love

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.

Christ's Love the Source

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I continue to read through the Free Grace Broadcaster edition of Loving One Another as I launch our new series The Graces of Gospel-Shaped Community.

In a reprint of one of Charles Spurgeon’s sermons, I came across this powerfully motivating paragraph:

Do you feel the love of God shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Ghost? Knowing is [good], but enjoyment as the result
of believing is better. Does it not sometimes force the tears from your eyes to think that Jesus loved you and gave
Himself for you? On the other hand, does it not at times make you feel as if, like David, you could dance before the
ark of the Lord? To think that the love of God should ever have been set on you? That Christ should die for you?
Ah, think and think again: For you the bloody sweat, for you the crown of thorns, for you the nails, the spear, the
wounds, the broken heart—all, all for love of you who were His enemy! In proportion as your heart is tender and is
sensitive to this love, it will become a constraining influence to your whole life. The force of this influence will also
depend very much upon the grace that dwells within you. You may measure your grace by the power that the love
of Christ has over you. Those who dwell near their Lord are so conscious of His power over them that the very
glances of His eyes fill them with holy ardor. If you have much grace, you will be greatly moved by the love that
gave you that grace and [will be] wondrously sensitive to it. But he who hath little grace, as is the case with not a
few, can read the story of the cross without emotion and can contemplate Jesus’ death without feeling. God deliver
us from a marble heart, cold and hard!

What he said.

The Ultimate Grace of Loving (Part 3)

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Yesterday’s message from 1 John 4:7-12 is now on the web. You can listen to the audio here.

I summarized the text this way:

So treasure the centrality of love – sweet, endless, lavish – love in the Godhead – ultimatley sourced in the Father’s amazing being, historically secured in the Son’s atoning mission, and continually seen through the Spirit’s abiding presence – seen in the intricacies of showing honor, showing hospitality, mutual burden-bearing, and bearing with others and forgiving others.

If you would like to order a subscription to Free Grace Broadcaster, the gratis quarterly publication I mentioned at the top of the message, click here.

May the Lord grant us grace to dress ourselves in the garments of virtue, especially the ultimate grace of loving in our gospel-shaped community.