12/28/14 Sermon

Here is the sermon from Sunday.

Sunday, December 28, 2014
Preaching: Josh Mathews
Sermon Series: Wisdom for Navigating Life
Title: "Wisdom and Life and Death"
Proverbs

You can also access the sermon HERE.

12/21/14 Sermon

Typically, each Monday we will be posting the previous Sunday's sermon. Here is the sermon from yesterday.

Sunday, December 21, 2014
Preaching: Vergil Brown
Sermon Series: Wisdom for Navigating Life
Title: "Wisdom and Money"
Proverbs

You can also access the sermon HERE.

Links we recommend 12/19/14

Time Is Now for Gospel Transformation in Race Relations
On Tuesday several evangelical leaders and pastors got together to discuss race and the gospel. This post reviews these discussions and includes a link to the video.

Advent: The Announcement

Paul Tripp looks at Luke 2:14 and talks about the Good News of Christmas.

Christmas Traditions: For Progress and Joy in the Faith

Here are some thoughts about Christian Christmas traditions.

3 Christmas Pitfalls for Parents
Christmas can be a dangerous time for Christians, particularly when it comes to parenting. This post addresses 3 potential issues.

5 Questions to Ask Before Posting on Social Media
This post lists a few helpful safeguards against unwise Facebook posting.

The Hole in Our Holiness: A Review in Quotes

Written by: Dan Stump

This is a book review of The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness, by Kevin DeYoung

Kevin DeYoung is one of my favorite authors. He is the type of guy who can put to words what I have in my head, only he says it much better than I ever could. His 2012 book The Hole in our Holiness is one that challenged me and that I heartily recommend. I would encourage you to pick it up yourself, or gift it to someone this Christmas. 

In the book, DeYoung contends that the hole in our holiness is that we don’t really care about it. We don’t give holiness much thought. We are content to cruise through the Christian life, and while we try to avoid the really big sins, holiness isn't much of a concern. 

Rather than a traditional book review/summary, I thought I would instead share a bunch of my favorite quotes from the book. I’m the underlining type of person when I read. One of my favorite things is to go back and re-digest an old book by reading what I underlined. 

Here is a sampling of some favorite quotes from the book: 

The Bible could not be any clearer. The reason for your entire salvation, the design behind your deliverance, the purpose for which God chose you in the first place is holiness. 

On the last day, God will not acquit us because our good works were good enough, but he will look for evidence that our good confession was not phony. 

Worldliness is whatever makes sin look normal and righteousness look strange. 

Many Christians have the mistaken notion that if only we were better Christians, everyone would appreciate us. They don’t realize that holiness comes with a cost. 

It sounds really spiritual to say that God is interested in relationship, not in rules. But it’s not biblical. From top to bottom the Bible is full of commands. They aren't meant to stifle a relationship with God, but to protect it, seal it and define it…Just like if you love your wife, you’ll keep your vow to be faithful to her as long as you both shall live. The demand for sexual fidelity does not pervert the marriage relationship; it promotes and demonstrates it. In the same way, God’s commands are given as a means of grace so that we might grow in godliness and show that we love him. 

The right way to go is also the best way to go. When God gives us commands, he means to help us run the race to completion, not to slow us down. 

Some Christians make the mistake of pitting love against law, as if the two are mutually exclusive. You either have a religion of love or a religion of law. But such an equation is profoundly unbiblical. For starters, “love” is a command of the law (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:36-40). If you enjoin people to love, you are giving them law. Conversely, if you tell them law doesn't matter, then neither does love, which is the summary of the law. 

There is no abiding in Christ’s love apart from keeping Christ’s commandments (John 15:10). Which means there is no fullness of joy apart from the pursuit of holiness (v. 11). 

“No one can attain any degree of holiness without God working in his life,” Jerry Bridges writes, “but just as surely, no one will attain it without effort on his own part. God has made it possible for us to walk in holiness. But he has given us the responsibility of doing the walking.” 

Sanctification is not by surrender, but by divinely enabled toil and effort. 

Our first love is Jesus. Holiness is not ultimately about living up to a moral standard. It’s about living in Christ and living out our real, vital union with him. 

God doesn't say, “Relax, you were born this way.” But he does say, “Good news, you were reborn another way.” 

Do not strive after holiness because you cower in dread of God. Strive after holiness because you are confident you already belong to God.

I've never heard a Christian couple regret all they didn't do before they were married. 

Ironically, if you say “I can’t forgive myself,” it’s probably a sign of worldly grief—either unbelief in God’s promises and the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross, or regret that is merely focused on your loss of esteem and your loss of opportunities. 

There is an eternal difference between regret and repentance. Regret feels bad about past sins. Repentance turns away from past sins. Regret looks to our own circumstances. Repentance looks to God. Most of us are content with regret. We just want to feel bad for a while, have a good cry, enjoy the cathartic experience, bewail our sin, and talk about how sorry we are. But we don’t want to change. We don’t want to deal with God.

12/14/14 Sermon

Here is the sermon from Sunday.

Sunday, December 14, 2014
Preaching: Vergil Brown
Sermon Series: Wisdom for Navigating Life
Title: "Wisdom and Words"
Proverbs

You can also access the sermon HERE.

Links we recommend 12/12/14

The Role of Singing in the Life of the Church
In this post the author discusses three principal reasons for singing in church.

An Advent Prayer: Knowing and Treasuring Jesus
In the same vein as Wednesday's blog post Scotty Smith writes a prayer for the Christmas season.

The Santa Question
This post gives two things for Christian parents to think through when it comes to Santa.

When God Doesn't Zap away our Sin
This short piece talks about God's grace in our struggle against sin.

10 Plumblines for Local Outreach (part 4, with links to parts 1–3)
These are the guidelines used by the Summit Church in North Carolina for their local outreach ministry. It's a larger church than GBC so the principles apply differently, but generally they are quite helpful to consider.

First Thing First: Anyabwile, Tripp, and Strickland on the Priority of Abiding in Christ

Written by: Josh Mathews

There’s a theme that I've been thinking about and challenged with lately. It has to do with prioritizing communion with Christ. Life is busy, full of doing, thinking, and talking about all kinds of things, many of which are very good. But all these endeavors will be fruitless unless we are abiding in Christ.

Jesus says, 

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me (John 15:4).

Here are some thoughts from three wise men on this theme:

Thabiti Anyabwile

In a post on The Gospel Coalition website, Thabiti Anyabwile offers several suggestions for how to apply the gospel “in actionable ways” in light of recent events in our country. 

His first point is to Stick Close to Jesus Personally. He quotes from the puritan Richard Sibbes’ book, The Bruised Reed, which says this: 

That age of the church which was most fertile in subtle questions was most barren in religion; for it makes people think religion to be only a matter of cleverness, in tying and untying of knots. The brains of men inclining that way are hotter usually than their hearts. 

Anyabwile goes on to say, 

We must recognize the danger of entrapment in “subtle questions,” whether they’re the subtle questions of theology or of sociology. Those dangers include—to paraphrase Sibbes—hot heads and cold hearts. A quick visit to most twitter feeds and Facebook pages will supply ample evidence that this heating of the crown and cooling of the chest is well underway among many Christians. 

We have it on the greatest Authority that, “Whoever abides in [Christ] and [Christ] in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Apart from Christ we can do nothing. We become unfruitful in spiritual knowledge and barren in our activism. Nothing could be more vital in Ferguson-like times than we sing and pray, “Jesus keep me near the cross.” To put it another way: We must first apply the gospel to our own lives by immersing ourselves in the truth of God’s word, warming ourselves with the Spirit’s fervency in prayer and keeping ourselves in the love of God. We begin here and never finish this delightful duty.

Paul Tripp

The elders have been reading Paul Tripp's book, Dangerous Calling. This book, and the quote below, is directed towards pastors, but the truth applies to all Christians. 

In chapter four Tripp highlights the importance of a pastor’s communion with Christ, over things like knowledge and skill. He tells a story of a pastor who seemed to have it all together in ministry but then crashed because he was missing the most important element. 

The problem was the pastor’s lack of a living, humble, needy, celebratory, worshipful, meditative communion with Christ. It was as if Jesus had left the building. There were all kinds of ministry knowledge and skill, but those seemed divorced from a living communion with a living and ever-present Christ.”

Just a little later, Tripp says that to be truly effective in ministry (and again, this doesn't just apply to pastors), 

The pastor must be enthralled by, in awe of—can I say it: in love with—his Redeemer so that everything he thinks, desires, chooses, decides, says, and does is propelled by love for Christ and the security of rest in the love of Christ. He must be regularly exposed, humbled, assured, and given rest by the grace of his Redeemer. His heart needs to be tenderized day after day by his communion with Christ so that he becomes a tender, loving, patient, forgiving, encouraging, and giving servant leader. His meditation on Christ—his presence, his promises, and his provisions—must not be overwhelmed by his meditation on how to make his ministry [or marriage, job, family, etc.] work.”

Rob Strickland

At last Saturday’s men’s breakfast we talked about ways we can strive to keep Christmas preparation and celebration centered around Jesus. We were thinking together about how, as men particularly, we can lead in this area. There were several wise and helpful comments. One thing that stood out was something Rob Strickland said. He gave this advice:

You can't give away or lead in an area that you don't have yourself. So make sure to spend time daily nourishing your spirit with the Lord, reflecting on his gifts to us and the awe inspiring story of his birth.

Rob’s challenge—which applies to all of us, men and women—was to make a priority of cultivating a heart of worship through regular communion with Christ. What we do and say and how we lead flows from our hearts. Abiding in Christ is the starting place for doing things that help keep the focus on Jesus, at Christmastime and beyond.