love

Something Else for Which Jesus Cares Greatly (Part 5)

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Today’s message from John 15:1-11 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

This section from vs. 7-8 as well as next week’s from vs. 9-11 focus on two crucial means of abiding in Jesus for the ensuring of our fruitfulness. This first one has to do with word-saturated prayer.

The love of Jesus goes on display in the farewell discourse as Jesus seeks to equip His disciples for their partnership in His gospel mission. Here He reveals another secret of fruitfulness: With truly actual persevering vital connection with Him there is the practice of means and the promise of certain ends accompanying fruitfulness. Again the first means is word-saturated prayer. The ends are two-fold – God gets the glory by being the  giver as He answers our prayers related to the mission and our salvation status is further assured as those who truly are His disciples, evidenced by the fruit born in answer to prayer.

J. D. Greear, in this month’s resource, Gospel, finishes one of his chapters on prayer shaped by the gospel this way:

I am confident this book has found its way into the hands of someone whose school or city God wants to turn upside down. Or maybe God is stirring your heart to go to one of the 6,600 unreached people groups. Maybe you will believe in God’s compassion for that group, and through your faith their salvation will become a reality. Maybe you are the first believer in your family, and God will use your faith to bring the rest of your family to Him. Where you are, expect great things from God, and then attempt great things for Him. Pray with the confidence that comes from the gospel: “As I pray, I’ll measure Your compassion by the cross and Your power by the resurrection.”

I’ll say “Amen'” to that.

Let us pray for the nations and the people where we live,work, and play with the confidence that comes from the gospel.

Oh, dear ones, let us pray, let us pray, let us pray.

All Is Precious

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Today’s message from John 14:25-31 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Jesus rebukes His own for their failure to enter into His joy of heading back to the Father in glory. They are far to self-absorbed with their own grief to see the bigger picture. He loves them even in the sting of rebuke. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced.

Do we consider everything from Christ’s hand, including His rebukes, as precious?

Octavius Winslow encourages us to do just that:

Receive as precious everything that flows from the government of Jesus. A precious Christ can give you nothing but what is precious. Welcome the rebuke – it may be humiliating; welcome the trial – it may be painful; welcome the lesson – it may be difficult; welcome the cup – it may be bitter; welcome everything that comes from Christ in your individual history. Everything is costly, salutary, and precious that Jesus sends. The rude tones of Joseph’s voice, when he spake to his brethren, were as much the echoes of his concealed affection, as the softest, gentlest accents that breathed from his lips. The most severe disciplinary dispensations in the government of Christ are as much the fruit of His eternal, redeeming love, as was the tenderest and most touching expression of that love uttered from the cross.

May we find everything that Jesus sends precious, even His rebukes of our beyond-what-is-necessary, self-absorbed grieving of loss.

A Biblical Vision for the Church

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Pastor Mark Dever has a message from 1 Corinthians up on the audio portion of the 9Marks site. I listened to it last week.

He entitled it A Biblical Vision for the Church. Essentially he argues that the church exists for God and that the thing that should constrain us more than anything else in terms of our participation in a local church is that perspective.

From that starting point he goes on to articulate from various places in the epistle how the local church is to be three things: holy, unified, and loving. He reasons that because God Himself is these things, which he shows from the text as well, we should reflect these things in our churches.

It means we can’t afford to overlook things like church discipline.

It means we can’t fragment into divisions that center on various personalities.

It means we ought to bend over backwards in deferring to one another in showing love.

He finishes with how the gospel informs all those things. He pleads with the listener to evaluate his church in these terms.

It’s a worthwhile investment of about fifty minutes.

Check it out. You can listen to the audio here.

Nothing for Which Jesus Cares So Much (Part 4)

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Today’s message from John 14:15-24 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here’s how I attempted to capture the gist of the section:

Now in campaigning for their correct understanding of saving faith as issuing in devoted obedience and no easy-believism, I mentioned in part three that Jesus further shows His care by outlining for the disciples the stunning provision made for them/us to enable that obedience. Indeed I called it a Trinitarian provision for Jesus goes on here to describe how all three members of the Godhead come into play in what we might call operation saving faith resulting in treasuring obedience. They are the giving of the Spirit (15-17), the coming of the Son (18-21), and the abiding of the Father (22-24).

Praise God that the Helper, Jesus, remains our advocate before the Father’s throne in heaven ANd another Helper, the Spirit, perpetually adds His aid as our advocate, friend, counselor, and comforter as well.

My thanks to Greg Willson for his poignant testimony about advocacy from his recent experience in federal court!

Nothing for Which Jesus Cares So Much (Part 2)

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Today’s message from John 14:8-14 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here. Our apologies for the lesser quality of the audio. We had to resort to a back up recording source due to a glitch with our primary one. Thank you.

Here’s how I summarized the sermon:

So what have we seen as we move further into Jesus’ farewell discourse in this two-part message? Jesus’ loving care in thoroughly preparing His own for their mission points yet again to His identity as Messiah that we might believe in Him. There is nothing for which He cares so much as our faith. For bolstering that faith we look to His continual witness of words and His ongoing witness of works, both the ones He did in the flesh while on earth and the beyond-all-we-can-ask-or-think (Eph. 3:20) works He continues to do through we who believe as we faithfully pray in His name, claiming His authority and reflecting His identity.

So, dear ones, let us ask. There are exceptions, but more than not we do not put God sufficiently to the test. We fail to pray. Let us have praying homes, let us having praying leaders, let us have a praying church, especially when it comes to our mission near and far to engage peoples for pursuing ultimate satisfaction in Jesus. And let us allow the thought that to pray in Jesus’ name means that He is not just the savior of our sins but also the savior of our prayers through His death on the cross too compel us to come boldly especially in praying for the salvation of specific people, the spiritual growth of one another, and whatsoever else may promote the fame of the name of Jesus.

Praise God for the advantages that have come with Jesus at the Father’s right hand including the mighty means of access that is intercessory prayer!

Fuel for the Fire of Faithful Ministry

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Today’s message from 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

I summarized the theme of the text this way: the victorious reality of our future resurrection anchors us in an unshakeable constancy in ministry. Work for God fueled by the fire of a gospel-resurrection hope will be an amiable, abounding, arduous, assured, and awarded kind of work.

Here are Charles Spurgeon’s words with which I closed:

Take this henceforth for your motto—All for Jesus, always for Jesus, everywhere for Jesus. He deserves it. I should not so speak to you if you had to live in this world only. Alas, for the love of Jesus, if thou wert all and nought beside, O earth! But there is another life—live for it. There is another world—live for it. There is a resurrection, there is eternal blessedness, there is glory, there are crowns of pure reward—live for them, by God’s grace live for them. The Lord bless you, and save you. Amen.

Prelude to a Dying Savior’s Last Words

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Sunday’s message from John 13:31-38 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

Here’s how I summarized things:

Because of Jesus’ great care in preparing His own for His departure, we should believe in Him as the Messiah, God’s Son – His pointing to glory both of the Father and the Son, His providing for grief in the New Commandment to love one another, and His protecting from guilt in the predicting and praying through betrayal. Have you put your faith in Jesus as the Messiah? His miraculous works commend Him to you. His astonishing claims do the same. And His compassionate care for His own beckons you to trust Him. No one will ever care for you as thoroughly, lovingly, and completely as Jesus. Believe Him today!

6 Reasons to Be a Faithful Member of a Local Church

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A friend of mine in ministry posted a link on Facebook to an article about church membership.

I am so grateful for over twenty-five folks in this fall’s edition of Discover OGC! I am looking forward tomorrow to sharing with them about the doctrines of grace.

Here is #3 of the reasons in this post:

You become a more committed part of a spiritual family. Joining a local church demonstrates a certain level of commitment. It shows that you want to be more than a bystander, that you want to be involved in ministry in a more significant way. Joining a local church is like entering into a covenant relationship with other believers in order to love them as an active part of a spiritual family (1 Jn 4:7). We also need the spiritual oversight and soul care of faithful shepherds (Heb 13:17).

I couldn’t agree more. You can read the entire piece here.

37 Ways to Love One Another

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Someone sent me a link with a thorough list of the one another passages of the New Testament confirming my notion that they all constitute intricacies of the ultimate grace of loving within our relationships in the body of Christ.

The author introduces the list with this provocative assertion:

A local church is not built by one man, or even a few men, but by every believer being actively involved in ministry through evangelizing the lost people in their lives and serving their fellow Christians. A quick glance at the practice of the New Testament church reveals that they thought very little about programs and very much about relationships.

For more of his thoughts as well as the complete list of the one another passages for your study and prayer click here.

The Grace of Serving (Part 1)

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Today’s message from Galatians 5:1-15 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

I articulated the main theme of the text this way:

So here is my main take away from this text in terms of what it means through love serve one another. Beware turning liberty in Christ into license to sin by serving others through love by practicing biblical peacemaking. Love one another well through a devoted bondslave-like service in so-far-as-it-depends-on-you-live-peaceably-with-all (Rom. 12:18), God-glorifying, Christ-imitating, biblically-informed conflict resolution at every turn.

As promised, here is the link for the September 22-25, here in Orlando, Peacemaker Ministries National Conference, with the theme of Hope in Brokenness.