Category: Faith In Christ

What Is Your Calling? Part 3: The Parable of the Wedding Feast

9/10/2018

This week in our college Sunday school class, we zoomed in on Jesus' parable of the wedding feast:

1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. 3 And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come. 4 Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.”’ 5 But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, 6 and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them. 7 But the king was enraged, and he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and set their city on fire. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

11 “But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

In our class, we asked a few questions of this parable.

If the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast, then . . .

0 Comments

A Prayer to Christ for Good Friday (Isaiah 53)

4/14/2017

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For You grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
You had no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon You,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to You.
You were despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
You were despised, and we did not esteem You.

Surely our griefs You Yourself bore,
And our sorrows You carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed You stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.
But you were pierced through for our transgressions,
You were crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon You,
And by Your scourging we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on You.

You were oppressed and You were afflicted,
Yet You did not open Your mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So You did not open Your mouth.
By oppression and judgment You were taken away;
And as for Your generation, who considered
That You were cut off out of the land of the living
For the transgressions of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
Your grave was assigned with wicked men,
Yet You were with a rich man in Your death,
Because You had done no violence,
Nor was there any deceit in Your mouth.

But the LORD was pleased
To crush You, putting You to grief;
Because You rendered Yourself as a guilt offering,
You have seen Your offspring,
You have prolonged Your days,
And the good pleasure of the LORD prospers in Your hand.
As a result of the anguish of Your soul,
You see it and are satisfied;
By Your knowledge you, Righteous One,
The LORD's servant, have justified the many,
As You have borne their iniquities.
Therefore, the LORD has allotted You a portion with the great,
And You have divided the spoil with the strong;
Because You poured out Yourself to death,
And were numbered with the transgressors;
Yet You Yourself bore the sin of many,
And interceded for transgressors.

Don’t Believe a Half-Gospel

2/28/2017

2 Comments

Tonight I preached on 1 John 4:17–18:

By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment.…There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

These are words of promise given to the children of God, those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit. This is the promise: if you believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you need no longer fear God's judgment.

John is not saying that no one should fear God's judgment. In fact, if you do not believe in Jesus Christ, fearing God's judgment is exactly what you should be doing. Jesus said,

He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (John 3:36)

The Apostle Paul repeated Jesus' message:

Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. (Romans 5:9)

Notice that salvation from the wrath of God is a promise given to those who have been justified by His blood. Apart from His blood, there is no escape from God's wrath.

This is the true Gospel. It says, "The wrath of God abides on you. You stand condemned before God. Believe in Jesus Christ and be saved." In other words, the true Gospel sees fear of God's judgment as a necessary precursor which compels us to receive God's grace.

But there's a half-gospel that is taking over.

2 Comments

The Great Sin of Unbelief

12/16/2016

0 Comments

When we don't believe God's Word, it's hard for us to imagine why God would condemn unbelievers whom we judge to be "good people." We tend to think of unbelief as an excusable sin—it's small potatoes compared to "big" sins, like racism, misogyny, or sex trafficking. If we judge our unbelieving friends to be moral, or nice, we often doubt God's declarations concerning those friends. And as we do so, we give a pass to our own unbelief, too.

The books I've been reading lately keep driving home the magnitude of the sin of unbelief. Here's Thomas Watson:

0 Comments

Jeremiah Burroughs vs. Self-Esteem

10/19/2015

0 Comments

Last week I received an email request to help promote an event on campus which was described as "basically a guy who does spoken word to the glory of God."

I was intrigued, though wary. The email had a link to some videos, so I headed on over to YouTube, and this is what I saw:

0 Comments

The Man Christ Jesus

9/21/2015

0 Comments

Last week at our weekly Who Is Jesus? Bible study, we took a closer look at the humanity of Jesus Christ. We spent some time discussing the importance of Jesus the Son of God coming to earth in real human flesh. Christ's humanity was a crucial factor in His liberation of us from the slavery of sin: "For if by the transgression of the one [Adam] the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many" (Romans 5:15). Jesus had a real body that truly died and truly rose from the dead. "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). Furthermore, He is a great High Priest for us who can sympathize with our weakness, because He took on our flesh (Hebrews 4:15). Even now, He acts as a Priest for us in heaven, mediating between us and God the Father: "For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5).

As we dwelt on Christ's humanity, we ended up zooming in on an aspect of Jesus' human-ness which we easily overlook:

Jesus is a man.

In case you are confused and think that I just restated an obvious truth, let me put it a different way:

Jesus is not a woman.

Still struggling?

Let me see if I can put a finer point on it:

Jesus is a man, and He has to be a man; He could not be a woman.

0 Comments

Sermon Notes: What Does Killing Sin Mean?

5/13/2015

0 Comments

We've talked about death, which is God's curse on disobedience. And we've talked about the cure for death, which is faith in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we've addressed the necessity of believers putting sin to death and our need of the Holy Spirit to do it. Now we're finally getting to what it actually means to put to death the deeds of the body, to mortify the flesh—to kill sin.

And to get a grasp of what it means to kill sin, let's talk about—you guessed it—what killing sin doesn't mean…

0 Comments

What Does the Holy Spirit Do?

4/27/2015

0 Comments

In closing his great work on the mortification of sin in believers, John Owen outlines the sin-destroying work that the Holy Spirit effects in the life of a Christian:

The Holy Spirit…

clearly and fully convinces the heart of the evil and guilt and danger of the corruption, lust, or sin to be mortified (put to death).

reveals unto us the fullness of Christ for our relief; which is the consideration that stays the heart from false ways and from despairing despondency (Col. 2:8).

establishes the heart in expectation of relief from Christ; which is the great sovereign means of mortification (2 Cor. 1:21).

brings the cross of Christ into our hearts with its sin-killing power; for by the Spirit are we baptized into the death of Christ (Rom. 6:3; 1 Cor. 12:13).

is the author and finisher of our sanctification; gives new supplies and influences of grace for holiness and sanctification (Eph. 3:16–18).

—John Owen, The Mortification of Sin in Believers

0 Comments

The Difference between Believers and Unbelievers

4/14/2015

0 Comments

The difference between believers and unbelievers as to knowledge is not so much in the matter of their knowledge as in the manner of knowing. Unbelievers, some of them, may know more and be able to say more of God, his perfections, and his will, than many believers; but they know nothing as they ought, nothing in a right manner, nothing spiritually and savingly, nothing with a holy, heavenly light. The excellency of a believer is, not that he has a large apprehension of things, but that what he does apprehend, which perhaps may be very little, he sees it in the light of the Spirit of God, in a saving, soul-transforming light; and this is what which gives communion with God, and not prying thoughts or curious-raised notions.

—John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers

0 Comments

Loving the Deceived & Sexually Confused

4/1/2015

0 Comments

Read this account of a man who believed he was a woman, had a sex-change surgery, and then regretted it.

Then tell me if it's loving to those tempted by such sexual perversion to encourage them in it? The Gospel calls men and women to confess their sins and live lives that are pleasing to God. Part of this is submitting to how God made us: male and female.

And don't gloss over the fact that perversion like transsexualism springs out of the perversions of sexual abuse and molestation. And the two feed each other. Most sexual predators have been abused by others, and the more we promote and encourage the practice of sexual perversion, the more we put our little children at risk and beckon God's judgment on our sin. May God have mercy.

Let us fight the good fight of faith by calling souls in bondage to their immorality to walk in the freedom of a clean conscience by trusting in Christ and repenting of their sins.

0 Comments

<<Previous

Blog

What Is Your Calling? Part 3: The Parable of the Wedding Feast

A Prayer to Christ for Good Friday (Isaiah 53)

Don’t Believe a Half-Gospel

The Great Sin of Unbelief

Jeremiah Burroughs vs. Self-Esteem

The Man Christ Jesus

Sermon Notes: What Does Killing Sin Mean?

What Does the Holy Spirit Do?

The Difference between Believers and Unbelievers

Loving the Deceived & Sexually Confused

Categories

Archives