A living hope of great freedom
From evil and all sin
Pardon from sin for all who come
In hope of salvation
A living hope of belonging
To God who cares for me
With joyful hearts to Him we’ll sing
For all eternity
– From a sermon on Isaiah 27
(To the tune of “Amazing Grace”)
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
– John 1:14 (ESV)
Jesus was full of grace and truth, but we tend to lean in one direction or another.
We may lean toward a graceless truth: We look with disgust at sinners. We are quick to condemn someone who fails to live up to the truth – we become the judge, jury, and executioner. Somehow we lose sight of our own failure to live out the truth, our own need of grace.
Or we may lean toward a truthless grace. We treat sin as if it were no big deal. We are quick to excuse sin. It doesn’t matter what anyone does. We easily compromise truth in the name of freedom. Somehow we lose sight of God’s commands, and his expectation of obedience.
But Jesus was full of grace and truth. He confronts our graceless truth and our truthless grace. He graciously reaches out to sinners with forgiveness, even as he calls them to live out the truth.
The world doesn’t need our self-righteous condemnation nor our irrelevant affirmation.
The world needs grace and truth. The world needs Jesus. Just like us.
Mosquito Falls in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
– Psalm 19:1
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,
in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
– Romans 1:20
The grace of giving has nothing to do with being well off. It is not dictated by ability. It is a willingness to give. Giving is viewed as a privilege. It is joyously enthusiastic and pleads for the opportunity to give more.
– R. Kent Hughes in Disciplines of a Godly Man
The Men’s Discipleship Group at my church went through R. Kent Hughes book, Disciplines of a Godly Man this past year. It was a good study. One discipline Hughes focused on was giving. He calls for a disciplined understanding of giving and a disciplined act of giving.
Disciplined Understanding of Giving
Disciplined Act of Giving
– J. C. Ryle
Why do people choose the substitutes over God himself? Probably the most important reason is that it obviates accountability to God. We can meet idols on our own terms because they are our own creations. They are safe, predictable, and controllable; they are, in Jeremiah’s colorful language, the “scarecrows in a cucumber field” (10:5). They are portable and completely under the user’s control. They offer nothing like the threat of a God who thunders from Sinai and whose providence in this world so often appears to us to be incomprehensible and dangerous. People who “remain in the center of their lives and loyalties, autonomous architects of their own futures,” Keyes argues, thereby avoid coming face to face with God and his truth. They need face only themselves. That is the appeal of idolatry.
– David Wells in God in the Wasteland
Trust in the Lord – our strong city
Our place of perfect peace
Yearn for the Lord – seek earnestly
His mercies never cease
Look to the Lord’s amazing grace
He opens blinded eyes
Hope in the Lord and run your race
In Him one day you’ll rise
Hide in the Lord and in his cross
No judgment now we face
In Him, in Him, we find no loss
Sing, sing His glorious grace
– From a sermon on Isaiah 26
(To the tune of “Amazing Grace”)
Here are some good posts for Pastors/Elders:
What Makes for a Good Elder? – Jason Helopoulos
The Elder’s Qualifications – Kevin DeYoung
Why Pastor’s Need the Body of Christ – Paul Tripp (TGC)
Passion Habits
And after he had taken leave of them,
he went up on the mountain to pray.
– Mark 6:46 (ESV)
