Mosaic, we'd love to connect with you. We do that through a digital card and either on the website or in the app. We are still in our sermon series in the book of Luke transitioning soon. With that said, would you please pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word.Heavenly father what a good father you are, you're a father to us corporately and you're a father to us individually. And we thank you for adopting us into your family because of the work of your son, Jesus Christ. Jesus you are our older brother. You are our Lord and savior. You paved the path for us. You made the way for us to follow you and follow you into the presence of God the father by the power of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit we pray today, we ask for more of you. Jesus, you promised that when we ask more of the Holy Spirit from the father that you love to give good gifts to your children. The greatest gift you can give us is the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit fill us now. Holy Spirit, I pray that you convict us of sin, whatever sin that has beguiled us. Whatever sin that is controlling us. I pray today remove it.Give us a glimpse of the holiness of God. Show us God how immense your holiness is. How much higher you are than us. I pray today that you deepen our reverence for you, a fear of you, a good healthy fear that keeps us from sin, keeps us from doing anything that would hurt our relationship with you. I pray, Lord, bless our time the Holly Spirit and the holy scriptures by the spirit and Holy Spirit continue to protect us from the evil one, from the demonic we live in a true spiritual war. And I pray remind us of that. Remind us that prayer is actually the way that we fight. Sometimes we think that prayer is a waste of time, that prayer doesn't accomplish anything. It accomplishes everything.So we appeal to you Holy Spirits today come and today remind us that there's nothing more important than sitting at the feet of Jesus, taking your word in, being transformed by your word, and then going out and living in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ and continuing to preach the gospel. Share the good news with those who are still captive. And I pray release many in this next season and we pray all this in Christ holy name, amen.The title of the sermon today is rest at his feet. We'll be looking at the story of Martha and Mary. And usually the story is presented in such way that Mary is sat at the feet of Jesus. Martha was too busy. Don't be like Martha, be more like Mary. And I think it's a little deeper than that. There's more layers than that. I share the story about my dad often. I'll share a story by my mom. My mom... So I come from Slavic family, in Slavic families hospitality is all important. And if you have guests over, you have to present all of your food, not just a little food, all the food you have. The store, the table has to be and the rest of the phrase is, it has to be breaking. It has to be almost collapsing under the weight.And my mom is tremendous at this. She's so good at this. She's not good at just creating the food and making the dishes and a lot of salads, a lot of meat, a lot of potatoes, but she's also really good at presenting it beautifully. So with the salads, like she'll cut up the cucumber or the radish or something and she'll make a flower out of it. Just sprinkled parsley, just perfectly. It's always incredible. And one of the things that I noticed even growing up it's you'd would never sit down with us. She would cook and she's running around just to make sure that everyone has enough and they've had seconds and thirds and fourths, and she would never sit down. And then when the guests would leave, she would just crash and then get mad at us.What do we do? She's like, "Oh, you should've helped." I'm like, "We are..." And I didn't really understand that frustration until we had kids. And now we have a family of six. We have four kids, my wife and I. I know what it takes to just feed my kids to the magical restaurant table for six, please. I know how hard that is. And then you got more people. And that's kind of what's going on with Martha. She wants to serve Jesus. She wants to please Jesus. She wants to show Jesus how much he loves her. And food is her love language. Hospitality is the way that she thinks and Jesus stomach's is the way to get his heart. And she kind of misses the point where Jesus is at the end of his life. And he knows that his time on earth is limited and he just wants to spend time with her. He just wants to sit there.So that's what the text is. It shows us, reminds us what's most important. It reprioritizes things in our life. So today we are in Luke 10:38 through Luke 11:13. Would you look at the text with me. Luke 10:38, now, as they went on their way Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving and she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her. "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished one of his disciples said to him, "Lord teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." And he said to them, "When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation." And he said to them, "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him friend lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before him." And he will answer from within, "Do not bother me the door's now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything." I tell you though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.What father among you if his son asks for a fish will instead of a fish, give him a serpent. Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First, listen to God intently. Second, talk to God relationally, and third ask of God audaciously.First of all, listened to God intently. Luke 10:38. Now, as they went on their way Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. So the family is Mary, Martha. We don't know where their parents are. Most likely they passed away that's why they haven't been mentioned. It's Martha's house. Most likely Martha is the oldest. Martha then there's Mary and they have a brother named Lazarus. So that's the family. Jesus was friends with them. He's friends with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. And this is really important because in the age old question is can men and women be friends. And I would submit to you that apart from Jesus Christ, there's always going to be some weird tension where it's never like too many... But with Jesus Christ, we're not just friends we're siblings.We're siblings, we're brothers and sisters. So we can have sibling relationships in the faith because Jesus Christ comes and he takes away our sin and gives us the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome our sins. So Jesus did not have a home. He actually said, the son of man doesn't have a place to rest his head. So he would be blessed, receive blessings from gospel, patrons or people who were blessed financially. And they opened up their home to him. So Martha welcomes him and the disciples. How many disciples of did Jesus have? 13 or 12? So with Jesus, 13. 13 grown men just rolled into your house. You are not expecting, did they call? Of course not, text message at least? No, nothing. Mail pigeon? No, nothing, nothing. They roll in and they're hungry. They just ministered all day.Now, I'll tell you this. Has anyone had 13 men over their house to eat? Am kind of afraid when my brother comes to my house. One grown man, like I need to go shopping just for him. Just for that little, we had burgers this week, he down three burgers gone, and then he was looking at the last one. I'm like, "Come on, man. You can't do that. That's my second one." So just do the math. So they come to his house and Mary loves to serve. Mary loves to care. This is her love language. She wanted to create a feast for Jesus. She wants to practice hospitality. It takes time. It's hard. Cooking back then was so much harder than is cooking today. You couldn't just go to the Stop & Shop at Trader Joe's. You don't have a gas stove. It's so much harder. She feels all this pressure.So she's doing that and what's her sister doing? Luke 10:39. And she has a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. And usually at this point in the sermon, you say, okay, don't be like Martha, be like Mary. But I don't think that's what's going on here. Because scripture talks about faith and works. We're saved by grace through faith. When there is sin in our lives and the Lord draws us to himself we repent of our sin, of our righteousness, of our bad works, of our good works, that we try to do in order to gain salvation. We repent of all that by grace through faith, we're saved because of the work of Jesus Christ. Now, we're called the good works. It's faith and works. It's like two paddles of a rowboat.It's like two pedals on a bike. They're together. We are to worship and we are to work, we are to take God's word and translate that into work. So that's not what's going on here. What's going on here is something deeper. It's a re-prioritization. Martha you invited me into your home and you didn't ask me how I am. You didn't even ask me how I'm doing. Perhaps Mary was better at the EQ emotional intelligence. She saw that Jesus was burdened. She saw that Jesus had set his face to Jerusalem. He knew these were his last day. So Jesus started teaching. He started teaching. She sits at his feet. Most likely he's standing. And by the way, this is interesting. Judaism didn't forbid explicitly that wouldn't be instructed in the Torah, but it was unheard of for a rabbi to allow a woman to sit at his feet, because that meant that she is one of his disciples and she's sitting there.She's listening. Later Rabbinic tradition includes quotations such as may the words of the Torah be burned, they should not be handed over to women. So they're saying rather than teach a woman the Torah, we prefer burning it. And Jesus rejected these outright unbiblical attitudes. And you see Mary's posture here. It expresses her desire to learn. She's sitting at his feet intently listening. There's also an aspect of worship, of adoration. She's absorbing the words. Soaking in the information, this focus, this rapt attention. She loves the teacher, therefore she loves the content, therefore she's absorbing it. There's an incredible connection between love and learning. In particular when it comes to God. This has to do with any subject. I'll just give you an example, if you're a musician and you love the song, you don't have to sit there and memorize the lyrics. They just stick to your brain.You know what I'm saying? I can give you lots of examples of songs that I've memorized, but they shouldn't have been memorized. That was a long time ago, I'm redeemed. But you know what I'm saying? And with children, you see this with children, children come into the world with all. And because they have all their minds are open. They absorb information. This week we found out that our youngest daughter Milana... We speak Russian at home. We found out that she knows English. And my second daughter, Elizabeth, she started asking her questions in English, she said, "Touch your nose." She was like. "Touch your ear." "Give me a cookie."They just absorb the information? And I say this because love and learning about God, they're so intertwined. Last week we talked about the great commandment. There are two great commandments. One is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind.There's a way to love God with your mind. When you love God, you love what he teaches. You love his word and his word sticks to your mind. I had a conversation recently with a sister who said, I get bored reading the Bible. I have a hard time reading. I fall asleep and I said, "When you're dating someone and you receive a text message or you receive an email or even a voicemail, you listen to that voicemail, no other voicemails." There's something about love and learning. And she's sitting there. She loves the subject because she loves the God who's speaking this word. But Martha verse 40 was distracted with much serving, she went up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me." Fascinating, fascinating.She's distracted. She hears perhaps a little bit of what Jesus is teaching. And this is probably going on for hours. And she's distracted by the serving. She wants to please God. She wants to please Jesus. She wants to show him how much she loves him. And she's distracted scripture says so much so she actually gets irritated. And what does she do? She goes to Jesus. And she says, "Lord, do you not care? Do you not care? I'm slaving away in this kitchen. And my sister sitting there listening to you talk, do you not care?"I wonder if in this season you've asked the Lord that question. Lord, I'm serving you so much in the season. And I'm kind of out of fuel, do you not care. It's kind of accusatory. She's known Jesus. She's known his teaching. She's seen his miracles. She's accusing him and so much so that she says, "Lord, tell her, tell her then to help me, tell her." She's telling God what to do. There's a lot to unpack here. First of all, I'm going to say that Martha is... I think Martha's from New England. She's very blunt, from Boston. I get this from this text in John 11 where Jesus is about to resurrect Lazarus. And then Martha is like, "Hold on Jesus. Don't roll the rockaway yet, he's been there in there four days, I've done the math. It's going be a foul odor"In the King James it says, "I think he stinketh. My brother's stinketh." She's absolutely blunt, this is what's on her heart. And I love this part about, she goes to Jesus with her aggravation, with her anxiety, with her doubt. "Do you not care?" I'm sure you've been in the situation where you're working hard and you see someone who isn't and it's hard for a person who's working to understand the person who's not in particular when it comes to studying scripture and prayer. And you're like, hold on. Because when you're doing work for God, you think that's the most important thing. When you're studying God's word and praying you think that's the most important thing, but the scripture isn't pitting them against each other. It's re-organizing, re-prioritizing, what comes first?Above everything seek first the kingdom of God. The first thing you got to do is pray. The first thing you got to do is listen to God's word. God doesn't want our leftovers, he wants our first fruits. Before our work for him he wants the adoration of our heart. The other thing I will just point out here, Martha took herself too seriously. She thought if I do not be feed Jesus, Jesus will not be fed. If I do not feed Jesus' disciples, Jesus' disciples will not be fed. I am very important. My work is very important. I am actually indispensable to Jesus in his ministry. If I were not here, they would all die. So I'm going to go back to work. And there's a lesson here. The lesson is thinking like that, that I am indispensable, that's prideful. God does not need any of us. It's a miracle he would use any of us.And that should humble us that we get to serve the Lord. She overestimated her importance. And when you do that, then your work becomes burdensome. And this applies to every single aspect of life. Being a spouse can be a burdensome ministry. If it's not done in the power of the spirit. Being a parent could be a burdensome ministry. Being a friend can be a burdensome ministry where you're like, I need to save this person. No, you don't. Jesus can save that person. My job is to point this person to Jesus. There's stuff going on, her heart's not in the right place. And Jesus just needs to reorder a few things. And that's really what salvation is. Salvation is God reordering loves in our life. You might be loving a good thing more than the greatest thing which is Jesus and that pulls you away from him.Luke 10:41 and 42, but the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion of which will not be taken away from her." I love this answer. If you study Hebrew and Aramaic and then Jesus spoke, he was in the world of all three languages, including Greek. Whenever a name is repeated twice, it's for emphasis and it's for affection.You see this as King David talking about his son, "Absalom, Absalom." When his son had betrayed him. And here Jesus say, "Oh, Mary, Mary." I use this to my kids when I want to emphasize my love for them but also they've done something that they shouldn't have. "Sophia, Sophia." That's what I do, "Liza Liza. Katia, Katia. Milana Milana." And they're smart kids. And whenever I mess up or do something stupid, Sophia, her favorite thing is, "Oh Papa, Papa" Same thing.That's what he's doing. There's affection here, but it's like, I want to correct you, speaking truth in love. And he repeats her name and what did he say? He says, you're anxious and troubled about too many things. You've allowed secondary things to push out the primary thing. And that primary thing is actually the thing that gives you energy to do the secondary things. And that's why you're so anxious. And you're so distressed and troubled. So come back to the one thing that's necessary. It's the only thing that's truly necessary. You can just strip everything else away. But the only thing that's truly necessary is God. It's spending time in his word. It's nourishing our souls with his word. It's listening to him and speaking to him. There's nothing more important. That's the highest priority for Christ's servants, that's highest priority for all of us. And we forget this.Sometimes you get to the point... And my wife and I we have this conversation. I'm like, "Baby, I see you're stressed out. When's the last time did you spend time in the scripture state?" "I don't have time to spend time in the scriptures. I've got to feed them breakfast." We have that conversation. And then I say, "Why don't you wake up earlier?" And that never goes well. So I got to feed them breakfast.But there is that time I got way too much to do to read scripture. I got way too much to do is spend time in prayer. I got too many other things and we actually lose the fuels source. We lose the power of the spirit. So dear believers sit at the feet of Jesus. Sit at his feet, this is not less than scripture, we have to read scripture, but it's more than scripture.So the God that wrote his word, we read it, we study it, we meditate, we listen to his cadence and Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. And then when you know his voice from the scriptures, you hear him speaking in life by the power of the spirit. Sometimes he speaks through people. Sometimes he speaks through event, but he's with us, he's always with us. We can sit at his feet and rest in him. The only thing that's truly necessary, it's necessary in sickness, in health, adversity, prosperity, in life and death here and eternity. I wonder if Martha listened to this rebuke. By the way, hearing a rebuke from the Lord, hearing a rebuke from anyone, it does not feel good. You think Martha, after serving, slaving away for hours like to be rebuked. I wonder if she even sat down for the meal. It's like here, you can finish roasting the lamb yourself.But I think she took it to heart. How do I know this? Remember when her brother Lazarus died and Jesus delayed coming on purpose so that he could glorify himself by resurrecting Lazarus. And Martha comes to him with the same blunt straight to the point voice. John 11:21-27. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise is again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection in the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die, do you believe this?"And she said to him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ the son of God who was coming into the world." Why is this important? It's one of only two great confessions of the identity of Jesus Christ in all of the new Testament. The first came through lifts of Peter. He says, "I know who you are. You are Christ the son of the living God." And then on the lifts of Martha, you are the Messiah. You're the son of God. You're the Christ. She got it. Because she realized that the only one thing is necessary. She made that her good portion. God blessed her with this great revelation, the great confession. And then Mary, of course, she kept to the one thing to the end.John 12:1-2, six days before the Passover Jesus therefore came to Bethany where Lazarus was whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So this is immediately after. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, again, she's serving and what's Lazarus doing? Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Here, I'd be like, "Lazarus why aren't you helping your sister." But he just died. He just came back from the dead. That takes a lot out of you. So Martha is working, hopefully Mary's helping. Then Mary puts everything down. She walks, she took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. And that house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. She realized by this point, not only is this the only thing that's necessary this is also the most precious thing there is. This is the most precious one there is. She knows she's in the presence of treasure and she wants to give her greatest treasure.Something that's probably worth tens of thousands of dollars, a family heirloom. And she wants to pour out her devotion on Christ. Therefore preparing him for burial. And John 12:4-8, how did the disciples react? Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, he who was about to betray him said, "Why was this ointment not sold for 300 denari and given to the poor?" He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief and having charge of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. Jesus said, "Leave her alone so that she may keep it for the day of my burial for the poor you always have with you but you did not always have me."And you see the juxtaposition in the text that one of the disciples Judas does not see Jesus for who he is, though he heard all of his teaching, saw the miracles and he doesn't realize that this is the greatest treasure in the world. Instead, the treasurer is stealing from the treasure Treasure because adultery, because of money, because of greed. And that's what led him to betray Christ. Instead, you've got these two sisters. One gives the great confession. The other one gives a great, great anointing. And it's all because they kept the main thing the main thing.Second of all, talk to God relationally. So listen to God intently and then talk to God relationally. Now, Jesus was praying in a certain place. And when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." What's fascinating here is why do they wait until Luke chapter 11 to ask Jesus how to pray? This is the end of Jesus' ministry.This is probably the third year, for two years nobody asked, why. I think partially because they just assumed they knew how to pray. They grew up in Hebrew culture. They grew up going into the temple. They grew up going to synagogues, but they realized that Jesus prayed in a categorically different way than everyone else around them. Everyone else chanted or recited or just had these wrote memorized prayers. Jesus prayed intensely fervently, relationally. And why do they ask? On the one hand, prayer is easy. A child can pray. When you're at your wit's end, when you've got nothing, no other strength you pray. But also prayer's hard, prayer is strenuous. It's taxing of energy, of power, of focus, of emotion physically. And then you leave prayer filled spiritual.There's something there, it's so natural, it doesn't need to be taught or you can spend your whole life studying it. Why do they ask here, because they understand that the spiritual warfare is just dialing up as Jesus is about to go to the cross as this hostility coming at him. And they realized that Jesus prayers are more and more fervent he's spending more and more time in prayer because Jesus knows he's about to enter the most cosmic battle there ever was on the cross with Satan.John Piper said, you don't know what prayer is for until you know that life is war. That's why they got ask. They're like, I don't think I'm doing it right. I don't think I'm really struggling in prayer. So Jesus does pray. He teaches them. And then he talks about how to do audaciously. And he said to them, verse two, when you pray, say father hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation. Perhaps you're like this isn't the Lord's prayer that I've had memorized because the one you have memorized is probably from Matthew six, The Sermon on the Mount. The reason why Jesus gives two different ones is to show us it's not about the magic formula of saying these words about the content, it's about the framework.It begins with father. In The Sermon on the Mount Jesus says our father to emphasize the God his father of all Christians here is just father to emphasize that God is father of people individually because by grace through faith, because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, we are adopted into the family of God. So we can come to God on our own. You don't need to pray to God through another person. You don't need someone to mediate through. You can pray on you. You can go to God the father on your own. Yes, he's King. Yes, he's great. But he's also father, dear father. Galatians and Romans calls him Father abba, abba father, dearest father. Some people say daddy, I'm like, ah, I'm just going to add a little more reverence to that. Dearest father, you're my dearest father to begin prayer with that it's relational.Though it's relational, though he's a personal father he's still God. He's still God, hallowed be your name. May your name be holy. It is holy, but may your name be holy in my life, on my lips, in my heart. May your name be holy, maybe revered and feared and worshiped in this city, in my family, in my community. I think a lot of Christians are missing this. They're missing the holiness of God. For a lot of people, God is a buddy. God he's just a friend. God is someone who will always forgive your sin. So it doesn't matter how you live. Now, it doesn't matter how you live. God so much hate sin that he... Look at the cross. Look what it takes to get sin forgiven. Takes a son dying on the cross for us.And I think our generation is missing this reverence. This awe that the God who created everything and in him all things hold together. We sin against him on a daily basis. We forget him. We've got a spiritual amnesia. We do things that he told us not to do. We don't do the things that he told us to.I think part of it is in an attempt to share God's love with people we try to hide the true nature of God. We try to hide what he's really taught. What he's really taught about gender. What he's really taught about sexuality. What he's really taught about family. What he's really taught about the most important things in life. I'll just give you an example. This just happened this week, Lifeway, which is usually their great publisher, they publish a lot of great stuff, devotionals, and Bibles. They came up with the Bible Devo, which is a Bible devotional, but it's called a Bible Devo for generation Z. And this is how they translate John 1:1. John, 1:1 goes like this, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Okay, that's John 1:1. This is how they translate.Since day uno, there was cap G, big Jay was chilling with cap G and big J was cap G. Someone made an executive decision that that's a good idea. Some read that and like, yeah. Okay, generation D, let's go get them. First of all it was blasphemous. This is just bad theology. I don't know anyone gen Z who calls God cap G, big J. It's all to say that God is still God. And in prayer we need to know, yes hollowed be your name, may your name be holy. Your name is holy. So remind us to pursue holiness. Your kingdom come. Jesus rule in my heart. Jesus I submit everything to you. I yield everything to you. May your kingdom come in my life. May your kingdom come into my relationships, in my decision, in everything. And as you pray that you got to say is Jesus King over this decision, is Jesus King over this relationship, is Jesus King over my desires, over my affection, over my thoughts, over my thoughts, over my entertainment choices.Is Jesus King right now, as he's sitting on his throne over what I am doing is he's reigning over everything. So the prayer begins with God. It's vertical then we begin to ask for what we need. Give us each day our daily bread, everything comes from God. We're fully dependent. Relying, he's talking about physical bread and spiritual bread, and you're not just praying for bread for yourself, but for others. Not just give me my bread, give me our bread. So you're cognizant of other's needs and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.Give me bread. Forgive me, give me grace and give me grace to extend grace to others and lead us not into temptation. What an interesting turn of phrase. Have you ever meditated on that? Why should we ask God not to lead us into temptation? Why would we have to ask God not lead us into temptation? Does God tempt us? No, of course not. James 1:13-14. Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one, but each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. So God doesn't tempt us and God doesn't lead us to temptation to leave us in temptation. But there is a sense in which God allows temptation to happen. And he actually leads us through that temptation.Because God is with us we're sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is in us. Sometimes God does to test us, lead us to temptation and through temptation. And the way that he leads us through temptation is for us to cling to him, to hold onto him, to recognize that he will never give us temptation without giving us an exit strategy. That's first Corinthians 10:13, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Now, I've always understood that like, okay, you're in temptation, God has allowed this temptation in your life and he will give you an exit. And you have to take that exit by yourself. That's not what's going on because a Christian has the power of the Holy Spirit in him. So God is always with us.So when he's giving us the exit strategy, he's leading us to it and through it, this is really important. This is how I think of it. I think of it temptation comes. I'm tied to a chair in a warehouse building and the Lord comes like a navy seal. Repels onto the roof from a helicopter, comes down and he's rescuing me. I don't know if for some reason the image that comes as Jack Ryan. I like it so much because the transformation from Jim Jack Ryan will happen with that. So he's leading me out, but he's saying stay close, stay close, stay close. I know where the exit is, stay close. Now, that metaphor doesn't work. Like most metaphors don't work. So got to broaden it. It's not bullets there. They don't look like bullets. They don't look like bullets.Temptation never comes in the form of a bullet. It comes in the form of something tasty, something attractive. There's a seductive siren song of voices around us pulling us away from the one who says, I know where the exit is. Follow me, stay close to me. Don't stay here. Don't give into that temptation because you're going to come out stronger. And when you come out stronger, you'll be able to lead others out of that temptation. Just like what happened when Jesus started his ministry, he got baptized and what happened? The Holy Spirit. It says, ekballō in the Greek, cast him out, throws him into the desert in order for the enemy to tempt him. Why did Jesus Christ fast for 40 days? Why he tempted by the evil one? Why did God allow that for Jesus to conquer that so then to show us how we can be more than conquerors.The other thing I want to point out from first Corinthians 10:3, it doesn't say, God won't give you more than you can handle. He often does give us more than we can handle so that we run to him. But it says that you won't give us more temptation than we can bare. So when you feel tempted by the evil one, when you feel tempted by sin, by the flesh, run to Christ, run to Christ and he will show you the exit strategy to get out by the power of the spirit. Look what happens, I'll just mention this and then point 3. We sin and then we pray. Pray before you sin. Pray when you're tempted. In that moment of temptation, pray. Call someone, text someone, "Hey, I'm being tempted right now, please, please pray for me, please." And the other thing I'll say is if you have time for temptation, you have too much time on your hands.Go serve someone, go babysit someone's kids. I know lots of families who actually struggled over Covid. Go babysit. Number three, ask of God audaciously, ask of God. And this is shocking. And I read it before. But the story is in Luke 11:5-8 Jesus telling a story. He's like that prayer happened. Now, I'm going to show you the war aspect of prayer, the struggle aspect, the battle aspect, where you wrestle with God. And he tells a story of a guy who has a friend come to his house at midnight. He doesn't have any food. And the rule of hospitality in middle Eastern culture was that you had to provide shelter and food. So this guy doesn't have anything. So he goes to his friend's house and he starts knocking. And it says his friend doesn't give him the loaves of bread because they're friends.Because if you wake me up at midnight and you wake up my kids, we are no longer friends. That's what's going on, but he'll give it to him because of his impudence that's what the text says. His persistent, audacity, tenacity, his shamelessness, he's almost reckless, persisting in the face of all that seems reasonable. And Jesus says, that's how to pray. That's how to pray.You wrestle with God. You beg God. You keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. Verse nine and I will tell you, ask, and it will be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be open, it's the holy boldness. You're knocking, you're insistently asking, you're searching and you refuse to stop, it's battle, it's a holy struggle, that's what's going on.A story goes of Alexander the Great had a general, his daughter was getting married and Alexander the Great tells that general, "Hey, I'll pay for that wedding, just tell me how much." And then the general writes this letter with the amount. The treasurer reads letter and tells Alexander, "Hey, you're probably going to behead him because this is just absurd." And Alexander the Great asked for the number. And he says, "Give it to him." By such an outlandish request he shows that he believes that I am both rich and generous. And he was flattered by it. In some sense, God says, I want you to know how great of a God I am. John Newman wrote that we're coming to a King, large petitions with the bring for his grace and power are such none can ever ask too much.So there is a sense in Martin Lloyd Jones, the great British preacher he wrote about this. He said, I commend to you the reading of biographies of men who have been used by God in the church throughout the centuries especially in revival. And you will find the same holy boldness, this argumentation, this reasoning, this putting the case to God, pleading his own promises. All of that, that is the whole secret of prayer. I sometimes think Thomas Goodwin uses a wonderful term. He says, sue him for it, sue him for it. Do not leave him alone. Pester him as it were with his own promises, quote the scriptures to him and you know God delights to hear us doing it. As a father likes to see this element in his own child who has obviously been listening to what his father has been saying. It's true, it's true, about kids pestering their parents.You were listening and you know that I do not lie. I shall give you that ice cream cone, just don't tell your mom, happens all the time. Do you wrestle with God? As Jacob wrestles with God says, "I'm not going to let you go until you bless me." As Abraham haggles with God. I love that story. Abraham haggles with God, God comes to him and says, "I got to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, they're so sinful." And he says, "What if there are 50 righteous people in the town." God said, "Okay, I'll relent if there's 50." And then Abraham's like, "How about 45?" And then at that point, he's like, "How about 40?" And God's like, "Okay." And then he comes back to him and he's like, "How about 30?" Now, he's going down by tens."How about 20?" "Fine." "How about 10?" And he should have kept going because they weren't even 10. But he does say a lot. There's this wrestling. There's this proximity to God, verse 11-13. What father among you if a son asks for a fish will instead of a fish give him a serpent. Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion. If you then who are evil you at your best, feeding your children, giving your kids good gifts, even at your best you're still evil. You still need Jesus. Know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. So like ask, seek, knock on the door, you shall get. When we think of that, we think of physical things.The story of Alexander the Great. Yeah, okay is God going to give us bank? Maybe, maybe not. The greatest gift that God can give us, what's the punchline. How does Jesus land this text, will not the heavenly father give more of the Holy Spirit, give more of himself, give more of his presence, give more of your holiness. If that's what you're asking for God, I want you to be hallowed. I want you to be holy in my life. God forgive me for my sins. Do not lead me into temptation. I pray that you provide for me both materially and then also grace for forgiveness of sins and to continue to forgive others.How do we deepen a passion for the Lord like this? Revelation chapter two, he talks about you've lost your first love. He's talking to a church. How do we get it back? We go back to the foot of the cross. We go back to the feet of Jesus, in all of Jesus' prayers he always called God father. He called him abba. The only time he does not call him abba is when he cries out in Matthew 27:46, about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?" That is, "My God, my God." Twice, with all of his heart, the one that he loves has turned his face from him. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God, doesn't answer that prayer, why? Just like he didn't answer the prayer in Gethsemane, "Let this cup pass from me." Why?Because this is what it took. It took Jesus' prayer, not being answered so that we can be adopted into the family of God so that we could have our prayers answered. What's fascinating is Jesus reverts back to abba. After he absorbs the wrath of God on the cross he reverts back to abba and his final words, Luke 23:46, Jesus calling out the loud voice, said, "Father into your hands, abba into your hands I commit my spirit." And having said this, he breathed his last. He breathed his last so that we could receive the breath of life. Receive it. Why wouldn't you receive the breadth of life, receive the Holy Spirit, receive forgiveness of sins. Come to his feet, his nail pierced feet, receive, listen, talk, ask, and continue to live the life he's called us to live.Let's pray, Lord, we thank you for your word. What a tremendous word it is, a blessed word. Lord, we thank you for giving us access to yourself. We thank you for reminding us that the most important thing, the one thing that's necessary in this world is our relationship with you. And we deepen it by listening to you attentively, by talking to you relationally, by asking audaciously, in particular for things that you've already promised. You've promised to build your church. You've told us you don't want to see the death of a sinner. You want people to be converted. You promised us that when we are close to you will bring us flourishing and the flourishing not just of ourselves and our families, but our communities, our city, our state, our nation. So we pray Lord that you continue to pour out your spirit and give us victory over Satan, sin, and death. And we thank you in advance and we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.
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