Work is always healthier for us than idleness;
it is always better to wear out shoes than sheets.
— C.H. Spurgeon
If we are so impoverished that we have nothing to reveal but small talk,
then we need to struggle for more richness of soul.
– Frank Laubach
The time of every man’s death has been fixed by God.
We are safe from all risk until God is pleased to call us away.
— John Calvin
Every time you draw your breath, you suck in mercy.
—Thomas Watson
Tomorrow I am preaching about work and rest. Here are some good related posts for your weekend reading:
The Purpose of Work – Gene Edward Veith (via Gospel Coalition)
According to Luther, the purpose of every vocation is to love and serve one’s neighbor. The farmer tills the ground to provide food to sustain his neighbor’s life. The craftsman, the teacher, the lawyer—indeed, everyone who occupies a place in the division of labor—is providing goods and services that neighbors need. This is God’s providential ordering of society. But for a Christian, the service rendered can become animated with love.
Is the Sabbath Still Relevant – Ray Ortlund
If we did set apart one day each week for rejuvenation in God, we would immediately add to every year over seven weeks of vacation. And not for doing nothing but for worship, for friends, for mercy, for an afternoon nap, for reading and thinking, for lingering around the dinner table and sharing good jokes and tender words and personal prayers.
Helpless Sacks of Sand – Tim Challies
It came to me that the fundamental reality of sleep is that it assures us that we are not God. Apparently we all need the ongoing reminder. Psalm 127:2 says “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” We need sleep, and peaceful sleep is a good gift of a good God. Meanwhile, Psalm 121 says “Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” We need sleep; God does not. Rather, the unsleeping God grants sleep to the people he loves, the people who need it so badly.
Enjoying Rest, Now and in the Life to Come – Randy Alcorn
What feels better than putting your head on the pillow after a hard day’s work? (How about what it will feel like after a hard life’s work?) It’s good to sit back and have a glass of iced tea, feel the sun on your face, or tilt back in your recliner and close your eyes. It’s good to have nothing to do but read a good book or take your dog for a walk or listen to your favorite music and tell God how grateful you are for his kindness. Rest is good. So good that God built it into his creation and his law.
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day gathering with your local church to worship our Lord, and resting from a good week of work!
In Genesis 2 and Matthew 19, God defines marriage as being between a man and a woman who leave their parents, join together, and become one flesh. This becoming one flesh is understood to be directly related to the act of sex. I Corinthians 6:15-16 make this clear. In this passage, Paul tells the Christians not to participate with a prostitute, because in doing so they become one flesh with her. Sex, or becoming one flesh with another, is to occur only in marriage. This is God’s sexual boundary.
Paul goes on in verse 18 to tell the Christians to flee sexual immorality; that is, any sex outside of God’s boundary. And he gives three reasons to flee: sexual immorality desecrates the body of Christ (v15-16), degrades one’s own body (v18), and in doing so desecrates God’s temple (v19-20). We need to take this seriously.
None of this should need to be said. But we need to be reminded because we live in a world where people hitch up for one night stands, dating couples sleep together, and unmarried couples live together. But God has called Christians to be different. We are to be holy as he is holy. We are to hold to his boundaries.
And that means more than just abstinence. Colossians 3:5 tells us:
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
God’s boundaries mean we don’t want to possess another person (covet them). It means we don’t lust after them (evil desires and passions). It means we don’t act on those lusts (impurity). All of these things, as well as sexual immorality, must be put to death.
That means single people must guard their minds and hearts from coveting and lust. They must say no to these temptations. Rather than see how close to the edge they can get without committing sexual immorality, they must put it to death long before it gets to that point. They must embrace God’s sexual boundaries. They must keep themselves pure.
That means people with homosexual tendencies must guard their minds and hearts from coveting and lust. They too must say no to these temptations, as well as temptations further down the path. They must embrace God’s sexual boundaries. They must keep themselves pure.
That means that married people must guard their minds and hearts. Should their eye or mind or heart start to drift toward someone other than their spouse, they must put that temptation to death. They too must embrace God’s sexual boundaries. They must keep themselves pure.
No matter what position in life we find ourselves, we must flee sexual immorality. We must embrace God’s sexual boundaries. We must be holy as God is holy.
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,
and they shall become one flesh.
– Genesis 2:24
At the very beginning, God the Creator defines marriage as one man and one woman who leave their parents, hold fast to each other, and become one flesh. In Matthew 19:5, Jesus reaffirms this definition.
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last 20 years, you know that there is a growing movement to redefine marriage as being between any two people, including two men or two women. Other countries have legalized so called same sex marriage. Certain states in our own country have done so, and other states are considering it at the next election. Many believe the Supreme Court will take up the issue in their next term.
As we consider the possibility that our country may soon legally define marriage as between any two people, it is important for us to recognize three distinctions:
As Christians we need to hold to God’s definition of marriage. No matter what our culture or government thinks, we must hold to the teachings of our Savior. We must hold to the definition of our Creator. We must hold to Biblical truth. We must hold to what is right, real, and true. We must believe it and live it, no matter how unpopular it may be.
Some will say that this position is not loving. But we must remember that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (I Corinthians 13:6). It is not loving to legalize something that is not right. It is not loving to create a legal fiction and tell people they are married when they really aren’t. If we love people, we must hold to the God’s definition of marriage, the only right, real, and true definition there is.
We see the disintegration of the family all around us: divorcing couples, rebellious children, absent fathers, abusive parents, siblings who haven’t spoken to each other in years. As we look around, things are not what they should be.
And we all contribute to the disintegration of God’s design for the family. We do it with our words when they are unkind, hurtful, mean, and cutting. We do it with our attitudes when they are angry, bitter, resentful, or grumpy.
At the end of all this disintegration is simply a failure to love. We are too often selfish people living as though it is all about us. But God calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves. And our closest neighbors are our own families. We need to truly love our families, and this love must be:
In the midst of all the disintegration, it is this other-centered, faithful, sacrificial love that will bind our families together.
Are you showing this kind of love for your family?
Before the next hurricane, tornado, or tsunami come, nail it down:
“Even the winds and the sea obey him” (Matt. 8:27).
– John Piper
To manage a life of pain, as a believer in Jesus,
remember: This is all the hell you will ever bear.
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne
The Lord makes his people sensible of the vanity of the present life,
by a constant proof of its miseries.
– John Calvin
There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained
only through the discipline of suffering.
– D.A. Carson
I’m preaching on love in the family tomorrow, so here are some good posts on family love:
22 Descriptions of Marital Love – Paul Tripp (via R. W. Glenn)
1. Love is being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of your husband or wife without impatience or anger.
2. Love is actively fighting the temptation to be critical and judgmental toward your spouse, while looking for ways to encourage and praise.
Leading in Love – Wayne Grudem (via Tim Challies)
Headship doesn’t mean selfishness. It means being willing to give of yourself for your wife and care for her as well.
Christian Husband’s Only Option: Love Your Wife – Jason Helopoulis
Every Christian husband knows that in Ephesians 5 the husband is exhorted to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. What many of us need to hear, especially in Western modern culture, is that an aspect of Christ’s love for the Church is that it endures. Christian husbands must take note that Christ’s love for the Church is not momentary or even for a season. It is a love that continues. It is steadfast and true. And these qualities are to mark a husband’s love for his wife. There is no other option.
When I Don’t Feel Love for My Spouse – Steve Cornell (via Gospel Coalition)
A woman once told me that she planned to leave her husband because she “just didn’t love him anymore.” I asked her to change the way she worded what she planned to do so that her decision could be understood accurately. I asked her to say it this way: “I am choosing to no longer value my husband and to break my commitment to remain faithful to him.”
If you are married, I hope these posts will help to strengthen your marriage. And as always, have a great Lord’s Day worshiping our Savior who loved his church and gave himself up for her.
As you prepare to gather with Christ’s church tomorrow, here are some good posts to consider:
We Weren’t Created For Isolation (Short Video) – Brad House (via Crossway)
We weren’t built for isolation, we were created for community. And community isn’t ultimately about us, it’s about God. The church should be the most compelling expression of community in our culture. It should stand in contrast to the counterfeit community that costs us nothing.
The Difference Between Church as Individual Divers and Church as an Organic Body – Richard Lovelace (via Justin Taylor)
No individual, congregation or denomination of Christians is spiritually independent of the others. . . .
Church as an Oasis of Grace – Trevin Wax
Our churches ought to be filled with people who have gospel-focused conversations, where we bring the gospel to bear on every inch of life, hold one another accountable, rebuke one another in love, and encourage one another in grace.
Can I Grow in Holiness Without the Local Church? (Short Video) – David Powlison (via Desiring God)
The role the local church plays in our sanctification….
May we approach church tomorrow in a more Biblical way as we seek to worship our great God together!
From pole to pole let others roam
And search in vain for bliss
My soul is satisfied at home
The Lord my portion is
Jesus, who on his glorious throne
Rules heav’n and earth and sea
Is pleased to claim me for his own
And give himself to me
His person fixes all my love
His blood removes my fear
And while he pleads for me above
His arm preserves me here
His word of promise is my food
His Spirit is my guide
Thus daily is my strength renewed
And all my wants supplied
For him I count as gain each loss
Disgrace, for him, renown
Well may I glory in his cross
While he prepares my crown
Let worldlings then indulge their boast
How much they gain or spend
Their joys must soon give up the ghost
But mine shall know no end
– John Newton from Olney Hymns
(Can be sung to the tune of Am I Soldier of the Cross?)
Here are some good posts on the Word and prayer for your weekend reading:
How to Listen to a Sermon – Phil Ryken (via reformation 21)
So what is the right way to listen to a sermon? With a soul that is prepared, a mind that is alert, a Bible that is open, a heart that is receptive, and a life that is ready to spring into action.
A Smorgasbord of Bible Memorization Methods – Jean Williams (Matthias Media)
Every Bible memorization method has one or more of the three Rs at its heart: Repeat, Recall, Review. Repeat a passage over and over until you’re familiar with it; practise recalling it until it’s worn a path in your memory; then review it so you don’t lose it. But there are different ways to do these three things, and not all of them will suit you.
Does Your Church Pray Together? – Sinclair Ferguson quoted by Justin Taylor
I greatly wish that our churches would learn to keep the main things central, that we would learn to be true Churches, vibrant fellowships of prayer, Gospel ministry and teaching, genuine mutual love.
31 Petitions to the Lord on the Occasion of my 31st Birthday – Trevin Wax
My knowledge of You as a loving Father is what compels me to come before You, to ask You, plead with You, beg of You: Accomplish these 31 things in the years to come….
Hope you have a great Lord’s Day worshipping the Lord as you sit under His Word and come before His throne.
